Debates of Feb. 22nd, 2005

Supply

[Bev Desjarlais, NDP, Churchill, MB]

Mr. Speaker, there is a pessimist in me after being here year after year and dealing with the Liberal government. I know the President of the Treasury Board does not like hearing this but there is a belief that the Liberals, as my colleague from Burnaby—New Westminster mentioned, are playing hide and seek with the money.

The government wants to control who is operating with the money but it does not want Parliament to have any say in the matter. There is misbelief over exactly what is happening with the money. I am not suggesting that all the people on the boards of directors or the auditing firms are criminals; I am not suggesting that for one second. The reality is that a lot Canadians think that there is underhandedness going on because the government will not let the Auditor General in. The perception is absolutely one of mistrust of the government, and rightly so.

There are a number of issues about the use of taxpayers' dollars. There is the Groupaction situation and everything we are going through with the Gomery inquiry right now. We hear of numerous appointments after election time. We have heard that 22,000 employees may possibly be moved from the national capital region for political purposes. There is no trust in the government, but there is trust in the Auditor General.

Why is the government doing it? Probably the Liberals want to have control without Parliament and taxpayers having control, and rather disgustingly so. Usually when one is talking like that, one is talking about corrupt third world governments. We hate to see that as the Government of Canada.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I understand the member's concern. I wanted to be a little focused on this question because I think there is a way to achieve support for what is being asked.

The motion refers to ensuring that the foundations are subject to performance audits. That is not the traditional fiduciary audit. I do not think there are any people in this place who would disagree that we have to ensure that foundations are discharging the purpose for which they were set up.

The last part of the motion refers to the Auditor General being appointed the external auditor of foundations. This causes some difficulty simply because departments are not even audited every year. This would actually require the Auditor General to audit each and every foundation each and every year. I wonder if the member would not agree that it is not really necessary. Maybe she would agree to seek an amendment that the external audit requirement not be a requirement.

[Bev Desjarlais, NDP, Churchill, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I do not think there should be an issue with whether or not an audit is done every year or every couple of years. The reality is that we want the Auditor General to oversee it. I heard some comments from across the way, but yes, give the Auditor General more dollars and let her do that.

When one is dealing with $1.2 billion in a foundation and there is a total of $9 billion of taxpayers' money, I do not think Canadians would object to an audit being done every year. If the Auditor General had that information from year to year, it would not involve the same timeframe each and every year because the information would be available which would make it easier to do the audit.

[John Williams, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am glad to speak to this motion. This is not something new that has come along. We have heard so much about how much money is in these foundations.

Let us go back to the supplementary information in the Public Accounts of Canada 2001-02 on the first page where the Auditor General said:

Since 1997, the government has recorded as expenditures some $7.5 billion in transfers to various foundations to achieve its public policy objectives, even though most of the money is still in their bank accounts and investments accumulating interest. As reported last year, I am concerned with the accounting for these transfers.

That was in 2001-02. She went on to say a number of other things about the same situation on page 1.35 of the Public Accounts of Canada:

Economic substance would be better represented in the Government's financial statements if expenditures were recorded in the years when the foundations make grant payments to the ultimate intended recipients or use the money themselves for the Government's ultimate intended purposes.

She went on to say:

[This] leads me to question whether these foundations are truly “arm's length” from the Government, and therefore whether the Government's accounting for transfers to them as if they are “arm's length”, is appropriate.

The Auditor General went on to say:

I am also concerned about the accountability and governance of the foundations--in fact, more concerned than about the accounting for transfers to them--for a number of reasons, including--

She referred to chapter one of her April 2000 report for more details. She concluded by saying:

I urge the Government to change its accounting policies as they relate to the foundations to properly account for the substance of these transactions.

In the next year, 2002-03, the Auditor General said much the same thing in the supplementary information to the public accounts on page 2.29 and so on. In 2003-04 again in the supplementary information she said the same thing. She said on page 2.28 of the 2003-04 public accounts:

I have also expressed concerns about the accountability regime for the foundations and that accounting considerations may be preventing the Government from making all the necessary improvements. In other words, the accountability and governance structures for the foundations may be influenced by the desire to ensure that transfers to foundations can be treated as expenses immediately.

She is concerned about the government manipulating the perception of what is going on. Going back to when the government took over in 1993, members may recall there was a big deficit at that time. What did the government do? It created not for profit organizations called the airport authorities, so that they were off the balance sheets as they were required to go out and borrow billions. We know that the Greater Toronto Airports Authority has borrowed about $4 billion or $5 billion to build that new airport, all guaranteed by the Government of Canada. We are the last resort if they cannot pay their bills, but there is no mention in our financial statements that we are on the hook for the airport investments around the country.

Who has ever heard of Milit-Air? Milit-Air is a not for profit organization. Has anyone ever heard of a not for profit organization going into capital markets and borrowing $720 million? A not for profit organization is in debt because it got an absolute no cut, guaranteed contract, series of payments from the Government of Canada to Milit-air, that went down to the United States and bought some jets so it could give them to Bombardier to train our air force personnel. We are on the hook for this $720 million debt that Milit-Air borrowed on the capital markets, but it does not show on our financial statements.

Then the economy improved. The tax revenues are coming in and now we are in surpluses. What does the government do? It says, “Let us turn this thing around. Rather than having off balance sheet borrowing, we will have off balance sheet investing foundations, a great idea. Set them up at arm's length from the government and give them all kinds of cash but do not expect them to spend it”. It would be nice if we could believe the President of the Treasury Board when he talks about the great probity in these financial institutions, but we know how it is.

Eric Maldoff, the person who was in charge of Canada Health Infoway, was a former adviser to Jean Chrétien and is known as being a very close friend of the Prime Minister. He made a $10,000 donation to the Liberal Party. He was a lawyer at Heenan Blaikie in Montreal, the law firm which was home to Pierre Trudeau and now to Jean Chrétien. He became the head honcho at Canada Health Infoway. When he moved on, along came Mr. H. Arnold Steinberg. Mr. Steinberg also gives money to the Liberal Party and is now the top dog at Canada Health Infoway.

When we talk about Heenan Blaikie, that bastion of liberalism, Mr. Roy Heenan, the number one guy himself, is chair of the board of the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation which got $125 million of taxpayers' money. Mr. Heenan has also made $8,000 in donations to the Liberal Party since 1993. This is Liberal largesse that we are talking about. This is about looking after one's friends.

The point is that when we were trying to get the Auditor General to look into these things, I asked a lot of questions about how much these guys were getting paid, how big were their expense accounts and what they were actually doing. The answer was that it was arm's length and the government could not tell us because it did not know. That is why we have a concern. It is stacked with Liberals, Liberal appointees and Liberal friends.

I have no idea why these lawyers think they know all there is to know about health infoways and other things like that. Is it that they happen to be good Liberals? I guess that being good Liberals makes them knowledgeable on these issues, or maybe it does not and they just get paid as if they may be knowledgeable on these issues.

The taxpayer has a right to know. That is the intent of today's motion. If they are that good and deserve the big paycheques for doing the job, let us know what they are doing. That is not a lot to ask, is it?

Getting back to the Auditor General's reports, this one is dated April 2002. Chapter 1 is titled, “Placing the Public's Money Beyond Parliament's Reach”. The President of the Treasury Board acknowledged this morning that Parliament's role is to supervise the cash and here the Auditor General is saying that public money is now beyond Parliament's reach.

In addition, exhibit 1.3 in that chapter states things that these organizations are required to do, such as reporting expected performance to Parliament. It is a simple thing like a corporate plan; one would expect that to come here, but for the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences, no. Reporting performance results to Parliament? No, it does not do that either. Reporting audited financial statements to Parliament? No, it does not do that. Reporting evaluation results to Parliament? No, it is not into that either. How about ministerial oversight? Strategic monitoring by the minister? No, it does not have that. Ministerial direction and action? No, it does not have that either. Departmental audit and evaluation? That is not done around here. Those are the types of things the Auditor General is telling us.

Exhibit 1.4 is about performance expectations or information on results reported. The Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences does not do that. The green municipal enabling fund and the investment fund do not look after that either. We find these types of things all over the place.

Getting back to the real nub, let us talk about the roles and responsibilities of federal appointees to boards of directors. Remember that we were talking about Liberal appointees. In exhibit 1.6 the Auditor General states:

Most of the federal appointees told us they were not responsible for reporting back to senior officials of sponsoring departments or to the minister on the activities or accomplishments of the arrangements.

I rest my case. This is an affront to democracy. It is an affront to Parliament. The government seems to think it is just great that it can take $7 billion of taxpayers' money and set it aside to spend when it feels it is appropriate, maybe a week before the election, or for a great big announcement saying it will do this, that or the next thing and use that money to pay for it. Parliament is being abused. That is why we put forward this motion today.

[Bev Desjarlais, NDP, Churchill, MB]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from across the way who has been on top of many of these issues for a great period of time. We almost need one or two parliamentarians who are able to take something by the horns and stick to it because there are so many shenanigans that seem to take place around here that it is hard to keep on top of them all. Part of what we are doing here in supporting this motion is following through or trying to keep on top of those issues.

The Auditor General recently sent out a package to members of Parliament. It stated that one of the most important roles of Parliament is to hold the federal government to account for its use of taxpayers' dollars, and to do this effectively, parliamentarians needed objective and fact-based information about how well the government raises and spends public funds.

That is what we are here for. The Auditor General is there to review taxpayers' dollars and the expenditures of them, but if we cannot get that information, we cannot do our job. She is calling on this government to give us that information.

I always knew there were ties to Liberal connections to different appointments and a couple of Liberal colleagues were in the back grinning. There are probably Liberals out there thinking “Great, I am going to be a liberal, I am going to make money, this is how I am going to do it”. Each and every Liberal who thinks like that is talking about taking taxpayers' dollars.

I want them to remember each and every person in this country who does not have a decent roof over their head, who cannot access health care that they need because of the misuse of taxpayers' dollars and let their lives be on the their conscience.

[John Williams, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Madam Speaker, I have to agree with my colleague from the New Democratic Party that it is those people who are well connected, who have already made their money who can find their way to the ear of the people who make these appointments by the Liberal Party and then they just feather the nest, courtesy of the taxpayer. The taxpayer gets to fork out the cash, the Liberals' friends get to live in luxury, and we as parliamentarians cannot get that information.

The member from the New Democratic Party also talked about the aboriginal plight and that is serious. We are talking about provisions for corporate plans and annual reports. This is where we are saying this is what we are going to do. Give us a chance and we are going to do this.

All the foundations in our sample except for the Aboriginal Healing Foundation and the Canada Millennium Scholarship Foundation are now required by the funding agreements to provide corporate plans each year to sponsoring ministers. That is paragraph 4.25 in chapter 4 of the February 2005 report of the Auditor General. These are the two most important foundations.

We know the problems in the Aboriginal Healing Foundation. For education, the interest alone could pay the tuition of tens of thousands of kids going to university, but Liberals keep it in the bank and say this good public policy. We put money into foundations such as the Canada Millennium Scholarship Fund to help kids get an education, to help this country prosper, but the money is sitting in the bank and Liberals tell us that this is good public policy. Shame on them.

[Benoît Sauvageau, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Madam Speaker, I was listening to the hon. member for Prince Albert, who gave me one more reason to justify the Bloc Québécois opposition when the millennium scholarships was set up. At the time, we had asked for Quebec's share of the money to be transferred to the Government of Quebec so that it could continue to manage its bursary and loan system as it had been doing for many years. I agree with the hon. member when he says that money deposited in bank accounts should not stay there. He is, in effect, saying that the Bloc was right to oppose the creation of these foundations.

I would like the hon. member to comment on this, but first I will quote part of the opposition motion:

That the House call on the government to implement the measures recommended in the latest Auditor General's report to improve the framework for the accountability of foundations—

One measure that could be taken is to support Bill C-277, an act to amend the Auditor General Act (audit of accounts). This would give the Auditor General the right to examine the foundations.

Since the President of the Treasury Board said that this bill corresponds to the Conservative motion, I would ask the hon. member for Prince Albert whether he thinks Bill C-277, as presented by the Bloc Québécois, could be used as one of the measures to resolve the issue of transparency with these foundations.

[John Williams, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Madam Speaker, I would like to acknowledge the member who just spoke. He is the sponsor of Bill C-237. I hope and I recommend that it gets the support at second reading and moves on to committee so that we can see that this can make a difference to enhance the accountability.

Accountability is where it is at and this government shies away at every opportunity. This Parliament must get it back and ensure that the government is held accountable for every dime it spends.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Madam Speaker, during the last election campaign, I heard time and again from people in my riding that if they were to send me to Ottawa, they wanted to ensure when I got to Ottawa that I would do a couple of very important things. They wanted me to ensure that I would protect taxpayers' dollars, that the government would be accountable to the taxpayers, and that I would stop, as best as I could, government corruption and government waste.

The particular situation we have here today, when we are speaking of these foundations, is all that is wrong in government. The concern that my riding constituents expressed to me about their fears that this government is wasting taxpayers' dollars, that this government is corrupt, and they gave specific examples of things like ad scam--

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. With respect, to be corrupt is an illegal act and the member is, in his statements, saying that the government is corrupt. I believe it is unparliamentary and he should withdraw those words.

[The Acting Speaker (Hon. Jean Augustine)]

The point of order asks that you withdraw the word “corrupt”.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Madam Speaker, if I may clarify, I was referring to what my constituents were telling me. If I have misspoken and called the government corrupt, then I unreservedly withdraw that comment. My constituents were telling me that they believed that there was corruption in this government with particular emphasis on the ad scam program.

I am not suggesting that the foundations are another ad scam, but there are earmarks and some very striking similarities to the problems that occurred within the sponsorship program. There is no real accountability to taxpayers. These foundations were set up at arm's-length to the government. They are not attached to any minister and do not report directly to any minister.

That is a grave concern and we have heard that said many times by other speakers in the House today. The government does not have any authority over many of these foundations unless a foundation does not act within its mandate or within its funding agreement. Other than that, the government cannot hold these foundations accountable. Any foundation that receives taxpayers' dollars should not work that way.

Parliament has been around for hundreds of years, and one of its basic premises is to ensure that taxpayers' dollars are protected. When voters across this country elect members of Parliament, they do so trusting in their parliamentarians to protect their hard earned dollars. The way the foundation system is structured today does nothing of that. It does not protect taxpayers' dollars. It does not ensure that taxpayers' dollars are appropriately spent because there is no accountability back to Parliament.

I recall during the last campaign when the Prime Minister was speaking of the sponsorship scandal he said that he was mad as hell and would get to the bottom of it. He would ensure nothing like that occurred again. He spoke of things like government transparency and accountability. What I find most amazing is the fact that the very person uttering those words was the finance minister at the time when the foundations were established.

How can the Prime Minister on one hand say that he is outraged at what happened with the sponsorship scandal, and yet on the other hand he was the very finance minister who approved setting up these foundations which could result in very similar actions with respect to the sponsorship scandal that we are all outraged about?

My colleague from Edmonton--St. Albert made several references to grants given to individuals or organizations through foundations that appeared to have direct connections to high officials within the Liberal Party and Liberal supporters. That is eerily similar to what happened with the sponsorship scandal. These types of things must be stopped.

Canadians across this great land distrust governments in general. One of the reasons they lack trust in politicians and government is because of situations like this. They see their hard earned dollars being turned over to a foundation that has no responsibility to report back to the Parliament of the day. They feel that parliamentarians are not protecting their dollars.

We must resolve this. We need to have parliamentary oversight. Parliament needs to have more direct control over these foundations and their spending, or lack of it. It is wrong for Parliament to turn over $9 billion to a series of 17 foundations and tell them they can do what they wish with the money, that they will not be audited by the Auditor General, that they will not have to report back to any minister of the Crown regarding spending, and that they can determine how this money should be spent with no interference from the government. That is wrong.

A private business could never be run with that lack of accountability and yet the government has decided to put over $9 billion into foundations and ask Canadians to basically trust it and trust the foundations. Taxpayers are not being told how the money is being spent. No performance audits are being done. The Auditor General will be prevented from auditing these foundations and the taxpayers are being asked to trust the government.

We now find out that over $7.7 billion have been left in the foundations and have been sitting there unreported for many years. To my understanding, the government of the day when it transferred money considered this but put this down on its books as an expense item. It is not an expense because the $7.7 billion is still sitting there. It was a transfer of funds.

A couple of things come to mind, which have been mentioned before but bears repeating. When the government was projecting modest surpluses, the reality was that there was a far larger surplus. The money sitting in these foundations, which was not spent, could have been used by the government for a variety of other purposes but, more important, had Canadians known about this money they would have been able to express their desire for what to do with this additional money.

To put things in a term of reference with which I am familiar, $7.7 billion is larger than the provincial budget of my home province of Saskatchewan. We have $7.7 billion sitting in a foundation or a series of foundations with no parliamentary oversight and no control by the government as to how that money will and could be spent.

I honestly hope that those who administer and control these foundations and who make the decisions on where the money should be spent, such as grants to universities, hospitals or other worthy projects, are working on behalf of Canadian taxpayers. However we do not know that. We must ensure that there are proper accountability practices put in place to protect Canadian taxpayers.

My fear is that if this is left unchecked there is a possibility that the money could be used strictly for political purposes. Some of the members opposite groan and moan. My colleague from Edmonton—St. Albert has already pointed out a number of examples of where some of this money went to firms that seemed to have direct Liberal connections.

What would stop that from happening? Where is the accountability? We thought the sponsorship scandal could never happen. There are laws against that too, if I am not mistaken. It seems that laws were broken with respect to sponsorship. Could they not have the same effect here?

The Auditor General has made a series of recommendations on how to clean this up. All we are asking is that the government listen to the Auditor General and follow through with her recommendations.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Madam Speaker, I know the member is new to the House but by now he should understand that members should be accurate in their statements.

The member said that the surplus was higher than it should be because of the $7.7 billion that have been put into the foundations. What he did not say is that the Auditor General herself is not of the opinion that the money has not been properly accounted for in the public accounts.

The Auditor General is in agreement with how the money has been accounted for. It is improper for the member to suggest that somehow these amounts should have been recorded as expenses and they were not. That is not the case and the Auditor General confirms that.

Second, the member says that we need the Auditor General to protect taxpayer dollars and how they are spent. As the former chair of the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates, I can say that each of these foundations has a contract that lays out in very explicit detail what it must and must not do.

These foundations are all subject to audit. They are all subject to report to Parliament. They all have clauses stating that if the money is not fully used once there mandate is over then the money goes back to the government.

I simply say to the member, with the couple of examples that I have given, that rhetoric is fine but there should be some basis in fact of what the member is representing. Unfortunately he has in his speech mentioned a couple of items which are simply not the case.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Madam Speaker, I believe the member opposite said that I believe all but two of the foundations are subject to outside audits. All I am suggesting is that the government follow through with the Auditor General's recommendations. Why are these foundations not subject to the Auditor General's audit? It is a simple question.

The hon. member said that the Auditor General cannot do them all. I must point out that in the last election campaign the Conservative Party was the only party, I believe, that said we would increase the level of funding for the Auditor General's department to allow her and her department to hire more staff to go into all departments, agencies and foundations like this. Why do we not spend more money where it should be spent, in the Auditor General's department to allow her and her staff to audit all of these foundations?

[Robert Thibault, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health]

Madam Speaker, I congratulate the member on his off the cuff remarks and his opinions on that. Everyone can have an opinion and it would be wrong to deny anyone an opinion.

The member supports the Auditor General's view that the foundations should be audited by the Office of the Auditor General. Other people may hold a different view but the hon. member has a valid view .

I will ask the member another question in a different light because some would suggest that many members on his side of the House think that the foundations should not exist at all. I wonder if that is the view of the member and if he would not recognize the work and complexities that are carried out by the foundations.

Some members have explained that in some cases it is difficult to name the Auditor General as the external auditor because the foundations are not controlled by the federal government. It might be an organization created in partnership with the provincial governments or, in some cases, with the private sector where the federal government is but one of the many partners. Therefore it is difficult to impose our auditor as opposed to other auditors being chosen by all the provinces, territories and the federal government together.

What these foundations have often achieved have been making some great investments in Canada using funds which sometimes are available from the federal government. These foundations can find investment opportunities in Canada in research over years to give stability to the researchers, because they can do what the federal government cannot do. The funds give them the stability over a multi-year approach using those funds and having the security of those funds.

I think the member would agree that it is a valid way to invest in research. If he does not agree with the existence of the foundations, could he please tell the House what his alternative approach might be?

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Madam Speaker, the short answer to a long question is that no performance audits are being done. How can one truly ensure that the money is being well spent without performance audits? I am quite sure that in certain instances the money is being very well spent on very worthwhile projects and institutions but we do not have any performance audits.

We have already heard some examples of where money was, in our opinion, in my opinion and in the opinion of others in the House, very inappropriately spent.

To have a blanket statement saying that all money spent by these foundations is done so in a very worthwhile manner, I cannot agree with that. We need performance audits to determine that.

[Robert Thibault, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak to the motion by the hon. member for Medicine Hat.

I am also pleased to have the opportunity to speak today on Canada Health Infoway Inc., also referred to as Infoway, and its accountability framework.

Canada Health Infoway Inc. is an independent, not for profit corporation that was created in 2001 with a mandate to accelerate the adoption of electronic health information systems such as electronic health records and telehealth.

Infoway's members are the 14 federal, provincial and territorial deputy ministers of health. Infoway is equally accountable to all 14 members.

Infoway operates as a collaborative federal, provincial and territorial mechanism in which all jurisdictions are equal partners.Infoway’s members all have a stake in its performance given that electronic health information systems are, and will continue to be, funded jointly by all jurisdictions.

All jurisdictions, federal, provincial and territorial, face similar challenges in funding the development and deployment of electronic health information systems, such as electronic health records and telehealth applications.

The funding provided to Infoway is for the purpose of easing the fixed costs of the initial development and the cost to replicate and deploy the system across Canada. This collaborative approach yields both cost and time savings.

The Government of Canada made its first investment in Infoway in March 2001 as a direct result of the agreement by first ministers in September 2000. The purpose of the investment was to accelerate the development and adoption of modern systems of information technology with a focus on the electronic health record.

Since then, additional funding has been provided on two occasions. In 2003, $600 million was provided for electronic health records and telehealth applications in support of the first ministers accord on health care renewal of February 2003 and again in 2004, $100 million went to support the development and implementation of a national public health surveillance system with a focus on infectious disease monitoring.

This upfront funding gives Infoway financial stability and allows it to develop and support multi-year partnerships and projects.

Infoway’s accountability is addressed through funding agreements governing the use of funds. There are two funding agreements, one governing the electronic health record and telehealth area and the other the health surveillance area.

Health Canada followed the guidance and direction of central agencies during the development of these agreements.

These arrangements were developed taking into consideration many factors. Especially important to the discussion today are the accountability provisions of budget 2003 and Infoway's unique structure making it accountable to all its members.

The agreements balance these factors and contribute to ensuring that Infoway can operate as a collaborative, federal, provincial and territorial mechanism in which all jurisdictions are equal partners.

Health Canada believes that the reporting and accountability requirements for Infoway are sound. Health Canada reports on Infoway's plans and progress in its reports on plans and priorities and departmental performance report.

As mentioned earlier, the federal, provincial and territorial deputy ministers of health are the members of Infoway. The members set the strategic direction for Infoway and ensure that these align with those of the provinces and territories.

Infoway works with its members targeting its investments toward the priority needs of individual provinces and territories. Infoway’s members have unanimously endorsed all of its business plans.Infoway regularly provides progress reports and plans to members and all of these may be shared with ministers.

In this way, all federal, provincial and territorial ministers are kept informed of Infoway’s progress and issues.

Infoway has a board of directors consisting of 13 directors. Seven of the directors are appointed by the members and the remaining six independent directors are elected by all members.

The measures of accountability reflect the unique, multi-jurisdictional structure of Infoway and are consistent with good corporate governance.

They include, first, an annual audit of its financial statements by an independent auditor. Infoway's financial statements must be prepared in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles. The financial statements and the auditor's report must be made available to the members and to the public.

Second, an annual report to include performance results relative to the business plan, which was mentioned earlier, and an overview of expected results are also made available to the members and to the public.

Third, an annual business plan for the upcoming year is presented to members and a summary is made available to the public.

There is an annual compliance audit specific to the terms and conditions of the funding agreement with the Government of Canada. This report is made available to all 14 members. At least every five years there is an independent third party evaluation to measure overall performance in achieving the outcomes identified in the funding agreement, the first of which must be completed by March of next year.

Infoway has initiated additional detailed reporting and governance practices and has also adopted a phased and gated funding approach, requiring that funds only be disbursed once pre-set milestones are met.

Health Canada is committed to the effective oversight of Infoway. In 2003, the department worked closely with Infoway to include the accountability provisions of budget 2003 in a new funding agreement which was required because of the $600 million additional investment and made significant improvements to the reporting and accountability measures. Health Canada also reached an agreement with Infoway to apply the new accountability and reporting requirements to the previous grant, the $500 million provided in 2001 to Infoway.

Some of the specific enhancements in 2003 were annual compliance audits, annual business plans and default and recovery provisions, all of which were mentioned today during debate.

On behalf of the government, the Treasury Board Secretariat has indicated a willingness to explore the Auditor General's recommendations that will further improve the accountability framework while at the same time respecting the independence of foundations and enabling the effective pursuit of policy objectives.

The bylaws of Infoway specify that the members appoint the external auditor of the corporation. Therefore, their concurrence would be required for the Auditor General of Canada to be appointed as external auditor.

I do not know whether all the provinces will agree that Canada should be responsible for the independent audit of an entity such as Infoway. However, the rules in place will allow for discussions with all members, based on recognized practices, on an external audit.

It may be that Infoway would be one of the few exceptions noted in the Auditor General's report, given Infoway's federal, provincial and territorial membership.

Health Canada will work closely with federal counterparts and will follow the accountability framework for foundations established by central agencies.

Implementation of an interoperable electronic health record is an immensely complex endeavour that will not happen overnight, but there is evidence that Infoway is achieving progress toward its goal of having the basic elements of an interoperable electronic health record in place across 50% of Canada, by population, by the end of 2009.

Infoway's efforts to date have focused on the start-up phase of the organization, the need to plan carefully so as to make the best use of funds, and the implementation of the basic components of the electronic health record. Infoway has now committed a total of more than $180 million in over 90 specific projects in all provinces and territories across Canada.

Infoway has made progress on the electronic health record components, including electronic health record architecture and standards, registries for clients, providers and locations, diagnostic imaging systems, drug systems and laboratory information systems.

An electronic health record solution architecture for Canada has been developed and accepted by all jurisdictions to ensure a pan-Canadian, interoperable electronic health record. This architecture will guide electronic health record development and implementation in all provinces and territories.

Infoway has developed investment plans with each jurisdiction covering three years, thus, ensuring the Infoway’s priorities and investment plans are aligned with the priorities of each jurisdiction.

Infoway work was supported by the first ministers in September 2004 in their 10-year plan to strengthen health care.As well, the recent Health Council report recommended increasedcommitment to the rapid adoption of electronic health records andtelehealth technologies.

There is recognition that the pace of implementation needs to be faster so that the health system can reap the benefits of modern electronic health information systems. Infoway is working with the jurisdictions to see what can be done.

Progress toward an electronic health record is being made and Infoway is playing a vital role in achieving this progress.

Funding agreements are in place governing the use of the transferred funds and these agreements meet the accountability requirements set by central agencies. Key provisions include annual reports, annual business plans and annual financial and compliance audits. The first program evaluation will be reported by March 2006. Health Canada will work with Infoway and central agencies to include any new accountability requirements identified by government.

I do want to point something out for the record. There has been mention in the debates from across the way about the question of the integrity, I suppose that would be the proper term, of the use of these funds by these organizations and the characterization of the comments of the Auditor General.

I would like to point out that I do not want to put words in the Auditor General's mouth, but the Auditor General was at the health committee yesterday, as she had been at the public accounts committee, speaking about this point and about her report to Parliament and taking questions from members.

When the question was asked about how these funds were used within government and if there were any abuses, this was her response from the record of yesterday:

Madam Chair, the concerns we have about foundations are not related to any concerns about abuse within the foundations. We have tried to make it very clear that any remarks in our audit findings related to foundations shouldn't be viewed as criticisms of the foundations, nor the people that work there. It's really about the accountability to Parliament over public funds and the amount of information that is available to Parliament. It's not driven by a concern that there may be something untoward going on in foundations, not at all.

Those are the words of the Auditor General.

As I said in discussion earlier, members can have differing views. They can support 100% the auditor's findings. Others might not support 100% of the recommendations of the Auditor General. That is a matter for debate. Reasonable people can disagree, but I would hope that reasonable people would not improperly misuse the words of the Auditor General to cast aspersions on the fine men and women working within the foundations to try to achieve goals that are to the value and the benefit of all Canadians.

[Benoît Sauvageau, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask a question of the parliamentary secretary responsible for health. I appreciated the information he gave me about Infoway. On the Infoway web site, the chair of the board of directors says in his message:

What could be more exciting and rewarding than the opportunity to lay the information and communications foundation for the health care system of tomorrow? Canada Health Infoway (Infoway) is a unique organization dedicated to advancing the development of Canada's health infostructure—

This is what it says on the chair's web site. My questions are therefore in this regard.

I find it a little hard to understand and I am going to ask the parliamentary secretary to explain some things to me. According to what the chair of Health Infoway says, it is exciting and interesting, and the foundation is dedicated to advancing the process. So how is it that the foundation was established in 2001 with $1.2 billion in funding from the federal government, according to the Auditor General, and now there is $1.2 billion and another $200,000?

I think that everybody in this House will agree that there are health needs but there does not seem to be money to meet them. Four years ago, the Canada Health Infoway was given $1.2 billion. Now the foundation has made money with the investments given to it.

This is my first question. Does he think that this is normal?

Second, they earned interest, so they gave out grants. They gave $51 million in grants out of the $1.2 billion. But to provide the $51 million in grants, the administration costs were $30 million. Maybe that is normal. Let us compare.

The Canada Foundation for Innovation gave out grants worth $1.2 billion, and the administration costs were $39 million. The Canada Millennium Scholarship Foundation awarded $1.1 billion in grants, and the administration costs were $47 million. We are talking about $1.2 billion and $1.1 billion, but here we have $51 million in grants. One might say that there is quite a discrepancy and it cost $30 million in administration costs.

My second question: does he think that these administration costs are normal?

I had a third question in regard to interest. His department manages two foundations, namely the Canada Health Infoway and the Aboriginal Healing Foundation. Since 2001, the Canada Health Infoway has been given $1.2 billion. It has received $83 million in interest. The Aboriginal Healing Foundation has received $350 million—a lot less—and has managed to make an additional $3 million in interest.

My third question: since there seem to be some problems with the administration costs, the return on the interest earned and the grants awarded—because it is not normal for a foundation to have $200,000 more now than it did in 2001—first, how does the Secretary of State explain these realities about the Canada Health Infoway? Second, does he support the idea of having the Auditor General take a look at what is going on?

[Robert Thibault, Liberal, West Nova, NS]

Madam Speaker, the hon. member has asked a number of questions. Excellent questions, to be sure, but they make certain suppositions which are not completely correct.

First, the initial endowment was not $1 billion or $1.1 billion. It was made in three phases, according to the agreements. The first was some $100 million, the second $600 million, and the third another $100 million.

The organization wants to have an Infoway system in place by 2009, which will meet the needs of about half the population of Canada. As I was saying in my speech just earlier, we are in the planning phase. These funds are invested, that is true. We have found the best possible return. We now have $180 million in commitments for 90 projects. However, I do not know whether or not all the money has been paid out at this point.

The hon. member asked me certain questions about administrative expenses. These are excellent questions. I am sure that the president and the vice-president of Infoway will be happy to appear before parliamentary committees to respond to such questions, since they know the answers.

How is this program being managed? As I was saying, it is managed by all the provincial and territorial partners. The deputy ministers are members of the board of directors, and private-sector regulations are used. These people have certain knowledge and certain skills. I am sure that they are asking these questions and verifying these things. An external audit is being done.

As for the question on the Aboriginal Healing Foundation, unfortunately I do no know the details. However I will be happy to take note of this so that I can provide the hon. member with the information later.

The hon. member was also asking whether I support the having the Auditor General to conduct an audit. I am sure that all the jurisdictions involved, the provinces and territories, will want their auditor general to be in charge of the audit. This is, however, not a federal organization, but an organization which is responsible equally to all of the jurisdictions. Therefore the terms of the audit will be as they wish. Thus far, there has been unanimous consent on all of the planning details. So I will not impose my preferences. These people are doing excellent work. As has been said many times now, I am sure that they will be happy to appear before the committees concerned.

[Ken Epp, Conservative, Edmonton—Sherwood Park, AB]

Madam Speaker, I find it quite incredible that Liberal speakers responding to this motion are quite consistent in saying they do not want to do what the Auditor General has asked them to do.

The role of the Auditor General is to provide for accurate, reliable, and trustworthy accounting practices when accounting for the use of taxpayers' money. The Auditor General in this report has pointed out, and it is specifically stated, that she is not talking about the advisability of the funds or the use of them. Yet, the Liberal members keep questioning whether or not we support the use of these foundations.

That is not the question. It is not the motion today. The motion is simply to provide for accountability and proper reporting to Parliament on how taxpayers' money is being used. I think it is a very legitimate question. It is also true that the Auditor General has said explicitly that the government has responded to the complaints in such a way as to basically say it is not going to do what she asks it to do.

The purpose of the motion today is to say to the government that the Auditor General is recommending it. The official opposition supports it. We find support from the other opposition parties. We are saying that the majority of people in this Parliament believe that these changes ought to be made.

I would like to ask the member who just spoke why there would be this reluctance to give accountability to Canadian taxpayers? Why not simply do it? If there are questions, acceding to the motion today and doing what it asks will simply improve the trust of Canadians. Why do the Liberals not want that? Are they in fact literally hiding things in these, as we refer to in our terminology, slush funds? Is that actually accurate? I cannot believe that.

[Robert Thibault, Liberal, West Nova, NS]

Madam Speaker, if the member cannot believe it, it is probably because it is not true. It would be difficult to believe.

He posed the question of whether we agree with the Auditor General and do we implement the recommendations of the Auditor General. Absolutely, almost all the time and sometimes the Auditor General may make some recommendations that pose certain challenges.

Sometimes she may, or he as the case may be through the years, make some recommendations on which government has a different view; however, it tries to achieve the goals that the Auditor General puts forward in a different manner.

I have been to many committees where she has made presentations and I have heard very little about the refusal by the Government of Canada to implement recommendations of the Auditor General. I have heard her express malcontent about the pace of change on occasions, as it is with Parliament.

In this case, what I have suggested, and I use Infoway as an example, is that there are times when it is not as simple as one would immediately think. Infoway has 13 equal partners. It is difficult for one partner to impose its auditor as an independent external auditor to the 12 other partners.

[Rob Merrifield, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to speak to the motion before the House today. It is an important motion because it is about accountability, which is something that the government has been lacking in over its tenure for the last decade or so.

This issue is about the fundamental trust relationship between taxpayers, the people who work hard every day to contribute toward building this nation, and those who are entrusted with the responsibility of spending those dollars in an effective and prudent way on their behalf.

We have to look at what happened with respect to the sponsorship scandal, which has been cited by many as one of the worst disasters in Canadian history as far as accountability is concerned. That has yet to be played out. We hope that the government will look under every rock as the Prime Minister has suggested. We hope that he will become agitated with respect to the lack of accountability regarding the sponsorship scandal.

Another example of the lack of accountability by the federal government is the gun registry. The government told Canadians that the gun registry was in their best interests and would only cost $2 million. It would be a self-supporting registry. We found out a few years later that it would cost taxpayers over $1 billion and would never fulfill its obligations.

We have seen a lack of trust develop between elected representatives and Canadians. Cynicism has crept into the electoral system with less than 60% of Canadians voting in a federal election. This is because Canadians feel that we in the House are corrupt. This lack of accountability reflects on all of us. We feel we need to stand up and defend the workings of the government. We must ensure that the government is totally transparent in all its workings if we are truly going to regain that trust.

I would like to pick up on the comments made by the parliamentary secretary about Infoway, which is probably a fine foundation. There may be nothing wrong with the foundations that were set up with $9 billion from the government.

Infoway was started in 2001 with $500 million. In 2003 another $600 million was put into this foundation to allow the medical records of patients to follow them, which is a noble cause. It was given another $100 million in 2004. A total of $1.2 billion was given to Infoway so it could come up with a high tech program allowing medical records of patients to follow them. This could save countless numbers of lives.

It is not that we are worried that the money was spent inappropriately. This foundation earned $50 million just in interest on that money in the last year alone. There is perhaps more money in Infoway today than there was four years ago.

The problem is not whether the money was misused or whether it was transparent. An audit needs to be done to find out whether performance has been received for the dollars that were spent and for the money that was set aside to accomplish a goal for Canadians. This is important with respect to Infoway.

Our health committee knew there were serious problems with adverse drug reactions and with the countless number of deaths in this country because of addictions to prescription medications, the way drugs were prescribed by physicians, and the way pharmaceutical companies promoted their products to physicians. A large number of deaths occurred as a result of that.

The health committee travelled across the country last spring. We laid our report before Parliament in late March or early April indicating that in our estimation there were approximately 30,000 deaths per year as a result of these drug problems. The election came in June, just before the Baker-Norton report was filed.

We had these individuals come forward to the health committee two weeks ago to give us an explanation of what their findings were. They found that we were right and that there were 24,000 deaths in Canada per year from adverse events in our hospitals, our high tech primary care hospitals.

This does not include the number of deaths because of adverse events in our seniors' facilities, where we know that drug consumption is much higher. It does not include those individuals who die because of addiction to prescription medications such as the benzodiazepine line of drugs. In the last six months we have seen the amount of products that we thought were safe in Canada but were pulled from the shelves.

Would Infoway have saved those lives? Infoway certainly could have saved many of those lives. We know that if the medical records follow the patient a much better transparency and accountability will take place. We will link the physician, the pharmacist and the patient together with a computer program that will look at those adverse events.

Last year I brought forward a motion in the House when we realized the numbers were so drastic. The motion passed, thank goodness. My motion was that it be compulsory to report an adverse event when a physician or front line health care worker saw it.

Nothing has happened in that regard to this point. I understand in talking with the Minister of Health that he is concerned and is perhaps going to have a proposal on the table soon. We sure hope so. The motion was passed in this House because only 1% to 10% of the adverse events that are actually taking place are even reported, so we have no tracking measure whatsoever.

The importance of Infoway is not a point of discussion in today's motion. It is a very important program, but we do not know what is going on in Infoway. The reason the Auditor General would like to take a look at it is that we do not have a performance measure or a performance audit to find out if this money is being spent appropriately or why it is not being spent.

I will go into this because the parliamentary secretary talked about it. The parliamentary secretary said that Infoway is joint, between the provinces and territories and the federal government, and this is true. We have the top end bureaucrats, the health minister and the deputy ministers from each of the provinces and the federal government sitting on this Infoway panel. We know that the sponsorship scandal also had top level bureaucrats sitting on it.

What we see with Infoway is that the money has not been applied to what it was intended to be applied to. Why has this happened? Each one of these 24,000 deaths, as reported in June, has a life story. There are parents, children and victims around that death. They are not just numbers. They are not just stats. They are real people. They are real Canadians and they deserve to be protected as much as we possibly can.

The question in this motion is not so much about whether we should be transparent and have the Auditor General take a look at these foundations. That is a given. A few hours from now we will stand in this House and vote on this motion. The question will not be, “Should we support it?” The question will be, “Why should we not support it?”

If I were sitting on the government side and I had applied $1.2 billion of taxpayers' money to a foundation, I would want to know why it is not being used where it was intended to be used. I would want to know that there is some accountability. If this government does not stand and support this motion, then the question has to be asked, why would it not want that accountability for the people it represents? That becomes the question.

This was brought to my attention over a year ago. We have had the Auditor General at the health committee. I posed a question at that time. I asked if she was concerned with Infoway and the $1.2 billion and the lack of what was coming out of it. She said yes, and not only Infoway, but all of the other foundations that are not only outside the purview of the Auditor General to examine but also outside freedom of information or the ability to be able to access the information act. There are no other eyes that we can look at and ask the question, “Is there accountability in these foundations?”

This is a motion that should be supported by every one of the 308 members of this House. I would implore each of them to look very carefully at this motion and in a non-partisan way and transparent way stand and vote for this motion. It is very important for the trust level of Canadians and very important in getting to the bottom of where this money is and how it is being applied for the best interests of Canadians.

[Diane Marleau, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board and Minister responsible for the Canadian Wheat Board]

Madam Speaker, I have a question. I agree that there has to be some kind of performance audit wherever and whenever the Auditor General wants to go, but does the member really believe that it is absolutely necessary over and above looking at giving her the chance to follow the money and do performance audits?

Does the member really believe that she should be the external auditor for each and every foundation, to do the audit each and every year, something she does not even do with departments in the Government of Canada? Does he not think that these foundations can have the choice of picking their auditors for their yearly audits?

Meanwhile, yes, we should change the rules to allow performance audits by the Auditor General, for her to do what she does for the Government of Canada everywhere. To me, that makes a lot more sense. I would certainly be prepared to support the member's motion if he were to remove the last part which says that the Auditor General has to do everybody's audit every year.

[Rob Merrifield, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Madam Speaker, I disagree. I would lay it out this way. We have the responsibility and the opportunity to call Canada Health Infoway before the health committee. As vice-chair of the Standing Committee on Health, I know we can do that, and we have done that. We know where the money is. It is not about counting the beans. It is about making sure there is a performance measure in place so that the money applied to this program is actually used where it should be and in a timely way. There was $1.2 billion set aside back in 2001 and absolutely nothing has come out of that.

As an example, Alberta is probably a year and a half or two years ahead, according to most of the experts, as far as medical records following the patient is concerned. Alberta has applied $15 million to that compared to this $1.2 billion to Infoway and it is on track for having all medical records follow patients by the end of this year, linking physician and patient. Alberta, with one-tenth of the population of Canada, can do that with $15 million.

I am not necessarily an accountant, but I can do the math. When I see that $15 million can achieve this for a tenth of the population of Canada, it means that ten times that amount, which is only $150 million, should be able to achieve it for all of Canada. But there is $1.2 billion that has not been applied to where it needs to go and the government is saying it is going to take not 10 years but 20 years. We had Michael Decter in the health committee saying this should happen not in 20 years, by 2020, but by 2010. In five years from now, all medical records should follow patients.

Why is it not being done? We have no performance measure to guide it and no second set of eyes on this money. That is why we absolutely have to do more than just count the dollars. We have to make sure that the dollars are applied where they need to be applied because lives are being lost as a result of our tardiness.

[Steven Fletcher, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James, MB]

Madam Speaker, I have a question for the member. We heard the parliamentary secretary make comments about the negative aspects of this motion, but I find it very amazing that yesterday that same parliamentary secretary voted against a health committee motion to give the Auditor General the ability to audit Infoway, among other foundations related to health.

Unless he is against transparency, accountability and performance measures, why would the parliamentary secretary vote against the health committee motion, which passed with the support of all three opposition parties? Could the member comment?