Mr. Speaker, the motion we are speaking to today in the House of Commons is important because one of the things we know over the last several years is that Canadians have lost trust in their government.
Many of us know about the Gomery inquiry and the corporate sponsorship scandal. Subsequently, we have had other issues that have certainly raised concerns around whether Canadians can trust how money is spent in this country.
I want to point out to the House that the motion tabled today is very similar to the one the member for Outremont had proposed over a week ago. It speaks to the fact that members, certainly on this side of the House, have some serious concerns about the government having access to a $3 billion slush fund that it can distribute, although it claims that there is an accountability measure attached to it.
The sad fact is that often it will come to light many months after the money is out the door. It is like closing the barn door after the horse has already escaped.
The motion before the House is simply putting into place some measures. When we look at the wording, it says, “...the programs which are likely to require access to this extraordinary authority”. What the House is asking for is some oversight, which seems to be a perfectly reasonable request, in my view.
One of our responsibilities as parliamentarians, which we should never abdicate, is that money cannot be spent before it is approved by Parliament. As parliamentarians, we need to be able to go back to our communities with some assurance that the money the Canadian government is putting out will actually be spent in a way that Canadians can track and can see the deliverables on it. That just seems like a reasonable plan.
I am sure most Canadians have tuned into why we are discussing an economic stimulus package and why we are discussing accountability but I want to put a couple of things on record.
Every day in many of our communities we hear stories from people who have lost their jobs. In my riding, it is forestry workers. When I was in my riding last week doing my constituency work, I ran into a number of forestry workers who told me that their employment insurance was running out or that they did not qualify for employment insurance or the kinds of training programs being offered. One forestry worker said that he was offered retraining as a long distance truck driver. He is in his fifties and does not have the experience. He wondered where he would find work as a long distance truck driver.
We are seeing the direct and immediate impact of the loss of employment in our communities, whether it is forestry, manufacturing or shipbuilding. We are hearing those stories from our community members each day we are in our ridings.
Much of this is not new information. We have seen deep-rooted problems with poverty in this country for a long time. I want to point to Campaign 2000. Many members in the House are aware that in 1989 Ed Broadbent proposed a motion, which was passed by Parliament, to end child poverty by the year 2000.
In November 2008, before the Conservatives acknowledged that we actually had an economic problem in this country, when Campaign 2000 tabled its latest report card on progress, it reported that one in nine children in Canada still lived in poverty when measured after income taxes. That amounts to 760,000 children and their families who are currently living in poverty.
B.C. continues to report the highest provincial child poverty rate in Canada. If we listen to the current B.C. Liberal government, it says that up until recently the economy was doing very well, thanks very much, and so were people from B.C., but we know that whether it is health care workers, forestry workers, shipyard workers or children and their families, people in British Columbia have been suffering for a lengthy period of time and it has only been made worse by this current economic downturn.
I want to talk about housing. The Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development said that there was some money for housing in this current budget but none of us should think that will actually amount to a national housing strategy.
I often hear the Conservatives say that New Democrats are always criticizing but do not propose anything. That is absolutely false. We have been calling for a national housing strategy ever since I was elected to this House in 2004.