Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise in this debate.
After listening to some of the comments made by members across the way, I get the perception that they keep saying, “Just trust us”. We just have to look at the record of the government for the last 10 years. We have to look at the scandal of all scandals or, as they say, the mother of all scandals to see why we need openness and transparency.
I would be the first person to acknowledge, and most people would, that some of these foundations do tremendous work. Then let us make it an open and transparent process. All we are saying is to let the Auditor General have a look at the books.
The member opposite kept referring to the opposition as just wanting to oppose and to be negative. Excuse me, but in fact what we are doing is asking for what the Auditor General has been asking for in not one, two or three but four reports. The Auditor General has been asking to get access, as she should. There is probably no one who has better credibility and is more trusted as an independent auditor than the Auditor General. That is basically what the debate is about.
This government began using foundations in 1997 at arm's length. Basically it used these foundations so the Liberals could actually take public funds and hive them off into various foundations.
I have met many of the people in the foundations and I am the first one to admit they do absolutely fantastic work. So if they are doing this great work, let us be open about it.
Tomorrow the government is going to table a budget. We in this place will debate the merits of the government's plan and vote accordingly. We need to know that money allocated in a budget year is spent in that budget year. As we know, that is not the case with these foundations.
If there are two words that this motion is about they are “transparency and accountability”. If we do not have transparency and accountability, I do not think we can have a proper debate on the spending priorities of this nation. There is an unaccountable approach in government right now and we need to stop that.
The Auditor General has brought this to our attention, as I said earlier, on four separate occasions. It is time that we open the books to the Canadian people. It is time to be open, honest and transparent, and we can do that through the Auditor General.
All week the President of the Treasury Board has selectively quoted the Auditor General. He points to the federal government's attempts to modernize the government framework for non-profit corporations. He conveniently ignores the fact that the government has done nothing to address the Auditor General's concern about the lack of performance audits and the absence of an appropriate mechanism for ministerial oversight.
I emphasize that this is not something that just happened yesterday. It is the same government that has been in power. Has it addressed any of these problems? Absolutely not. We are still talking about it in 2005. The Auditor General first raised this in 1997, again in 1999 and 2002 and now again in 2005.
The simple fact is that the Auditor General has raised this issue so many times and the government has done nothing to fix the problem. That alone speaks volumes. I believe that if the government had even made half an attempt to address these issues we would not be here talking about it right now.
The Auditor General and the government of course differ on some of the accounting principles. Some would argue that this is the problem, but I do not think that is the issue at all.
The main thrust of the Auditor General's report is that of the $9.1 billion given to foundations since 1997 $7.7 billion of this public money is sitting in various accounts across the country under the auspices of various foundations that are completely unaccountable and completely unscrutinized by Parliament. That is a lot of money the government has pretended to spend. We know it is sitting out there. All this motion would do is allow the government to audit to make sure that this money is going to where it is supposed to be going.
We all saw in the sponsorship scandal that $100 million was hived off in fees and commissions to various Liberal friendly ad agencies. It is very obvious to me why the government is so cynical about this and why the government does not get it. Of course, the government members give us their grand statements and stand up and say, “Trust us”.
There has probably never been a time since Confederation when trust for members of Parliament or trust for the government being in charge of public funds has been so low. We saw it in the last election. It was the issue in the last election and it continues to dominate. It continues to plague the government because it is refusing to do anything about it.
Therefore, in a positive vein, the official opposition, through an opposition supply day motion, is coming forward and basically suggesting that the Auditor General be the external auditor of every foundation where federal public money is involved. I think that is pretty clear. I think it is absolutely the right thing to do.
The question is, when we see millions of taxpayers' dollars go missing, when we see these scandals, how do we ensure this does not happen? How do we ensure that there is public accountability? Unfortunately, unless we bring in the kinds of measures where there is complete scrutiny, openness, transparency and public accountability, the public will continue to be cynical.
Sadly, the public is now starting to question some of these foundations, some that do very good work, I might add. If we were to allow this openness and transparency for complete scrutiny and public accountability, some of this good work could be brought to light. Just maybe, I dare say, there might be some foundations that are using money when that was not intended to happen, when these were not the intended consequences for where that money was supposed go. I think it is our job to ensure that does not happen. One way we can do that is through the Auditor General.
Let us look at the Prime Minister; of course his memory can be so selective. And these are the people who say “trust us on the foundations”. When he wants to remember the Mexican peso crisis, he can remember everything about it. Yet when he had to appear before the Gomery commission, he did not remember one useful thing. It was somebody else's problem. There was absolutely no accountability. His recollection of anything that happened was not there at all.
Quite bluntly, I found his testimony insulting. His testimony was that it was everybody else's job. It was a bureaucrat's job or maybe the job of people on his staff, but he was never directly involved. Yet when he wants to have a very crisp memory on other matters, he has it. That is the reason this motion has been put forward for us today.
In conclusion, what this motion really comes down to is that it is all about the taxpayers having the right to know that their money is well cared for. It is not saying “trust us”; it is giving taxpayers wide open transparency and accountability. I can see the value of having experts make the decisions in their fields, whether it is in education, health technologies, scientific research or the arts. Nobody is questioning that. What we are saying is that we should be able to take a look at where that money is being spent.
Let us make sure that there is openness, transparency and accountability so that the Auditor General has the power to go in and scrutinize these books. Again, I cannot emphasize enough that this is purely about accountability. I am not questioning the foundations' work. I am saying I do not trust the government, and for good reason. What it has done to the Canadian taxpayer for its last 10 years in office is absolutely unacceptable, and it is time that this government opened the books up to the Auditor General so we can see if there is any more.