Mr. Speaker, as usual, the member for Cypress Hills--Grasslands has cut to the chase. In his plain-spoken way he speaks volumes as to what should happen here.
It is nothing short of a shell game to take the money from one unaccountable and stealth-like program and put it into another foundation where we cannot track the money. The Auditor General herself has no ability, other than voluntarily if that foundation so chooses, to reveal the spending practices. For the Auditor General, there is very little assurance when the President of the Treasury Board says that the government is going to do this in a way that is consistent with other practices. All of this bombast is really just reshuffling the deck chairs on the Titanic . We are headed for a disaster if these foundations are allowed to continue to function without any accountability, without direct reporting to Parliament, without the Auditor General having the ability to have her officials go in and examine how the money is being spent.
This is what it is about. It is about responsible spending practices and the Auditor General giving the public the ability to judge for themselves whether that money is being spent properly, as we are seeing now with the Gomery commission. Clearly the jury may be out as far as the commission is concerned, but most Canadians know that buying advertising, and buying it only through Liberal friendly advertising firms, is not consistent with how they would like their tax dollars spent.