House of Commons Hansard #32 of the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was money.

Topics

Opposition Motion--Vote 35 in Main Estimates 2009-10Business of SupplyGovernment Orders

11:30 a.m.

Bloc

Jean-Yves Laforest Bloc Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question. As I said in my speech, it is very important to insist that the government be accountable. During the 2005-06 election campaign, this government promised that accountability would be a very important value in Parliament. It was so important that the government introduced accountability legislation and modified accountability for many people associated with the government. Today, the government is in denial, in a way, because it is proposing to set aside accountability for two or three months while it spends money on projects. But we do not know which projects, and Parliament will not be able to approve them. This raises serious questions. What is more, the government is talking out of both sides of its mouth.

Opposition Motion--Vote 35 in Main Estimates 2009-10Business of SupplyGovernment Orders

11:30 a.m.

Liberal

Paul Szabo Liberal Mississauga South, ON

Mr. Speaker, vote 35 under Treasury Board indicates that “Subject to the approval of the Treasury Board and between the period commencing April 1, 2009 and ending June 30, 2009,” these moneys are to be used “to supplement other appropriations and to provide any appropriate Ministers with appropriations for initiatives announced in the Budget”.

That phrase, “to supplement other appropriations”, all by itself basically says that the government can use it for anything it wants, even if it is not in the budget. That is a problem.

Again, I think it is reflective of the lack of transparency, openness and accountability of the government to suggest that somehow this $3 billion is going to be used for purposes that may not even address the objectives that Canadians want to see, which are to save current jobs, to create new jobs, and to help the vulnerable in our society on whom this economic crisis will have an impact.

I wonder if the member shares the view that again the government is using wordsmithing to somehow avoid accountability, which is a prerequisite for all Canadians.

Opposition Motion--Vote 35 in Main Estimates 2009-10Business of SupplyGovernment Orders

11:35 a.m.

Bloc

Jean-Yves Laforest Bloc Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC

Mr. Speaker, that is an excellent question, and I would like to comment.

However, as we wonder whether the government is trying to get around basic accountability rules and we question the fact that it wants to fund projects that, by its own admission, are not even included in the current budget, the big question is why did the Liberals support this budget, when it was poorly drafted? Why are they going to support the $3 billion, which the member feels is improper and which, as I said earlier, is practically a slush fund?

I can comment, but I have a hard time understanding the Liberals' position.

Opposition Motion--Vote 35 in Main Estimates 2009-10Business of SupplyGovernment Orders

11:35 a.m.

NDP

Thomas Mulcair NDP Outremont, QC

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased also to have this opportunity to speak to the Liberal motion.

I must admit that they were particularly inspired in drafting this motion, since they have in large part copied mine. For a number of weeks we have been raising the idea in this House that the government ought to be more accountable to this House, hence our idea that accountability be required of the government.

The Liberal motion lacks a number of things, however. One point it fails to mention is that this is a secret fund, i.e. one that the government can dip into without parliamentary overview.

When looking at these issues it is sometimes important to understand the history of the parliamentary rules involved. This one is actually rather old. It goes back to Runnymede in 1215. In fact, the Magna Carta only mentions older forms of taxation such as scutages and aids. By the end of the 1200s, 1297 to be exact, Confirmatio Cartarum made it illegal to approve this type of spending except with the authorization of what was then the Commons.

It is the same thing here. This is one of the oldest rules in the British parliamentary system, that the executive is responsible for preparing a budget. Nobody questions that. What is at issue here is whether the House of Commons is going to be able to control that spending.

The Liberals are in a bit of a bind on this one because they have given the government a blank cheque. They love snapping their suspenders and claiming that they have put the government on probation. Of course, in fact they have given the government their approbation. They have approved everything every step of the way.

The reason they have done that, of course, is that they are afraid to stand up and say something in the House that would displease the government.

I caught one of the questions asked of the Liberal presenter earlier, and I found it quite interesting. One of the Conservatives asked how he was going to vote this afternoon. He stood up, blustered and said, “Of course I am going to vote for it. It is my motion”.

I think there might have been a little lesson in that from the Conservatives. It is now well over 60 times that the Liberals, first under the member for Saint-Laurent—Cartierville and now under the member for Etobicoke—Lakeshore, have voted their confidence in the Conservatives. So they lack all credibility when they stand up in the House and claim that they want something done differently.

Here the Conservatives are undermining and attacking the very foundations of our parliamentary system. They are attacking the right of the House of Commons to supervise and provide oversight to government spending. They want a $3 billion blank cheque. It is not the first time in this whole budgetary process that the Conservatives have cynically taken advantage of the very real economic crisis to deliver poison pill after poison pill of their right-wing ideological agenda.

Let us look at some of the things that were in the budget that the Liberals backed and voted for.

Despite claims on the other side to be in favour of the Canadian Charter of Rights, despite the fact that Pierre Trudeau, a Liberal, brought in the Canadian Charter of Rights over a generation ago, Liberal member after Liberal member stood up and voted against a woman's right to have equal pay for work of equal value.

That is right. That is shameful, but that is what the Liberals did because they have no values. They simply do not believe anything.

We are going to get another demonstration of it today. After having voted for the budget and giving the blank cheque to the government, the Liberals are now going to stand up and claim that they want to put some sort of controls on it by asking for ex post facto rendering of account here in the House.

What else was in the budget in terms of a poison pill? The government has taken away social rights, legally negotiated bargaining rights. It has removed them with the stroke of the pen, and the Liberals have voted for it. It is removing the Navigable Waters Protection Act. These great believers in the environment, the same ones who signed Kyoto, saying they believed in the environment, what did they actually do on Kyoto? They presided over the single greatest increase in greenhouse gas production of any country in the world. That was the Liberals with 13 years in power.

It is a good thing that Eddie Goldenberg was kind enough to deliver a speech in the spring of 2007 before the London Chamber of Commerce and then put it into his book. He was former chief of staff of Jean Chrétien. He said that when the Liberals signed Kyoto, they had no plan and no intention of respecting it. He said that they signed it for the purpose of galvanizing public opinion. CQFD, it was a public relations stunt.

That is the Liberal Party of Canada. It talks a good game on rights and then puts in a leader who is already on the record as saying that the torture by a state of human beings can be justified because it is the lesser of two evils. It is the same leader who, from his august seat in a prestigious American university, encouraged George Bush in his invasion of Iraq.

That is the leadership of the Liberal Party of Canada today and that is why Canadians have to know what the Liberals have done in the House in the past couple of weeks. They have abandoned any claim whatsoever to representing social or progressive ideals.

People have a right to know what the Liberal Party has become at this time. Today's events are further proof of that. Liberals are proposing, after spending $3 billion, that the Conservatives have to provide some sort of accounting to the House. What they are forgetting is they have already approved all that spending and have delegated that authority to the government.

However, the most interesting thing this afternoon is going to be whether the government makes this a confidence motion. If it does, we are going to watch the Liberals vote against themselves. It will not be the first time we have seen that. We have seen them propose something in the House, the government makes it a confidence motion and the Liberals vote against themselves. It is an absolutely pathetic spectacle, but one that we have grown used to.

Back in November, we were in full economic crisis. At the end of November, the Conservatives arrived in the House and were still predicting a budget surplus. It was total science fiction, but it was not going to stop them. They said that we were heading for a budget surplus. They brought in a fiscal and financial update. Instead of stimulating the economy like the G7 and the G20 said we had to do, they simply told a bald face lie to the Canadian people, saying we were heading for a budget surplus.

No such thing was going to happen, and that was clear from the analysis of Kevin Page, the Parliamentary Budget Officer. That was clear from the analysis of every thinking private sector economist. Everybody knew that Canada was already in a deep recession.

Prior to that, Conservatives had said if we were going to be in a recession, it would have already happened. That was not true. Then when they finally had to admit we were in a recession, they invented a new category that only applied to the Conservatives, which was that Canada was only going to have a technical recession, whatever that was supposed to mean.

Then the Conservatives brought in the update. What did it have? It had an attack on women's rights. It had an attack on social collective bargaining rights. It had an attack on the clean party financing that was put in place in the wake of the biggest political financial scandal in Canadian history, the Liberal sponsorship scandal, wherein the Liberal Party and its agents stole millions of dollars from Canadian taxpayers. A clean party financing system was put in place and the Conservatives wanted to get rid of that with a stroke of the pen.

It is worth noting that two months later, on January 27 when the Conservatives brought in their budget, they were still removing a woman's right to equal pay for work of equal value. They were still removing union and social rights. The only thing they put back was clean party financing. Therefore, the Liberals stood and voted for it. That makes their priorities completely clear. The Liberals will only vote for it if they are taking care of themselves. Abandoning women's right to equal pay for work of equal value does not bother anybody in the Liberal Party of Pierre Trudeau any more. The Charter of Rights be damned. They do not care about any of that.

The Conservatives went further, though, in January. The attack on the environment was pre-announced when a document was leaked from the environment department, showing that they planned to gut environmental assessments in our country. They were going to put in a new rule that any project under $10 million would no longer require an environmental assessment.

Imagine for a second if that were brought in. A precious wetland, which a mayor of a municipality has been longing to backfill in order to put in an industrial. As long as the industrial park infrastructure is not more than $9.9 million, the mayor can fill in the precious wetland because there will not even be an environmental assessment any more.

It is not the economic value of the project; it is the environmental value of what one backfills and destroys. However, that does not matter to the Conservatives, either. They are removing the protection of the Navigable Waters Protection Act.

It was an interesting experience for me, having spent 15 years in Quebec City as an elected official and minister and 15 years prior to that as a director and president of a large regulatory agency. I did not know the lay of the land as well as some did in Ottawa, of the behaviour of the Liberal Party of Canada. Honestly, it is breathtaking and it is something to behold. We watched them day after day come in and complain about something.

I heard the hon. member for Beaches—East York stand up and in a very moving speech in the House say how terrible it was that the Conservatives were taking away a woman's rights to equal pay for work of equal value. I met her in the hallway after that. I asked if she would do the same thing as the Newfoundland and Labrador members of Parliament on the Conservative side had done, which was to stand and vote against their party and the budget. She turned beet red and said that she would do whatever she could. I saw her stand and vote for the budget to remove a woman's right to equal pay for work of equal value. The Liberal member voted with the Conservatives.

That is what happened in the House in the past couple of weeks. The masks have fallen. Any pretence on the part of the Liberal Party of Canada to claim that it represents progressive ideas, that it represents a forward-looking Canada, something we have always been proud of, is now gone.

The only national party standing for those values and rights is the New Democratic Party of Canada. I am extremely proud to be part of the NDP, especially at this time.

There are a very small number of things that could have been done very quickly and without difficulty to help people in these grave economic times. Hundreds of thousands of people have been turned out of work. It would have been the easiest thing in the world to remove the two-week waiting period for employment insurance.

What happens when people lose their jobs and they have no money? Most people are a week away from not having money in their bank account. They use their credit cards. What are the banks charging on those credit cards? Maybe 18%, 20%, or 22%. That is the reality. People put the first couple of weeks on credit cards. They have even more trouble getting out of debt and are getting very low employment insurance premiums that are being offered so far.

Across Canada there is a patchwork quilt of qualifications rules for employment insurance, which could easily be standardized. We could put more money into retraining and it would have been very easy to do that but for one thing. The Conservatives stole $54 billion from the EI account, transferred it into the general revenue fund, supposedly to reduce the debt.

That money had been paid as premiums, the way we pay premiums on life, car, or home insurance. It was for a specific purpose, for the people and workers who were earning those dollars. Their employers also paid into that fund. That is why the move the Conservatives made at the time was so reprehensible, and, again, they were backed by the Liberal Party of Canada.

It is a bit rich to hear the Liberal members this week complaining about the employment insurance roll. They are the ones who gutted employment insurance and lowered premiums. Now they are backing the Conservatives because they are one and the same. Canadians are faced with the Conservative-Liberal alliance party. There is only one strong voice of reason and principle on these important issues right now in the House, and it is the NDP.

For the past three years, the Conservatives have hollowed out the industrial sectors of Ontario and Quebec. Prior to the current crisis that began at the end of last summer, more than 340,000 jobs had already been eliminated from the manufacturing and forestry sectors, mostly in Ontario and Quebec. In the case of forestry, B.C. was also very hard hit.

The reason for that is quite simple. The Conservative ideology is that governments do not have a role in the marketplace. There is a pristine market that comes up with the best solution in all these cases. What the Conservatives did was give away $60 billion to the most profitable corporations.

Why the most profitable? By definition, if a company in forestry or manufacturing was hard hit by the high Canadian dollar and had not made a profit last year, it did not get anything back from a tax reduction since it had not paid taxes. The $60 billion went to the oil and gas sectors and to the banks in particular. They got the lion's share of those reductions.

When the current crisis hit, the government no longer had the fiscal capacity to take care of people. The Conservative ideology is all about that. It reduces the ability of government to do its job.

It was interesting to see what happened in the cases of listeriosis and salmonella. Those are jobs that governments have been assuming in the western world for well over a century. The essence of a modern state is taking care of the public good. What could be more important than providing clean water, taking care of sewage and inspecting the food supply chain that goes out to people's homes? The Conservatives abandoned that, but the Liberals had started it before them.

Most galling is the current minister made jokes about people dying from listeriosis during the election campaign and he is still there. That is what is so shocking and appalling about the Conservative government and its callous attitude towards these issues of public interest, safety and protection.

We are going to have another case coming up very soon. The Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police are on the public record saying not to reduce the protection offered by the gun registry. If that happens, society will be a more dangerous place. These are not a bunch of soft thinkers in a university setting. We are talking about the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police. The Conservatives will still try to gut the gun registry because it corresponds to their ideology.

I have a son who has been a police officer for 10 years. I know my colleague from B.C. has two sons who are police officers. When my son goes to a house where there has been a case of domestic violence in the Lower Laurentians, it is important, to the extent possible, that he know whether there are registered firearms in the house. It is a question of public protection. That is why this gun registry has to be there.

This year is the 20th anniversary of the Polytechnique massacre. Shame on anyone in the House who can stand up and reduce the protection of the gun registry. Shame on anyone who would put the lives of police and the lives of their fellow citizens in danger. However, that is exactly what the Conservatives will try to do.

The Conservatives have tried to remove the protections of the state and the regulatory structures, whether it is in terms of food, transportation or the environment as we mentioned before. There are whole sectors of public and social protection that they want to remove. They have been in lockstep with their Liberal coalition partners, who every step of the way have voted to remove public protection and rights.

That is the scandal of a party that still bears the word liberty, liberal, in its name but does not believe a single thing. That is the Liberal Party of today, with its new right-wing leader. That is why the Liberals have no trouble offering their support to the Conservatives. They have the unmitigated conceit to claim to have put the government on probation. What a patent fraud. They have given the—

Opposition Motion--Vote 35 in Main Estimates 2009-10Business of SupplyGovernment Orders

11:50 a.m.

Liberal

Paul Szabo Liberal Mississauga South, ON

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order of relevance. I understand the member's concern about a variety of issues, but the motion before the House today relates to vote 35 under treasury board, with regard to, specifically, the issue of the $3 billion of additional funding from April 1 to June 30 and the request under the motion that reports be filed in the House.

I am concerned about listeriosis. I am concerned about gun registry. I am concerned about all the other issues the member has talked about, but respectfully, he should address the motion now before the House.

Opposition Motion--Vote 35 in Main Estimates 2009-10Business of SupplyGovernment Orders

11:55 a.m.

Conservative

The Deputy Speaker Conservative Andrew Scheer

There is only about a minute left in the time provided for the hon. member for Outremont. If he could be mindful of the motion that is before the House in his time remaining, we will then move on to questions and comments.

Opposition Motion--Vote 35 in Main Estimates 2009-10Business of SupplyGovernment Orders

11:55 a.m.

NDP

Thomas Mulcair NDP Outremont, QC

Mr. Speaker, if you had listened to what I was saying, you would have understood immediately that I never strayed from the one subject before us today: the shameful and anti-parliamentary behaviour of the Conservatives with respect to our parliamentary traditions, with the complicity of the Liberals.

Since this new government began in November, we have seen them taking away rights and we have seen the shamefully spineless Liberals supporting them every step of the way. That is the scandal we are talking about, and that is why this motion is a matter of too little, too late.

Opposition Motion--Vote 35 in Main Estimates 2009-10Business of SupplyGovernment Orders

11:55 a.m.

Liberal

Paul Szabo Liberal Mississauga South, ON

Mr. Speaker, with regard to the motion before the House on vote 35, specifically the spending of the $3 billion but more specifically than that the reporting of the projects that are going to be funded under this between April 1 and June 30, the member will well know that projects need to be identified, justified, signed off on and the amounts need to be determined. To spend that kind of money over that period of time, that information is already well under way, if it exists at all.

The issue for me, notwithstanding the member's concern about a variety of other issues, is that the motion is a declaration that we do not trust the government to do what it said it would do and specifically the phrase in there about funding and other appropriations that can be interpreted that it would not relate to budget related matters.

This is an important question. I respect the member and I hope he will give his thoughts on the necessity of the government to demonstrate transparency, openness and accountability and to provide such reports so that the House is confident that the appropriations of some $3 billion currently unspecified will be acceptable and will meet the objectives that we were trying to meet with regard to the stimulus package for Canada.

Opposition Motion--Vote 35 in Main Estimates 2009-10Business of SupplyGovernment Orders

11:55 a.m.

NDP

Thomas Mulcair NDP Outremont, QC

Mr. Speaker, I took note of the exact words of my colleague from Toronto. When he says that the information is well under way, despite the fact that I believe I master both official languages, I have no idea what that means.

If it were not for the fact that the Liberals supported the Conservatives in undermining the role of this Parliament, we would not need to be debating this motion. Even though it is too little too late, obviously it is better than nothing and we are going to support it. As I mentioned at the outset, it is essentially the idea that the NDP put forward several weeks ago.

What will be most interesting to see, if the government declares it confidence, will be whether the Liberals wind up voting against themselves as they have done every time. They are so worried that they back the Conservatives on absolutely everything: removing women's rights, destroying the environment and removing social rights. The only time they ever stood and said that they were willing to vote down the government was when they were going to lose some of their own money for political party financing.

The reason I talk about the Liberals' money as opposed to the others is that the Liberal Party of Canada relies more on public financing because nobody gives the Liberals any money. They used to rely on big donations from very few people. Now that we are supposed to survive by getting smaller donations from a large number of people, the Liberals cannot do financing anymore.

Opposition Motion--Vote 35 in Main Estimates 2009-10Business of SupplyGovernment Orders

11:55 a.m.

Liberal

Paul Szabo Liberal Mississauga South, ON

Mr. Speaker, the member has repeated his argument about how people voted on the budget many times, and I respect his opinion, but he needs to understand that if the government were defeated on this budget, notwithstanding all the poison pills and all of the lack of accountability, it would mean that Parliament would again stop, that the stimulus and the economic assistance to Canadians in this national economic crisis would stop and that Parliament would not get to the same point we are now until sometime next fall, next October or November, at a time when Canadians need Parliament to be working.

I would hope that the member would at least concede that there is a significant risk that the economic stimulus that he supports as well will not happen and will not be there to assist Canadians if the government is defeated at this time. The member needs to acknowledge that at least.

Opposition Motion--Vote 35 in Main Estimates 2009-10Business of SupplyGovernment Orders

Noon

NDP

Thomas Mulcair NDP Outremont, QC

Mr. Speaker, here is what we acknowledge. For weeks we have been listening to Liberals stand in the House, tear out their forelocks and take their hankies out to wipe a tear from their eye as they say how terrible the budget is and how awful it is that it takes away women's rights and the rights of future generations to have the same type of environment that we have known, on top of dumping on the shoulders of future generations all this debt. They find it so horrible that they will vote for it.

Opposition Motion--Vote 35 in Main Estimates 2009-10Business of SupplyGovernment Orders

Noon

NDP

Joe Comartin NDP Windsor—Tecumseh, ON

Madam Speaker, I wonder if my colleague could comment on a story in the newspapers this morning regarding a number of grants that were given to seniors' groups across the country. I do not have the article in front of me but I think about 30 grants were given out and only one was to a riding that did not currently have a sitting Conservative member.

Does my colleague see the same pattern with the $3 billion? Does he have any hope that when the Conservatives allocate the $3 billion, as it appears to be a slush fund, primarily to ridings that currently have Conservative members sitting, if that does show up as a pattern, that the Liberals would actually move to bring down the government or follow their normal pattern of voting with the Conservatives?

Opposition Motion--Vote 35 in Main Estimates 2009-10Business of SupplyGovernment Orders

Noon

NDP

Thomas Mulcair NDP Outremont, QC

Madam Speaker, that is a very important question. We have heard what the all-round Conservative champion, the Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities has had to say about this.

When he gets to the House, the Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities takes great delight in having everyone hear and see him pointing at his colleagues to announce “Your project has been approved. And yours. And yours.”

Recently, when he met with a group involved with urban mass transit, he told them straight out that cities like Montreal and Toronto—since there are zero Conservatives in Montreal and Toronto—can just sit back down and forget it, because there will be nothing coming their way. That is nothing but patronage, and what I would call a slush fund. This is why it is so scandalous that the Liberals are continuing to back the Conservatives up on this. It is very clear that, as far as the Conservative government is concerned, this is a great opportunity for pure unadulterated patronage. A person might think we were back in the Duplessis era.

The government is starting to adopt the attitude that, since the official opposition is nothing but a bunch of lapdogs and puppets that will let them do anything they want to them, why not take advantage of that. So that is what they are doing. They are going to set up a nice little fund for themselves and their little pals, $3 billion in hard cash just for them and their cronies. The Liberals will stand up and exclaim about how terrible it all is, but then they will vote in favour.

Opposition Motion--Vote 35 in Main Estimates 2009-10Business of SupplyGovernment Orders

Noon

Liberal

Paul Szabo Liberal Mississauga South, ON

Madam Speaker, the issue here is trust. The government has not been accountable on its expenditures. The member will well know that we have several hundreds of millions of dollars of infrastructure funding that was approved and ready to go for the current fiscal year ending March 31 and that will be allowed to lapse.

I recently read a story about fetal alcohol syndrome and the annual funding of $3.3 million for programs for children who suffer from alcohol related birth defects and one-third of that funding was allowed to lapse.

It appears that the government has a pattern of making promises and continuing to re-gift but it never spends the money. Does the member not agree that this is an issue of accountability?

Opposition Motion--Vote 35 in Main Estimates 2009-10Business of SupplyGovernment Orders

12:05 p.m.

NDP

Thomas Mulcair NDP Outremont, QC

Madam Speaker, I agree that the Liberal Party of Canada is at it again, standing and using a very important social issue in our society. A good friend of mine, who works in Toronto, works very closely with fetal alcohol syndrome.

The member stands and makes his case about how terrible it is that the government is taking money away from that important issue, or not spending it in this case, but he will vote for it. That is the fundamental paradox that the Liberals will need to deal with. They live in a bubble where they believe they can come into the House and convince Canadians that they have put the government on probation, believe it or not, as pretentious, ridiculous and absurd as that seems. They have even put up a website called “probation”. This is the biggest joke in recent Canadian political history, that this gang of lapdogs, these marionettes, these hand puppets of the government, would claim to have put the government on probation.

The only problem the Conservatives have whenever the Liberals say that they have put them on probation is that the Conservatives have a great deal of difficulty restraining their laughter.

Opposition Motion--Vote 35 in Main Estimates 2009-10Business of SupplyGovernment Orders

12:05 p.m.

Liberal

Anita Neville Liberal Winnipeg South Centre, MB

Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Pickering—Scarborough East.

I am pleased to have the opportunity to stand and speak to this motion today. As we have heard in the House already, this is very much a motion about trust, trust in this House of Commons and trust that Canadians do or do not have for their government.

While the Liberals agree that extraordinary action is needed to address the economic crisis, we believe that there is no need to sacrifice accountability while taking action. We are not requesting any additional red tape. We are asking the government to disclose, which can be done on a website as one of the tools, as we have done to hold it accountable. It is simply not credible for the government to ask for approval for spending but be unwilling to provide any details for it.

As parliamentarians, we have been duly elected by our constituents and we have a responsibility to examine, to perform due diligence and to know beforehand where these dollars will be going.

I would like to tell members a little about my own province of Manitoba. We hear the words “trust me” coming from across the way. There are challenges that those of us who are not in government face in Manitoba and in fact challenges faced by those in Manitoba who do not support the government.

I come from a small province. We know each other. We work together. We make things happen and frequently things happen in the jurisdiction of Manitoba way ahead of other jurisdictions because we cooperate. We work together. We know each other. We discuss and we collaborate and we make accommodations. However, we find some very serious problems with the current federal government. The Conservatives come before us in this House and tells us to trust them, that if we give them the money they will do it.

I come from a province where public servants of a different party and public servants across the board are often overtly intimidated by government members. That is a reality. The public discourse in Manitoba often includes misleading the public on the positions of elected representatives from other parties. That is a reality. Most recently, we had a cabinet minister in Manitoba sit outside the door of an auditorium keeping track of those who came and went when hearing the leader of another party speak.

Funding is announced, reannounced and reannounced once again, and little of the money flows. A disproportionate amount of the funding that is announced and that does flow does not go into ridings of opposition members. It only goes into ridings of cabinet members.

There are many more items of this sort that I could list.

The Conservatives' behaviour is troublesome. They tell us to trust them but their behaviour in Manitoba creates a climate of fear, a lack of trust and a lack of respect for other public figures, whether elected or non-elected. The government that campaigned on accountability said that it could not be held to account if Parliament did not know the accurate state of public finances. That was in its 2006 Conservative Party election platform.

How can the Conservatives be trusted with $3 billion when they have shown time and again that they cannot get the money out the door? I am repeating myself but I believe Canadians have a right to know ahead of time where their tax dollars are going to be spent and they have the right to know if these funds are being used solely for the proper economic stimulus measures that Parliament believes should be in place and that all Canadians can track, or whether these moneys are being used for partisan purposes and buying votes.

The issue is trust. The issue is the record that we have had in my province and it is an issue of great concern for us.

On the infrastructure projects, much has been said. In 2007, of the $8.8 billion building Canada fund, we know that only a small amount of it has flowed. The figure that is most commonly used is 6%, only $1.5 billion. So far the government committed only to $1.5 billion and only $97 million has flowed. The money is not out the door. Yet the Conservatives are asking us to please give them free access with this $3 billion slush fund. How can they be trusted with $3 billion of unaccountable money when they have not put out the dollars for the projects that have been announced and committed to and that have gone through the due diligence of department and Treasury Board surveillance?

The Minister of State for the Status of Women continually boasts that her department has funded the highest levels ever, but that money is not going out the door. In 2007-08, of the $30.1 million in total authorities, her department spent $25.3 million.

We know that there has been no proposal call since July 2008. Just this morning there was a group in my office asking when it will happen. We do not know. Why is this money not going out? Why is this money not flowing?

The $5 million that was slipped could have gone to women in need. It could have gone to projects denied by the government that we know met program criteria. Women's groups are being denied funding or being told where their funding must go. They are being told that they can have funding if it goes to a certain geographic area or program. Groups have received cuts and we know that women are being hardest hit by this recession.

We are also encountering a real discrepancy in status of women funding. We have heard members of the government in the status of women committee speak to the fact that we do not have the responsibility to fund areas that are within provincial jurisdiction, but there is a real ambivalence, because if a person can gain access to those programs that are funded by the status of women, and gaining access to them has become a bit of a challenge, we know that they are indeed crossing over into provincial jurisdiction. That is a challenge for us.

We also know that the criteria for program funding in status of women has changed with every subsequent minister. We have been asking for an opportunity to see the changing criteria. It has been weeks since we have asked for this both of the minister and of her senior bureaucrats and for some reason we cannot get it.

We talk about accountability and transparency, but there is virtually nothing on the website. Parliamentarians, the public and women's groups want to know, but there is nothing there.

Another issue I have with this $3 billion slush fund, for lack of a better comment as it relates to trust and transparency is that we have no indication to whom this money will go. That is a given. Do we know that it will go to the most vulnerable? Do we know that it will address poverty? Do we know that it will benefit Canadian women?

When we look at an analysis of the budget, we know that there was certainly no consideration of priority to the vulnerable. There was no consideration of priority to women. Again, transparency, trust, how can we count on the government to do it? It clearly wants a $3 billion blank cheque. I, for one, have a great deal of difficulty signing that blank cheque without the accountabilities that my colleague has proposed for the government.

As I mentioned earlier, the government has committed to funding time and time again in Manitoba, but the real challenge in Manitoba is that the money, when it is committed, trickles out, if it gets out. Continually there are announcements and reannouncements for major projects and press conferences are staged, but nothing is happening.

The Red River floodway expansion has been announced a few times. Of the $141.5 million committed to it, not all of it has gone forward to the floodway authority. We are waiting.

There is $18 million for Lake Winnipeg, the heart of the province of Manitoba. This funding has been announced and reannounced. There have been press opportunities and photo opportunities. People are waiting. The funding is not coming. There are small amounts coming out. This funding was announced in 2007 and 2008. If this money is not moving, why is a $3 billion slush fund needed?

Municipalities in my province need funding. Madam Speaker, as you are indicating that my time is up, let me just make the point that the Association of Manitoba Municipalities has been totally cut out of the infrastructure process. How can we trust a government that eliminates those who know best?

Opposition Motion--Vote 35 in Main Estimates 2009-10Business of SupplyGovernment Orders

12:15 p.m.

Conservative

Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON

Madam Speaker, I was initially heartened to hear my friend speak because she mentioned the problem of members and politicians misrepresenting the positions of those opposite. That gave me some hope that perhaps we were going to hear a sincere speech. Then I heard her refer to this necessary $3 billion as a slush fund. My friend has to know that it is no such thing. In fact she is misrepresenting the government's position.

I am going to ask this as a sincere question in the hope that I might get a sincere answer from my hon. colleague. Does she understand that the money in question is going to be fully reported in the June estimates? All we are trying to do is to avoid the necessity of having to do the paperwork immediately rather than in the usual course in June. Does she understand that the only difference between what the motion requires and that is two or three months to get the paperwork done?

Opposition Motion--Vote 35 in Main Estimates 2009-10Business of SupplyGovernment Orders

12:15 p.m.

Liberal

Anita Neville Liberal Winnipeg South Centre, MB

Madam Speaker, indeed, I do understand it, but I still have a difficulty with it. One does not write a blank cheque without knowing where the money is going. I say to the member opposite, there has been a great deal of money in the budget that has been ready to go out. It has been approved in previous governments. Why has that not gone out? Have the government and its officials been too busy, too hamstrung? What is it that has prevented the government from getting dollars out earlier, dollars that have been approved, committed and the government knows where those dollars are going?

My difficulty is in approving money without knowing where it is going. I do not dispute the importance of getting the stimulus out to Canadians, but I think it is incumbent upon us as parliamentarians to know where and how that money is going to be spent.

Opposition Motion--Vote 35 in Main Estimates 2009-10Business of SupplyGovernment Orders

12:20 p.m.

Bloc

Guy André Bloc Berthier—Maskinongé, QC

Madam Speaker, I think that leaving this $3 billion in the hands of the Conservatives is quite a departure from the spirit of the Federal Accountability Act passed a few years ago when the Conservative government came to power. We see how the ministers from Quebec use public funds for partisan purposes.

For example, 25% of the budget allocated to the Economic Development Agency of Canada for the Regions of Quebec was spent in a Conservative minister's region. As the Minister of the Environment himself admitted, the political ministers of each region will be consulted concerning this budget and how the money made available by vote 35 will be allocated.

This leaves the door wide open to political interference, which the Liberals are supporting. We have seen this since the Conservatives came to power. Money is always distributed based on partisanship.

Can my colleague explain how the Liberals can support this budget and, by the same token, vote 35?

Opposition Motion--Vote 35 in Main Estimates 2009-10Business of SupplyGovernment Orders

12:20 p.m.

Liberal

Anita Neville Liberal Winnipeg South Centre, MB

Madam Speaker, the issue is that we do not approve of the budget and what I call the slush fund. We must know where the moneys are going prior to their going out.

We recognize the importance of getting money out to Canadians. We recognize there are many important issues in the stimulus plan. We recognize there are many vulnerable Canadians. There is an expectation among Canadians that government will respond. That is the basis upon which we are taking action.

Opposition Motion--Vote 35 in Main Estimates 2009-10Business of SupplyGovernment Orders

12:20 p.m.

NDP

Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON

Madam Speaker, as has been stated by many journalists, accountability on how this money is going to be spent will be the acid test of the government's credibility. We are being told that if we do not hand over a blank cheque for the government to spend in whichever way it wants, which is a slush fund, we are somehow failing Canadians.

Does my hon. colleague not think that the fundamental obligation of members of this House is to ensure that the government is accountable in how it spends taxpayers' money?

Opposition Motion--Vote 35 in Main Estimates 2009-10Business of SupplyGovernment Orders

12:20 p.m.

Liberal

Anita Neville Liberal Winnipeg South Centre, MB

Madam Speaker, I could not have said it better. Our primary responsibility as parliamentarians is not only to represent the interests of our constituents but also to hold the government to account in its spending and to ensure that there is transparency, accountability and open dialogue on all spending.

Opposition Motion--Vote 35 in Main Estimates 2009-10Business of SupplyGovernment Orders

12:20 p.m.

Liberal

Dan McTeague Liberal Pickering—Scarborough East, ON

Madam Speaker, I am delighted to have the opportunity to join this very important debate.

The motion moved by my colleague from Markham—Unionville urges the government to recognize the importance of the $3 billion it is about to spend. The government is planning to spend at least $3 billion, but it has not provided any details about where the money is to be spent.

This motion is very important. It will ensure that Canadians know where the money is going to be spent and that they understand why it is to be spent, which is to stimulate the economy and help the people whom we, as members of Parliament, are very concerned about.

We want the government to be transparent, and we want to make sure that we have a good idea of where the money is to be spent.

I am obviously very pleased to have this opportunity today to speak to this very important issue introduced by my colleague, the member for Markham—Unionville. I know that while there is opportunity for us to demonstrate and to talk about the political side of this, I think the most important part of this is the insurance that we have a modicum of accountability that is consistent with the traditions of this House, with the committees, and with the traditions that Canadians expect that their government be accountable for every penny that it spends, particularly in difficult times.

The suggestion has been made, and I have heard it here from hon. colleagues on the government side, that somehow this is playing politics. I can assure members that what was playing politics was turning an economic crisis into a political crisis, and vice versa, when the government decided to pull away from this Parliament for two months and try to re-figure its program.

Of course, it is clear the government itself did not understand the import or did not want to understand the import of the looming crisis which members on this side, members like myself in committee and others, were well aware of over a year, a year and a half ago. I am reminded of the evidence of my good colleague from Edmonton, I believe, who was chair of the industry committee in November 2007 during the looming credit crisis.

I also, last year, indicated that there was a real concern with respect to the distortions in energy crisis which would have a troubling affect on the health and well-being of our economy.

The government is now, after several months of denial, calling an election, obfuscating, ignoring the obvious signs that are troubling around the world and that somehow Canada would escape these things. However, there is a final recognition forced by this party, forced by this Parliament, to effectively come forth with a stimulus program.

On this we do not disagree. But what is important, what is critical, and what is fundamental is that we observe the need to ensure that the moneys that are spent, which our children and our grandchildren might ultimately have to pay for, are spent wisely and with the maximum impact that provides not only transparency for us as parliamentarians, but I think for Canadians in general.

For those reasons, I support the motion presented by my colleague, the critic for finance and member for Markham—Unionville. I think it is an important step at demonstrating to Canadians that they can continue to have trust in the members that they elect and that are there to represent their needs at a very critical time.

I am very concerned that we are now in a situation where the government seems willing to resist, the government seems willing to move away from its sworn obligations, in fact, its own rhetoric that it used in many campaigns about transparency. We are asking for due diligence. We are asking that Parliament be given the authority, the right, which it has always had, to ask of the government how it intends to disburse funds. That is the essence of why we have a Parliament, a government that has to be accountable, that has to be responsible to this House. If we rupture that or break that or change the tradition because we suggest that extraordinary times justify bending the rules and changing the traditions, I suggest that in the day we will lose confidence and the trust the public has in our institutions.

In difficult times, as we have learned from previous crises and recessions, there were always concerns about trade impacts, there were concerns about how to stimulate the economy, but always, and it does not matter what historical version we take or the one that we saw in 1981-82 when we had a recession, it was absolutely critical that Canadians had a modicum of understanding and faith that governments in difficult times would stand up for them and that they would have an appreciation and understanding of the extent to which that action was taking place.

We have been flying blind. The government says that the $3 billion that it is prepared to put forward is one of those things where we simply have to trust the government and it will tell us down the road. I raised these questions with the President of the Treasury Board and with the Minister of Transport, but here is what we had yesterday, March 23, from the Auditor General:

It’s not unreasonable. $3 billion is a fair bit of money and they must have ideas, even in broad strokes, how that money will flow between April and June.

And here is the kicker:

I must say that I don’t buy the argument that they can’t tell them something — maybe not the detail of, say, what festival, or how much, but they could at least say where the money is going, whether it’s (to) infrastructure or festivals.

It seems to me that the very Auditor General who the House relies upon has sent a very clear signal. Take away the partisanship and the politics. In the past, the Conservatives have talked about their willingness to be transparent. The purpose for which this motion has come forward should be an easy one. It asks the government for four conditions: provide what the funding is, where it is going, how much will be spent in that particular area, and what impact that will have in terms of achieving the stimulus that we all agree needs to be done.

Sooner or later, the government is going to have to determine where that money is. I am hoping it is not covering up something that is embarrassing. However, what else can we conclude? We have seen a government that has let $2 billion to $3 billion in the previous budget lapse and made announcements that have had absolutely no impact. Those programs were never spent upon and as a result we have a situation in Canada today where programs need to be funded.

We need to know what departments are receiving those funds. We need some degree and modicum of accountability. If we do not have that, I would humbly suggest that we turn out the lights and all return home because the government obviously has a plan. It does not want to tell us what it is, but it takes the point of saying let us—

Opposition Motion--Vote 35 in Main Estimates 2009-10Business of SupplyGovernment Orders

12:30 p.m.

Conservative

James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake, MB

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. We do not have quorum in the House to carry on this debate.

Opposition Motion--Vote 35 in Main Estimates 2009-10Business of SupplyGovernment Orders

12:30 p.m.

NDP

The Acting Speaker NDP Denise Savoie

Call in the members.