Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate you on your French. It is getting better by the week. I know that you are working hard at it.
On April 29. I asked questions of the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development about the enabling accessibility fund. This was a $45 million, three year commitment to expand opportunities for people with disabilities. The fund was to support community based projects across Canada that improve accessibility, reduce barriers and enable Canadians, regardless of physical ability, to participate in and contribute to their community and the economy.
The approved projects were to have strong ties to their communities and to support their communities. A bit of investigation by the Liberal critic for human resources and skills development, who represents the riding of Dartmouth—Cole Harbour in Nova Scotia, revealed that the overwhelming majority of the funds went to Conservative ridings.
I think most Canadians would be astonished to learn that the overwhelming majority of disabled Canadians appear to live only in Conservative ridings. This appears to be a pattern with the Conservative government. It sees contribution programs, which are there to help all Canadians or certain segments of the Canadian population, in this case the disabled, as reward programs for members of that government, members of the Conservative Party.
In fact, when we looked into it we noted that overall a total of 61% of the approved projects were in Conservative ridings and only 10% of the total number of projects went to Quebec overall. Four projects were approved in the riding of the government House leader, four projects were approved in the riding of the Minister of State (Western Economic Diversification) and three projects were approved in the riding of the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development herself. There were $15 million of the $39 million, which were approved, that went to the riding of the Minister of Finance.
I would like the government to explain how it is that the approvals of applications appeared to have been overwhelmingly slanted to Conservative ridings. It appears to be, as I said, an overall trend of the Conservative government to be using and spending public money as if it is a rebate rewards program for the ridings that have elected Conservative MPs.
When the Liberal critic for infrastructure looked into what happened with the infrastructure projects, it found that the overwhelming majority went to Conservative ridings, not opposition ridings, notwithstanding that money was supposed to go to ridings that have clear needs in terms of infrastructure.
When one looks at a whole series of contribution programs, it appears the Conservative government thinks that public money is a rebate rewards program for those ridings that are held by Conservatives. It is shameful.