Mr. Speaker, accountability can be defined as responsibility to account for and/or explain actions undertaken. Public accountability is where it is incumbent upon a government body, an agency, board or commission, to account to the electorate, or the wider public, for a decision, for example, on policy or involving the expenditure of public funds. This is a definition we all know and understand. It is a principle that should be the basis of good government.
However we are again talking about how the current Liberal government has once again failed to be accountable to the citizens of Canada.
In 1997 the then finance minister created foundations, non-profit corporations, considered to be at arm's length from the government. He has since put more than $9 billion into foundations and yet $7.7 billion sits in the bank. What mystifies me is that the government has recorded these payments as expenses, even though the foundations do not expect to use the money for a number of years.
The majority of Canadians cannot afford to have their government hoard their money away for years, unspent, while continuing to be overtaxed. What Paul Martin and the Liberals have done is used an accounting tool--