Mr. Speaker, obviously, it is a great pleasure for me to speak today to Bill C-277, an act to amend the Auditor General Act (audit of accounts).
First, I want to pay tribute to the efforts of my colleague from Repentigny, who is expertly leading this battle. Everyone knows he is an experienced, dynamic and clever MP, who has been here since 1993. I hope that Bill C-277, an all-encompassing bill, will therefore receive strong support from both sides of the House and all four political parties, in order that it may pass.
For a long time, the Bloc Québécois has been trying to make the various federal foundations more transparent. In our opinion, the best solution would be to abolish them and ensure that parliamentarians retain control over public funds. If that is not possible, we believe that it is imperative to increase our control over these foundations, as well as their accountability.
So that everyone both inside and outside the House can truly understand what we are talking about, we need to ask ourselves a few simple questions and try to answer as best we can.
The aim of Bill C-277 is to refocus the public debate on the approximately $9.1 billion that has been allocated to federal foundations since 1997.
We are introducing Bill C-277 because the federal government is misappropriating part of its huge surpluses by investing in foundations that are outside Parliament's control, and therefore outside the control of the people's elected representatives and the Auditor General.
This tactic allows the federal government, among other things, to invest in an underhanded manner in areas of jurisdiction for which Quebec and the provinces are directly responsible. So this is a way for Ottawa, in this case, to use the back-door approach when it cannot use the front door.
The way to avoid this is, first, to adopt Bill C-277, which will give the Auditor General the right to examine how taxpayers' money is spent.
Five organizations and crown corporations do not fall under the authority of the Auditor General but would if the bill introduced by my friend from Repentigny were adopted. They are Canada Post, the Business Development Bank of Canada, the Canadian Race Relations Foundation, the civil service superannuation plan and the Canada pension plan.
As for the foundations, we are talking about those paid $100 million or more. I think we agree that $100 million is a bit more than pocket change. Obviously we are talking about some very large amounts that require at the very least some scrutiny by parliamentarians. In fact, one of MPs' primary responsibilities is keeping an eye on taxpayers' dollars, the various types of taxes that millions of Quebeckers and Canadians pay into the federal coffers.
I certainly do not wish to denigrate the work done by my colleague from Repentigny in any way, but he really has not reinvented the wheel in fact. He merely wants to put into practice within a legislative framework the recommendations of both the Auditor General and the Standing Committee on Public Accounts.
The idea behind this bill, contrary to what some may have heard, is not a reaction to the sponsorship scandal, although I could spend a lot of time on that. As you know, the Gomery inquiry has almost as large a Canadian TV audience as popular series like Les Bougon . The source of the initiative is not the sponsorship scandal, but rather three specific documents.
First of all, there is the Auditor General's report. I would remind hon. members that the Auditor General is not political; she is instead an officer of Parliament, that is of all of us. In April 2002 she tabled her report, and the accompanying press release reads as follows:
Substantial amounts of public money have been transferred to foundations. I am concerned by the limits placed on Parliament's ability to scrutinize them.
Later, she stated:
The audit found significant gaps and weaknesses in the design of delegated arrangements;
limits on what the Auditor General can look at, which prevents her from giving Parliament proper assurance that the use of federal funds and authorities is appropriate;
the “parking” of billions of dollars of the public's money in foundations, years before it is to flow to the intended recipients;
little recourse for the government when things go wrong; and
limited opportunity for Parliament to scrutinize these delegated arrangements.
We found that the essential requirements for accountability to Parliament-credible reporting of results, effective ministerial oversight, and adequate external audit-are not being met.
So that was back in April 2002. In accordance with parliamentary procedure as we know it, the Standing Committee on Public Accounts examined the report in April 2002, and tabled its report in turn in May 2003. It will soon be two years since that date.
What did it say? There was one key recommendation, which read:
That, for those foundations either created through legislation, or receiving significant federal funding [...] the federal government appoint the Auditor General of Canada as external auditor of these foundations.
The Standing Committee on Public Accounts was talking about $500 million. My colleague from Repentigny wanted to reduce that amount to $100 million, which, in my opinion, is quite reasonable.
However, in response to this recommendation, the government said:
Requiring foundations to accept the public sector type standards and operations as well as establishing the Auditor General of Canada as their auditor as identified in recommendations eight through thirteen, could undermine the independence of foundations, reduce their operational flexibility—
In my opinion, this response is completely false and foolish, perhaps even slightly crazy. I hope this was merely a slip of the tongue by the government and I hope the government will support Bill C-277.
The purpose of this bill is simply to make public funds management more transparent. The Prime Minister is the one who described himself as the slayer of what he called the democratic deficit. One way to get rid of the democratic deficit is to give back to elected parliamentarians all the tools and means necessary to closely monitor the work of parliamentarians, legislative work and governmental work. One way to help parliamentarians do so is to provide all the information they might need, for example: where do taxpayer dollars go? What do the foundations do with these billions of dollars in public money? What do Crown corporations do with this money from Quebec and Canadian taxpayers?
In conclusion, I want to reiterate my congratulations to my colleague from Repentigny for being highly effective in this matter. I urge my colleagues from the Liberal Party, the Conservative Party and the NDP to support this bill, which I would describe as inclusive, as it is non partisan. Simply put, this bill will provide us with all the necessary tools to do what is required of us under this British parliamentary system, which is to control the actions of the government and thereby help the Auditor General help us.