Mr. Speaker, with his usual insight, the member for Central Nova has really zeroed in on something very important.
A finite number of dollars are available for any purpose. Some people think money grows on trees. As a matter of fact, one Liberal told me that it does grow on trees because it is made of paper so it should be spent because trees keep growing. This showed the limits of their fiscal understanding.
Various Auditors General have commented on the fact that the government does not properly audit its spending. It spends many times on impulse for the momentary satisfaction of appealing to a particular consumer group or an advocacy group just to placate their concerns for the moment but there is no sense of the order of the magnitude of the spending, where it went or what the results were.
My colleague mentioned other groups that are supportive of this type of strategy and share our concern. We applaud the leadership of the Canadian Mental Health Association, the Canadian Cancer Society, the Canadian Alliance on Mental Illness and Mental Health and the Heart and Stroke Foundation. These are not small groups or organizations. They are large groups and they know what it is to be good stewards of the money they are given.
Do members know when we see these people? We see many of the volunteers from these organizations in the evening when they knock on our doors to raise money. They take time out of their busy schedules, their businesses and from their families to raise money the hard way. They do not have the same ability, as the government does, to simply, by fiat, go into the pockets of taxpayers and extort the money. They must go house to house using a variety of fundraising avenues in our communities to raise every dollar. These organizations must monitor where the dollars go. They must show results to their volunteer boards.
I would suggest that the federal government look at how these agencies control their money and how they value every dollar and start to consider that every dollar it has taken it has taken it out of somebody's pocket. Somebody worked hard for that money. Somebody sweated to raise that money. It should be properly spent and audited, especially when we are talking about people's health.