Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to join in the debate this afternoon. It is good to see members engaging with perspectives from all sides of the House. I appreciate the comments by the member who spoke before me, the member for Newton—North Delta.
Bill C-66 is an act to authorize payments to provide assistance in relation to energy costs, housing energy consumption and public transit infrastructure, and to make consequential amendments to certain acts. This is the government's response to the rising costs of fuel in the country and the very difficult circumstances in which many Canadians find themselves.
By way of background, the bill is being sold as a package of short and long term measures to help Canadians. There are three main components. Families entitled to receive the national child benefit supplement in January 2006 would receive $250. Another $250 would go to senior couples with a qualifier that both spouses would be entitled to receive the guaranteed income supplement. Single seniors would receive $125 if they were entitled to receive the GIS in January 2006.
Before I go into details of the bill, I would like to draw attention to a very current report by the Fraser Institute, public policy sources released in October. The report is titled “Government Failure in Canada”. It is a review of auditors general reports from 1992 to 2005. It is relevant to the debate today. When we talk about programs like this, we want to ensure that the money we invest on behalf of Canadians, taxpayer money, will arrive where it is intended. We want to ensure that it achieves a worthwhile objective.
In the beginning of the executive summary of the Fraser report, it makes an interesting remark. It says:
The discussion of the limitations of government and subsequent government failures is wholly absent from debate in Canada where, unfortunately, we still assume that governments act benevolently and without institutional constraints.
That is an interesting remark, that we would assume governments act benevolently and without institutional constraint, especially in light of what has gone on today. The buzz around the Hill today has not been about this bill. It has been about the release of the Gomery report, which probably is relevant as well because it talks about accountability.
In Justice Gomery's remarks today, he talked about Liberal corruption and the culture of entitlement, which seems to infest the government after 12 years in power. Again, we have a level of secrecy involving kickbacks to the Liberal Party. He talks about clear evidence of political interference and the misuse of taxpayer money.
I might wonder on that file about a million dollars for a war room to counsel witnesses prior to testifying. Imagine, one of the people in that war room was the former director for CSIS. What is this all about, coaching people before they testify before an inquiry? Was it about telling them about how to hide from Canadians or from the justice about what was going on?
In terms of accountability, it is quite interesting that the government would try to say that the current ministers and the Prime Minister really did not know, that it was another regime and that something else was responsible.
I cannot help but wonder how Canadians receive that. For example, we have the Catholic church selling property to try to pay for something that happened decades ago, for many people. As unfortunate and tragic as it is, the church is being held accountable for something that happened years ago.
Imagine the big auto manufacturers, Ford or GM., if there were a failure in their cars, saying that this was five years ago, that they had changed the CEOs since then, therefore they were not responsible for the failure in the machinery they had produced. It could be the drug manufacturers saying that they had changed CEOs, therefore they were not responsible for a failure in drugs.
There are the manufacturers of silicone breast implants that caused grief for women, with failed health and immunological problems, because of the failure of the implants. Imagine them saying that they had changed CEOs, therefore they were not responsible for the failure of their product and the results thereof.
Accountability is very important to Canadians today and it is certainly important when we talk about the effectiveness of government programs.
The report by the Fraser Institute, “Government Failure in Canada”, lists a whole range of failed programs that have occurred over a number of years. Credit cards are one example. Balances on public servant credit cards issued to reduce reimbursement costs were not paid on time, resulting in $80,000 of unnecessary interest costs over four months.
Are government programs meeting what they were intended to meet. There were 3.8 million more social insurance numbers for Canadians 20 years and older than people in that age group. By 2000 that number had risen to five million. That is interesting. How can there be so many more social insurance numbers than there are Canadians?
The report also talks about the firearms registry and how can we spend so much money on registering firearms.
Here is another interesting one. The Department of National Defence took eight years to develop a $174 million satellite communication system. That is quite a bit of money. When the system was completed, DND determined that the commercial system it had been using met its existing needs, required fewer staff to operate and therefore the new system remained in storage.
Here is one program the report talked about which I think is particularly relevant to this issue. The last time the government had a good idea to send money back to Canadians, the Auditor General reported on the misdirection of the funds.
At that time the government used the GST credit system to return money. Less than one-quarter of the $1.5 billion in payments went to low income families and roughly 90,000 Canadians in need of immediate assistance did not receive it because their prior year income exceeded the GST credit cut off. At least 4,000 expatriate Canadian taxpayers received money back from the government, but that was not the target group. Imagine, 7,500 deceased people received money back the last time the government tried to help Canadians. I wonder who cashed those cheques. Up to 1,600 prisoners received relief.
When we talk about giving money back to Canadians, we on this side of the House think a better idea would be to let all Canadians benefit, not just some Canadians, especially in a pre-election period when this is a pitch to provide money to some low income Canadians. Some no doubt may receive benefits. I note that the moneys will not be disbursed until after the bill is passed. There is actually no guarantee that anybody will receive any of this money before another election. It is quite possible nobody will receive any money, but it is a good public relations exercise.
I am concerned for the Canadians who are suffering right now because of the high cost of heating fuel and fuel to drive their automobiles. On Vancouver Island, where I live, many seniors are on fixed incomes. We have a mild climate there, but that is not true for all Canadians.
Parksville is a town of 11,000 people. Qualicum is a town of approximately 8,000 people. The average age of people in that town is 57. That is the oldest community per capita in the country. For seniors to get around and to access services such as doctors, they may have to travel many miles. They may have to travel to Nanaimo to see specialists, or to Courtenay and Comox in my colleague's riding of Vancouver Island North. That is an hour plus drive to the north. These trips can be expensive for them with the high cost of fuel for their automobiles.
I am concerned about taxi drivers and truckers. I am concerned about people in my area who have to transport goods. These people are really suffering because of the high cost of fuel.
I am concerned about seniors who have to heat their homes. A lot of them are not going to benefit from this legislation.
I have a lot of people in my riding who are involved in the marine sector, a lot of ecotourism. The cost of marine fuel this year is very considerable. By the time the ecotourism people charge their advertising rates for the tours they offer and deliver to their customers, they have been working on next to none profit margins because of the high cost of fuel.
Why does the government simply not lower taxes, as the Conservatives would do, so all Canadians would benefit? It could cut the GST on fuel costs so all Canadians could benefit. It could ensure that all Canadians using fuel could benefit from a program designed to help them with the high cost of energy.