Mr. Speaker, I can assure the hon. member I will be back. Bernie Collins will not be back and neither will that member. What is more, I would ask the member to find out which particular bill we are speaking to. It is Bill C-48 which is the cooked up deal that was done in a hotel room and not the previous bill. The member is confused, but if he wants to debate the previous bill, that was an hour ago.
The bill before us now does not even set out what the objectives are for the $4.5 billion. It simply says:
The Governor in Council may specify the particular purposes for which payments referred to in subsection (1) may be made....
We had something like that in the gun registry. It was supposed to be $2 million and it ended up, according to accounts we have, being almost $2 billion. It is not a question that we want to throw money around.
The government wanted to fixed the problem in Davis Inlet so it moved a whole community at a cost of $400,000 per person. What happened? The problem followed the people. We need to have a plan. We cannot just throw money and buy votes. At least the Liberals did this much, they did not promise a lot. They said if, maybe and whatever.
What does concern me is what is in Bill C-48. It states:
For the purposes of this Act, the Governor in Council may... authorize a minister to
(e) incorporate a corporation any shares or memberships of which, on incorporation, would be held by, on behalf of or in trust for the Crown; or
(f) acquire shares or memberships of a corporation that, on acquisition, would be held by, on behalf of or in trust for the Crown.
That is like setting up the sponsorship scandal all over again.
The Auditor General said that only the tip of the iceberg has been talked about. She said that another $850 million has not been investigated. Set up a corporation for this government and do it arm's length from the Auditor General and let us see what happens. This bill is half-baked. It was cooked up in the middle of the night to buy votes and stay in power at all costs, and that is wrong.