Mr. Speaker, last week in the public accounts committee I asked the Auditor General a point blank question. Last week in the House of Commons the Prime Minister, Mr. Dithers, said that the foundations had a lot of transparency and accountability and that there was absolutely no problem with Parliament or anyone else finding out what was going on in the foundations. When I asked the Auditor General whether she shared Mr. Dither's enthusiasm, she said “absolutely no”.
Liberal governments, I would say for 30 years, have been undermining the role of government. We can argue that back in the seventies there was restructuring in this place that concentrated power in the Prime Minister's Office and undermined every member of Parliament from carrying out his or her duties.
We now have another Liberal government, under the charter, that backs off from making major policy decisions and allows the courts do it. It hides behind that. Now it is trying to farm out the functions of Parliament to foundations.
I have two questions for the President of the Treasury Board. He said that independent auditors were reviewing the books. I would remind him of Enron. Andersen Consulting was doing audit and consulting work for the same outfit which ended up destroying the organization because it was in absolute conflict of interest.
The government is doing extensive consulting work with major auditing firms that are also doing audit work. I would like him to respond to that clear-cut conflict of interest in the context of Enron and good governance.