Mr. Speaker, I do not question the sincerity of the hon. member at all but probably his naivety.
In light of the release of the Gomery report today, which showed that the Liberal government has presided over the worst fraud and scandal in Canadian history, how can the people, to whom this program is directed, have any sense of confidence at all that they will receive the money, especially given the fact that this is coming over a five year period? That is presuming that there will be that kind of commitment when in fact, as Mr. Justice Gomery has shown, the ability for the government to follow through on commitments of honesty is severely jeopardized.
Also, what specific audit program is in place because the last time a program like this was tossed out right around election time it was later found out that millions of dollars went to dead people and to people in jail? I realize the federal Liberals have a great propensity for those in jail. They even want serious repeat offenders to be out all the time so they can vote and campaign for the Liberals. They want them to have all kinds of freedoms and niceties but sending them a cheque while they are in jail getting warmed up at taxpayer expense was hardly a sound move.
Rather than just words, could the member identify the specific audit plans in place that will somehow prevent wasting millions of dollars again on a heating program? We are for this program if it works well. There are some things that we would propose to make it work better. We just want to make sure that prisoners and dead people do not get millions of dollars in cheques just as the federal Liberals got millions and millions of taxpayer dollars as evidenced by Justice Gomery again today.