Mr. Speaker, I will start my comments by responding to some of the comments made by the treasury board minister. He seemed to suggest that there was outside auditing of these foundations and that somehow was good because the people involved in these businesses were trustworthy.
The member from Mississauga touched on that as well, that we should automatically trust people in these types of businesses of auditing because they would never do anything wrong. Like people in lots of different businesses, we always get some who are the bad apples in the crowd. There must be in place good measures to keep tabs and keep on track with how the money should be spent.
The reason I am prefacing my further comments is because we are talking about Canadians having respect and trust for the Office of the Auditor General. Members would be hard pressed to find a Canadian who does not believe what the Auditor General says. Both the Auditor General and the Office of the Auditor General have the utmost respect of Canadians, without question.
The Liberal government does not have the respect or the trust of the Canadian people. My colleague from Burnaby has indicated that by referring to the June 28 election. There was not resounding support for the government. Canadians told the government that it had to do things better if it expected a majority government. Canadians wanted the government held to task because it was not doing the job properly.
As my colleague for Burnaby—New Westminster has mentioned, we have Liberal arrogance. He mentioned it as being old Liberal arrogance. I have been around for a while now, and I call it continuing Liberal arrogance. This arrogance has followed through year after year with little regard for Parliament and Canadians.
The government believes that somehow taxpayer dollars become the private dollars of the Liberal Party and the Liberal government. Once the money gets in, it is their money and they do with what they wish. They set up foundations here and there and appointment people to boards without any regard for the prudent spending of taxpayer dollars.
I will refer to a couple of the foundations. First, I want to read a section from the Auditor General's reports so Canadians will know some of her comments. She said:
From 1996–97 to 2003–04, the government transferred more than $9 billion to foundations—$1.2 billion in 2002–03 alone and $400 million in 2003–04 (Exhibits 4.1 and 4.2). These are up-front payments made many years in advance of need. With transfers of this magnitude, concerns about the accountability of foundations have grown. This audit examined 6 sponsoring departments...
The Auditor General's report as a whole is quite large. If individuals want, they can take sections of it and look at her comments.
With regard to the foundations, some which are mentioned in the report, she talks about money being upfront and long in advance of need. I would suggest that might be a tiny area where I might disagree. There is a lot of need out there. We have seen dollars being set aside, again with no real accountability to Canadian taxpayers as to exactly how it is flowing through. There is no real accountability to Parliament. The accountability to taxpayers comes through Parliament.
I will mention the foundations that jump out. Endowment funds are sitting with $389 million in them. There has been $10 million in grants set out. There is $48 million in interest. This is a balance of $416 million of taxpayer dollars that were supposed to do something for Canadians.
We have the Canadian Health Services Research Foundation and the Canada Health Infoway Inc. These services are needed. The dollars are not going out, interest is being collected, directors are being paid and taxpayer dollars are sitting there. Again, there is a question about exactly how the Liberal government looks at setting aside that money in budgets and how it incorporates it into different areas
I come from the Churchill riding and represent a number of first nation communities and individuals who have gone to residential schools who have tried to get claims heard for their residential school time. There have been some good stories from the residential schools, but for the most part there have been some seriously horrendous stories, such as the loss of language and culture. They are being ripped from their families as a result of the residential school process. The saddest part is we have a government, through the residential school claim process, that has spent millions of dollars on lawyers. Now it is going to spend millions of dollars on private investigators. It has paid out a pittance in comparison to what it has spent and what it has paid to residential school claimants.
I have met a number of people in my riding who are in their later years in life. They will not live much longer because they live in the most strenuous conditions that people have ever lived under as far as poverty. They do not the best housing, they have poor health and numerous others problems.
We have the Aboriginal Healing Foundation, which its intentions were very good. I review its annual report each year. It has some really good projects. I know people in my riding have made representations for funding through the Aboriginal Healing Foundation, and there have been some good projects.
However, I some I thought were rather questionable. If anyone has read the report, a project on the review the aboriginal healing fund was done. Imagine that. We set up a foundation and out of that foundation we give funds to someone to report on the aboriginal healing fund. When I know the need in the first nation communities in my riding and the healing that needs to be done, I have to question it.
The most striking area I question is this. Of all these foundations, the percentage of dollars received went toward administration costs. The fund was set up in 1998. I believe the intention of the fund was to have it run for about nine or ten years. As of this report, there is only about $13 million left. Three hundred and fifty million dollars was put into the fund. There was $86 million in interest. That did not shock me because of the first two or three years of the aboriginal healing fund, groups in my riding were saying that they had been trying to get at the fund because they wanted to do certain things. There were some really good proposals, but nobody received funding. It was absolutely unconscionable.
We wrote letters to the board of the aboriginal healing fund and questioned the government on it. Finally some of the dollars started to flow. Let me tell the House where $43 million went. It went to administration. I have a serious issue when $43 million goes to administration. We have other funds that operated with $1.2 billion and they spent $30 million on administration. The saddest part of all is first nation members throughout the country do not have access to a parliamentary oversight of those dollars. Under the aboriginal healing fund, this is not required, and that is a serious issue.
I know dollars need to be spent on administration, but there is no way that $43 million should have been spent on administration when we have the needs in the communities and urban centres as well. It is not just the first nation communities. People from the residential schools are living in the cities and towns throughout the country, and they have no oversight of the aboriginal healing fund. It is absolutely unconscionable.