Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise today to speak to Bill C-57. The Conservative Party will be supporting this bill. We believe in strong corporate governance and rules around that sector. We believe they are essential to ensuring that shareholders' rights are protected, that consumers are served properly, and that Canada's financial sector is able to be strong and vibrant.
The Conservative Party will continue to look out for the best interests of consumers and shareholders while ensuring that the regulatory environment contributes to a strong financial sector.
This bill would bring the financial sector under the same rules as other business corporations that are currently under the Canada Business Corporations Act which took effect in 2001.
However, this Liberal government should walk the talk. While it is busy bringing in Bill C-57 on corporate governance, cleaning it up and making it transparent, what do we see from the government itself? Canadians have been subjected to another year of false projection, junk accounting and misleading government spin. The Liberals continue to hide behind phoney numbers and false forecasts.
The Liberal budget of 2005 projection of $3 billion was a lowball figure, as we now know. The government would have presented a budget surplus of $6 billion if it had not been engaged in unbudgeted spending and junk accounting which served to reduce the surplus numbers close to what the budget projection then was.
Parliament's numbers, the work done by the four forecasters hired by the finance committee to check on what the projections were from the finance department and, more important, the finance minister, revealed early on that the Liberals were sitting on billions of dollars more than the budget 2005 projections that were claimed.
In April Parliament's numbers projected a surplus of $6.1 billion and most recently, in July, a surplus of $.64 billion. Now those same fiscal forecasters are continuing on and we hope to get a budget for them to continue their work.
This points out the Liberal government's questionable budgetary practices that underscore the need for a parliamentary budget office, as was presented in the new Conservative federal accountability act. Canadians deserve honest and independent forecast projections, so that Parliament can engage in a debate as to how surplus money should be allocated and in fact, whether those kinds of surpluses should be allowed to build up. In any event, maybe we need to lower tax rates, so we do not run those massive surpluses. We see sometimes that the government gets carried away just before elections and all kinds of crazy spending is coming out most recently.
We are in agreement with this. It would help several sectors. It would help The Co-operators, I know, which is a big cooperative financial institution. We have some concerns for other sectors, like the chartered accountants. We are willing to explore those further. I think it is important to get the financial sector under the same rules that other corporations are under in this country and that shareholders have the transparency they need to make investments in the sectors that are involved under this legislation.