Debates of March 24th, 2009

Business of Supply

[Robert Vincent, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Madam Speaker, two messages have come across in the speeches. First, that people are playing petty politics at the Conservatives' expense, and second, that the President of the Treasury Board must tell us how he plans to spend the $3 billion. I have not yet received an answer, and I think that Canadians expect answers.

We do not want to be told that the government might inject some funds here and there or that some of the money will go to workers. Canadians want to know how the $3 billion is going to be spent. We want to know today, not at the last minute when this all comes into force and the government starts sprinkling cash wherever it pleases.

We already know that the Conservative Party is the most partisan party in the House of Commons. The Conservatives are only interested in helping their cronies, their members. That is what happened in Quebec, where a minister spent 25% of Quebec's BDC budget in his own riding.

Why should we trust a government that wants to spend $3 billion, but does not want to make sure that Canadians understand how the money is to be spent during this recession?

I would like to believe that they want to get the country out of this recession, but if that is really what they wanted to do, they would have made up their minds long ago. They would have told us what they planned to do in the economic statement, but they did not. That suggests that they have lost the confidence of the people and that members on this side of the House have lost confidence in the government.

[Vic Toews, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Madam Speaker, I might just reiterate some of my comments.

The $3 billion fund can only be used for economic action plan initiatives announced in budget 2009. It is clear the programs on which the money can be spent. It will be approved by this House. Every initiative funded from this vote requires the approval of Treasury Board. Existing policy requirements on accountability and reporting must be met. The Auditor General will be reviewing it. This process is entirely transparent.

When we as a government are contributing, in most cases one-third of the spending, we will not simply stand up and announce that this is what we will do. For example, in my home province of Manitoba, as a regional minister I sit down with the premier of the province or the relevant minister to determine which projects should be approved.

I can tell the member that the list of projects has not yet been finalized. There will not be that kind of ability to show those projects until the provincial government and the municipalities that will actually do the tendering process have approved. As soon as that agreement has been made and it has been announced in a cooperative federal manner, then all of the projects will be put on the website and there will be clear scrutiny.

If our government has approached this matter in a partisan way, as the member suggests, the people of Canada and this House will hold us accountable. I am confident that we will be able to meet the member's concerns and deal with this stimulus in a way that crosses all regions of this country and indeed all areas of the province in which he resides and represents.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Madam Speaker, there is a habit the government has that if opposition members do their job, we are attacked as traitors, as being seditious, and called 21st century Neville Chamberlains, anything it can throw at us. However, our job is to ensure accountability.

When it comes to accountability, in November the government told us there was no recession. It was going to have a surplus. It said that if we voted for the coalition, we would end up with $30 billion in spending and how could we justify that. Two months later the Conservatives said that not only do we have $30 billion in spending they need to get out right now, but they will have another $3 billion fund that is not going to have any oversight and it has to get out immediately. What happened to the great surplus that was supposed to have been there in November? It disappeared.

We are being asked to trust the government on blind faith, yet its record, in terms of its partisan spending is, as the Toronto Star said, extremely shoddy.

There is no confidence in terms of the government. The Conservatives attack us every time. They do not want to work with anybody. They seem to prefer to play to their base. Yet the issue at hand is whether or not we give the government a blank cheque to spend $3 billion without any accountability to Parliament. At the end of the day, our responsibility is to go back to our voters and tell them how that money was spent. That money has to be spent accountably.

If the member cannot deal with the fact that there has to be accountability, I think he has a problem and he probably does not deserve to be in government.

[Vic Toews, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Madam Speaker, I can appreciate that maybe my voice has not carried down to the far end of the chamber or the member was not listening. I can list the aspects of accountability and I can assure the member that there is no difference in respect of the accountability, how the money is spent, whether it is the $3 billion fund or any other fund of money in the Government of Canada. It goes through the same process and the same checks. We are simply asking to move the date up to authorize the spending of $3 billion from June 30 to April 1.

The member thinks about conspiracy theories. He was a member of a coalition that plotted in the dark to undermine the democratic will of the people of Canada.

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to take part in this debate on the official opposition motion. As I listened to the President of the Treasury Board, I noted that he presented a bit of disinformation and I would like to correct something. I encourage him to read the motion itself and not simply rely on the briefing notes prepared for him. In the first paragraph, the Liberal Party motion clearly states:

... this House calls upon the government to table in the House, by April 3rd, 2009, a list of the departments and programs which are likely to require access to this extraordinary authority; ...

The extraordinary authority is the $3 billion blank cheque. The President of the Treasury Board tried to confuse the issue by saying that the government will be unable to provide this information on April 3 because, when a project is approved, if it has partners such as the municipalities or the provinces, those partners must be willing to make the agreement or partnership public.

However, this has nothing to do with the government's ability to table in this House a list of the departments and programs which, as the motion states, are “likely to require access to this extraordinary authority”.

The President of the Treasury Board, the Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities and the various departments know whether their budgets will come out of the government's economic stimulus package.

If the President of the Treasury Board is claiming the government is unable to abide by the first paragraph of the Liberal opposition day motion, then that is an admission the government is clearly incompetent and does not merit the trust of Canadians to govern. For that minister to stand in the House and say that he does not know which departments might use this extraordinary power and that he does not know which programs may be used in effecting this extraordinary power is an astonishing admission.

I am sharing my time, Madam Speaker, with the member for Charlottetown.

I have been a member of the House since June 2, 1997. This is the first time I have heard a representative, a member of the government, say that he or she and the government do not know what departments or what programs may be used in order to realize certain objectives. It is unheard of. For the minister to stand and say that it would also be premature is nonsense.

The second part of the Liberal motion requires that once the approval is made, and clearly if there are partners it would be contingent on those partners also coming to an agreement and an actual accord, the government table in the House, within one sitting day of each such use, a report that discloses the name and location of each project to which the funding is being provided, including the federal electoral district in which it is located.

The reason this section is in the motion is the government's public records indicate that under its building Canada infrastructure program, the overwhelming majority of projects approved went to ridings held by Conservatives. I believe the figure is something like 77%. Clearly, there is something wrong.

The Auditor General, in the Ottawa Citizen on March 22, said:

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.

That is in stark contrast to what we have just heard from the President of the Treasury Board. I wonder why he is still in his position, given that he does not seem to have the basic understanding of how government operates.

The government comes to the House with a budget. It asks for spending approval and that approval is designated for certain departments and programs. For the minister to stand and say that the Conservative government cannot abide with the Liberal motion and that is why it will vote against it, is one clear admission of incompetence. If it is not incompetence, then it is wilful disregard to the public, to the right of Canadians to know how their tax dollars are being spent.

We are in too much of a dire situation to have the Conservative government play politics.

If we look at the employment figures for Canada only, in February we lost 82,600 jobs. That pushed our unemployment rate up to 7.7%. In January Canada lost 129,000 jobs. In fact, since October 2008, 295,000 Canadians have lost their jobs and have no income coming in.

We hear about Canadians who apply for employment insurance and wait two to three months before they receive their first cheques. Then we hear the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development show her ignorance of the law she is there to apply. She stated that someone who is eligible for employment insurance can access the fund the government put in place for training, even if they are not touching their benefits yet.

The minister does not know her own law. She stated that the budget is for people who do not qualify for employment insurance. Yet we have thousands of workers who have either lost their jobs or have been informed by their employers that they will lose their jobs before summer. They will receive some form of severance, but under employment insurance, they cannot begin to collect EI benefits until their severance has completely expired.

Under the Employment Insurance Act, those unemployed workers cannot access job training while they are living off their severance. How silly is that? If they were allowed to have their training immediately, there is a good chance they might find a job before their employment insurance benefits begin to flow. Saving money for the taxpayers and bringing in stimulus measures that make sense is too complicated for the government.

I urge all hon. members, including hon. members of the governing party, to read the motion, independent of whatever brainwashing information ministers have given them, and support it motion when it comes to a vote.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we have dealt with the largest economic meltdown in 80 years and it is a time when Parliament should work together. Yet we have seen the government ridicule and attack anyone questioning it.

The fact is we knew the recession was coming. The government said that there was no recession, that we had missed it and if there were a recession, it would have happened by now.

There was a complete lack of planning from the finance minister right up into November when he presented his motion before the House, which attacked pay equity. He had no plan for an economic stimulus.

Suddenly now there is a sense of urgency. Now we are being attacked for asking the government to tell use what its plan is. How will we know that this is not just scattershot spending of money? How are we to know that this $3 billion fund is not just a pork barrel project? We have not seen anything from the government that instills confidence.

Could the hon. member tell us what she thinks of a government that has misread the economic signs so badly and so continuously? How can we trust it with a $3 billion fund that is seen as a slush fund?

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, because of the government's record, because of its incompetence and inability to govern in an efficient and effective fashion and to tell the truth to Canadians, the official opposition has come out with its motion today.

It is an attempt to force the government, if it cannot be competent, effective or do the job, to at least give up the facts so Canadians can see these for themselves. It is an attempt to bring some form of accountability to the government. It is an attempt to demonstrate if my view that the government and the Prime Minister are incompetent, the facts will show it. The motion will force the government to reveal the facts on that $3 billion so it is not a slush fund.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the exact wording in the vote includes the phrase “to supplement other appropriations”. It goes on to say, “and to provide any appropriate Ministers with appropriations for initiatives announced in the Budget”.

It would appear that there are two separate items. One consists of the matters in the budget under the minister's responsibility. The other is to supplement other unspecified appropriations. This is an issue of accountability. This is an issue of openness and transparency.

I do not understand why the government would not want to provide the details of the proposed spending. Clearly all of the work necessary to put approved projects in place for this period of time would require months of work in advance. The only way to get it over the next three months is if that information is already available. Therefore, it should respond affirmatively to the motion before the House.

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, in response, I want to talk about why we should trust the Tories, the Conservatives, the government with $3 billion of Canadians' hard-earned tax dollars with no controls whatsoever.

Let us look at how the Conservative government has already spent money that was approved in the House in past budgets. If we look at specific infrastructure projects the government approved and announced in 2007 and 2008, 77.8% of them were in Conservative ridings, but the Conservatives represent only 46.4% of all ridings in Canada. When we look at the building Canada fund, they announced 37%. While 30% went to Conservative ridings, only 7% went to non-Conservative ridings.

Let me quote Greg Weston, who is an Ottawa Sun columnist. He said, “Welcome aboard”, and he used the Prime Minister's first name, “pork-barrel express”. That is why we have put forward the Liberal motion. We want to ensure that there is accountability, that the facts do come to light and that we do not wait for a year, two years, three years before an Auditor General report comes out.

[Shawn Murphy, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Mr. Speaker, in the few minutes allotted to me in this debate, I would like to frame the issue as part of a larger concept. The gist of this motion is that the government be required to tell Canadians how it is spending their money. It is a fundamental question that goes to the very essence of this institution, the House of Commons and Parliament, and by extension to the democratic institutions that we enjoy today.

It was not always this way. Our system of democracy, the Westminster system, got its roots on the banks of the Runnymede in the year 1215 when King John met an angry group of lords and noblemen. Before then the king or queen ruled by edict, but henceforth any taxation would require the consent of the people as represented and any expenditure of money would require the consent of the people. The governor, in this case the king, would have to meet the governed and be accountable for the taxes and for the way that money was spent. That was codified in the document known as the Magna Carta.

That is the system. Of course it has evolved considerably over the last 800 and some years and it is the system that we enjoy today. Fundamentally it is the basic system that if a government wants to tax Canadians, it has to be done by legislation that is approved by Parliament, and through Parliament by the Canadian people. It is the same when the government wants to take money from the general revenue fund. Through the estimates process, that has to be approved by Parliament. In other words the government has to tell the Canadian people how it intends to spend their money. I underline and emphasize the words “their money”.

In Canada our system of financial accountability starts with a budget which is the political document of the government in power that sets out the goals and objectives of what the government wants to accomplish. That has to be approved by the House, by the Canadian people. If there are any taxes, they have to be included in ways and means legislation which, before it becomes operative, has to meet the consent of the people. That is the raising of money, but then the spending of money requires the estimates process, the supplementary estimates or the main estimates. Again, that tells Canadians how their money is being spent. Before it is legitimized, it has to be approved by Parliament representing the Canadian people.

Of course there are the departmental performance reports, the departmental reports on plans and priorities which are all part of the supply process. That all concludes with the audited financial statements issued by the Office of the Auditor General which certify that the expenditure money is done in an accurate and compliant manner.

To the question at hand, the government wants to spend $3 billion. I assume it is a reasonable request but it is a breakdown in the chain as we know it. Because of the urgency of the matter, the government wants approval from Parliament to spend the money. Parliament has considered this. It has debated it and it has said it is a reasonable request. We will bypass the ordinary chain of accountability and allow the government to spend the $3 billion. Because of the time in which the Canadian public wants the money spent, there should be no delay. Everyone in the House of Commons agrees with that. There is no dissent on that.

However, in getting to the essence of what this debate is about, all we are saying is to tell us. Once the government has made its decision as to how, in what manner, where and when it is going to spend that $3 billion or any part of the $3 billion, it should tell us, tell the Canadian people.

For the life of me, I cannot understand why any member in the House, why any person in the country could be against that very simple concept. There is a $3 billion fund. It is going to be in the process of being appropriated. We, the Canadian people, have allowed the government to spend it on the general purposes that it has enunciated. All we have is a very simple request. It is understood by everyone. All we, the Canadian people, are saying is to tell us, once the decision is made, tell us how, why, when and where the money will be spent. I cannot understand why anyone would be opposed to this concept.

This comes back to a problem that certain members develop in the House after they have been here for a few years. They want to keep it secret because if it is kept secret, it cannot cause any problems. Where people get off the rails very seriously is that they have to come back and ask whose $3 billion we are talking about. Let us ask that question first. Does that money belong to the Government of Canada? Does it belong to the Conservative Party? Does it belong to the House of Commons? Does it belong to Parliament? Does it belong to the bureaucracy living and working here in Ottawa? No, it does not. In answer to the question as to whom the money belongs, it belongs to the Canadian people.

Through the representative democracy under which we operate, the Canadian people have allowed the executive to spend the money on their behalf. The Canadian people have a very simple request. They want the executive to tell them how, why, where and when the government is spending the money. That goes to the very essence of why we are here. We are all members of Parliament. For those of us who are not in cabinet, it is our fundamental job, duty and occupation to hold the executive to account that they spend the money in accordance with the authorities delegated to them and they tell the Canadian people through us as to how they are going to spend this money.

From what I heard today, the Conservative Party across the aisle does not want to do that. The Conservatives do not want to tell us why they want to spend this money. I am disappointed in the debate. Needless to say, they will be accusing me of all sorts of things in the questions and comments session. It is a very simple request. I think we should boil it down. What is wrong with telling the Canadian people why, where and how their money is being spent? I do not believe that this debate does anything to enhance the House. People watching this debate on TV will be shaking their heads asking what is wrong with the government telling them that it is going to spend $3 billion.

I should also point out that this time last year, Parliament legitimately appropriated $4.6 billion, I believe, to be spent on infrastructure projects. I stand to be corrected, and someone will correct me if I am wrong, but the fiscal year ends next Tuesday, March 31, and I understand that the government is only going to spend $1 billion or $2 billion of that money. It is going to leave $2 billion or $3 billion on the table. It is not even going to spend it. Now there is a great big urgency, and we agreed. We have a very simple request in return. We want the government to come back and tell us how it is going to spend the money.

Mr. Speaker, I see that you are signalling that I am out of time. I just want to say that I will be supporting the motion. I believe the public watching and listening to this debate will have no appetite for anyone who gets up and argues that the government is not going to tell Canadians how the government is going to spend the money. I urge everyone in the House to pass this motion immediately.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I, too, would like to boil the issue down for the people who are watching this debate. I would like my hon. colleague to comment on the question as I see it, which is only a matter of timing. Instead of forcing our civil servants to try and prepare daily reports as they advance funds under this envelope, we will report that information to Parliament with the supplementary estimates in June.

Is it not a little unfair for any hon. colleague opposite to suggest that this is about not providing information when really it is just about when we are going to provide the information? I would like my hon. colleague to comment on that.

[Shawn Murphy, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Mr. Speaker, nothing could be further from the truth. My understanding of the process in the spending of government money is that there is the application process, the negotiation process, the due diligence process, and at some point in time there is the contract, for example, to spend $1 million on the Ottawa sewer system. Once the contract is signed, the work is done. The public servants have done a lot of work leading up to that, but once the contract is signed, all they have to do is go to the website and indicate that they have just approved $1 million for the Ottawa sewer system, push the send button and it is done. It might take four or six seconds or somewhere in between. All the work is done in the due diligence process. I agree that it does take some time, but to file it with Parliament immediately, we are talking seconds.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I noticed my colleague referred many times to his surprise at the government's intransigence on this issue but it would speak to a very clear pattern. This is the wrong government at the wrong time. We have a Prime Minister who is habituated to conflict and not working together.

When this $3 billion fund was first raised and opposition members said what kind of accountability, what kind of oversight will there be, the Prime Minister's initial response was not to say that he would talk about it and explain it. He said that he would bring Parliament down and go to an election immediately unless the opposition bowed down. That is the wrong kind of messaging in a time of economic crisis and yet that is the pattern we have seen again and again.

The Prime Minister broke his own election law in September and said he could not work with the opposition because it would not work with his agenda and yet he had not met with any of the opposition about the agenda. He came back after the election for about five days and then he had to prorogue Parliament because his so-called economic stimulus package was so ideologically toxic that we were almost in a constitutional crisis.

Now we are here once again with the Prime Minister who uses buccaneer-style politics to say that if he does not get his way, if he is asked for any accountability, any oversight, if opposition members do any of their work, which is what they are supposed to do, he threatens to bring down the House.

Does my hon. colleague think the Prime Minister is even capable of taking us through a crisis like this given his predilection for conflict?

[Shawn Murphy, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I believe I would need more time to answer all those comments. One comment is we have to boil this down.

The $3 billion is a very important point. We agree with the Prime Minister that this should be spent as part of the stimulus package. This should be spent immediately. We agree with that. We agree with all the steps, but there is one step that we seem to have a major difference with, and that is the reluctance on the part of the government to tell us and all Canadians how it is spending our money. I am going to underline the word “our”. That is a fundamental problem. It is a violation of every democratic principle we all stand for.

I ask members across to reconsider their position on this issue and consider the repercussions when a government in power has asked for an unusual portion of the estimates process and once it gets approval will tell the Canadian people that it will not tell them how the money is being spent.

[Guy André, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Gatineau.

I am pleased to speak on this Liberal opposition day. The motion we are studying today comes in the wake of the Conservative government's 2009 budget, which the Liberals supported and the Bloc Québécois condemned. In this budget, the government asked for $3 billion to be spent by the Treasury Board by June. The details of this vote are still unknown, and the Conservative members are saying very little about it.

We do not know where or how the Conservatives plan to spend this money. We do not know which sector or which regions they want to target. In short, on the pretext that they have to get the money out quickly to boost the ailing economy, the Conservatives are asking Parliament to sign a blank cheque for $3 billion. The Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities has admitted that the political ministers in each region will be consulted on allocating the money.

This is a far cry from the federal Accountability Act. We now know that this government has a partisan, ideological agenda, and we have little confidence in it. This situation opens the door to political interference in allocating funding, at the expense of economic effectiveness. At a time when polls show that their popularity is waning and that people are unhappy with their political performance, the Conservatives will be able to use this money to win more votes instead of actually stimulating the economy.

In the interest of rigour and transparency in the management of public funds, the Bloc Québécois opposes the Conservative government's attempt to spend $3 billion with no parliamentary oversight. Too often, the federal government has shown that it can be negligent in managing slush funds, as the Liberal Party proved in the sponsorship scandal.

We have to admit that it is rather ironic that the Liberals, in today's motion, are concerned with rigour and transparency in the management of public funds, given that this party has a great deal of experience, even expertise, in the partisan use of public money. However, an analysis of the Liberal motion reveals that it does virtually nothing to prevent the Conservative government from spending the $3 billion as it pleases. In fact, the Liberal Party agreed to allow the federal government to use this $3 billion fund without parliamentary oversight when it voted for the budget and it is doing so again today with this motion.

Nonetheless, this motion does force the government to be accountable, albeit minimally. It is evident that the motion, as described by the Liberals, ensures that after the budgets are adopted, we will be informed too late to intervene in the use of these public funds. That is shameful and therefore we will continue to hound this government to ensure that the money disbursed from this fund is spent legitimately and equitably.

Apart from the issues of rigour and transparency in the management of public funds, the government's request for a vote of $3 billion shows another fundamental problem. This request demonstrates, once again, the ineffectiveness of the stimulus plan adopted by the Conservatives and supported by the Liberals.

The government was incapable of proposing an appropriate plan to navigate the crisis and now must ask the House for additional funds, which, it says, will allow it to propose recovery initiatives not included in its plan.

In other words, this measure demonstrates once again that the Conservative's 2009 budget did not address the crisis at all and did not take the needs of Quebeckers into account. It is a completely unacceptable budget for Quebec and for a population that, in this time of recession, was entitled to expect appropriate and sufficient measures from the current government.

We know that the Conservative government, with the Liberals' backing, has decided, instead of helping Quebec, to deprive it of important ways of dealing with this crisis. On the other hand, they have chosen to heed the wishes of Ontario, the west, and the oil companies, while, the furniture industry in Berthier—Maskinongé is struggling, as are the agriculture and forestry sectors everywhere in Quebec.

As for employment insurance, while 26,000 Quebec jobs were lost this past January, the Liberals and Conservatives decided to do nothing to remedy the accessibility of EI, even though approximately 50% of people losing their jobs are not eligible for benefits. What is more, they refused to do away with the waiting period and ensure that people can get their money as quickly as possible without penalty, in this time of economic crisis.

Not only is the government refusing to improve access to employment insurance, but it has also decided, backed by the Liberals, to let big business get out of paying billions of dollars in taxes by using tax havens. Those lost billions could have been put to far better use for the jobless and low income seniors. But no. There is one indisputable fact: while the Bloc wants to work for our regions and our people who are struggling the most, the Conservatives and the Liberals are still, as always, protecting the great multinationals that want to use these tax shelters and not pay taxes.

I could also speak of the changes to the equalization formula made without consulting Quebec, changes which will deprive Quebec, in these times of economic crisis, of $1 billion of the equalization payments it ought to have received this year.

To sum up, the Liberal Party's motion has given us yet another opportunity to demonstrate that this budget and the proposed measures do not meet Quebec's needs. This debate has also shown that it is impossible for elected representatives from Quebec who belong to major federalist parties in the House to defend Quebec's interests effectively, that only Bloc Québécois members can do the job, and that we need Quebec sovereignty has become more important than ever before so that we can control all of our own economic, political and social tools.

[Lawrence Cannon]

We have been hearing that it is important for 40 years now.

[Guy André, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Even the Conservative member opposite agrees that becoming a sovereign nation is very important.

[Shawn Murphy, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Mr. Speaker, the member spent a lot of his time talking about the budget and how, in his opinion, it did not benefit the people of the province of Quebec and that Quebec did not get its fair share. However, I do not think the issue really deals with that at all. It deals with the way these estimates are being presented, the failure on the part of the executive to share with Canadians how this money is being spent and that they are not sharing it with the people living in Manitoba, Ontario or Quebec.

Does the member not agree with me that the issue here has nothing to do with Quebec as a region or any regional differences, but that it goes to one of the basic tenets of our democracy and does not have anything to do with regions?

[Guy André, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the member has raised the issue of democracy. People pay taxes, and all regions, all Canadians and all Quebeckers are entitled to their due in return for the taxes they pay. The Conservatives have strayed far from the Accountability Act they brought in a few years ago.

We have seen the Conservative ministers from Quebec make partisan decisions about how to allocate funds to the regions. Therefore, we cannot trust the government with this $3 billion fund, which will no doubt be used to bolster their partisan policies as they face a significant loss of support in the polls because of the bad political choices they have made with respect to Quebec.

[Robert Vincent, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate my friend on his speech. He spoke about how the Conservatives are not very good at coming up with new plans. That is what members of this House have been saying for some time now. They have a plan for this and a plan for that, but when the time comes to define a given plan, they cannot, so they tell us anything and give us only a general outline.

Now, they want $3 billion that they can spend in some as yet unknown way. We are trying to find out how that money will be spent. I believe that there are indicators that can be qualified and quantified. When the Conservatives were elected in October, they did not have a plan or a budget, and they did not know what to do. They said, “There is a crisis. There is no crisis. We are going to pull through the crisis. Everything is fine.” Later, they realized that they were in trouble and that we were faced with a crisis. Their reaction was to shut us out and try to come up with a plan.

However, we must not lose sight of the fact that the Liberals supported all that. They had some bargaining power with the Conservatives, but they did not use it.

I would like my eminent colleague to tell me what he thinks of the Liberals, who support bad budgets and try to take money out of our pockets to line their own, the pockets of—

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

The hon. member for Berthier—Maskinongé.

[Guy André, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his excellent question. Of course, both the Liberals and the Conservatives have short-changed Quebeckers. In my opinion, Quebeckers understand that there is only one way to get out of this parliament, which is becoming partisan. The Conservatives are trying to get votes, as we saw in the most recent budget. They are trying to get votes in Ontario by giving more to the auto industry, but they are forgetting Quebec, because they get fewer votes in Quebec.

In my opinion, this is doing nothing for Quebec's social, economic and political development. If we controlled our own economic and political levers, had sovereignty and could use all our own tax revenues, we would not be caught up in this situation, this political squabbling, that threatens our very development.

[Richard Nadeau, Bloc, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am speaking today in connection with the Liberal Party motion concerning vote 35, that is the interim vote of $3 billion. Let us review the motion itself:

That, due to the extraordinary nature of the spending authority proposed in Treasury Board Vote 35 in the Main Estimates for 2009-2010, this House calls upon the government to table in the House, by April 3rd, 2009, a list of the departments and programs which are likely to require access to this extraordinary authority;

on each occasion that the government uses Vote 35, this House calls upon the government to table in the House, within one sitting day of each such use, a report disclosing:

(a) the name and location of each project to which the funding is being provided (including the federal electoral district in which it is located),

(b) the amount of federal funding,

(c) the department and program under which the federal funding is being provided,

(d) what each project is intended to achieve in fighting the recession, and why it requires recourse to Vote 35 rather than any other source of funds;

that each such report shall be posted on a publicly accessible government website, and referred immediately to the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates and to the Auditor General.

To begin with, the fact that the government wishes to appropriate the means by which taxpayers' dollars are to be spent is totally unsatisfactory and disrespectful of democracy. Let us start off by acknowledging that the Conservative budget is clearly insufficient and unacceptable for Quebec. I will take this opportunity, Mr. Speaker, to give you an example of this, since I know you are very attentive to the question.

In the last budget, the forestry industry is allocated an envelope of $170 million, while close to $4 billion in loans are offered to the auto industry. A rapid calculation if we put those two amounts together gives 4% for forestry and 96% for the auto industry. This is unequal and unacceptable.

I am thinking today of the workers at Abitibi-Bowater in Gatineau, who are waiting for another downsizing exercise. This paper mill employed 1450 in 1992, but the figure had dropped to 580 in 2007 and is now less than 400. Abitibi-Bowater, the biggest newsprint producer in the world, is now involved in debt restructuring. Its deadline for announcing its plan is tonight.

It is quite understandable for workers to be holding their breath, because they are wondering, quite simply, whether there will be more job losses. We have to feel for these folks. The budget does not.

We can certainly understand the remarks by Gaston Carrière, the president of section 142 of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada, which has a membership of some 370 tradesmen at the Gatineau pulp and paper mill. In this morning's Le Droit, he criticizes the federal government's lack of intervention to help the forestry industry while the automotive industry in Canada is getting nearly $4 billion in loans. Pulp and paper in Canada has lost 25,000 jobs in the past two years or so. It is scandalous.

Mr. Carrière went on to say that they had been through streamlining, that the Gatineau plant was among the most efficient and that they had worked to increase productivity and competitiveness. He pointed out that the government helps the automotive industry and the oil industry in the west.

Mr. Carrière is not very impressed by the Prime Minister of Canada and his refusal to help the forestry industry.

In the light of Mr. Carrière's remarks, we reiterate that the Conservative budget is totally inadequate and unacceptable to Quebec. In addition, the Liberal party failed to assume its responsibilities and preferred to have the budget passed, a budget that did not meet Quebeckers' needs.

Out of concern for rigorous management of public funds, the Bloc québécois opposes giving the federal government a blank cheque for $3 billion.

The federal government has been negligent in the past in its management of secret funds, as the sponsorship scandal revealed.

The Liberal party will give the Conservative government the sum of $3 billion, which will not be under the control of Parliament.

The Liberal motion does not alter the fact that the Conservative government will be able to spend the $3 billion however it likes.

The Liberal motion obliges the government to be accountable, albeit minimally, in managing the $3 billion under vote 35.

Despite the passage of this motion, the Bloc will continue to hound the Conservative government to ensure that the money invested from this secret fund will be spent legitimately. The details sought by the Liberal party are a start, for sure, but quite inadequate. On the basis of this principle of accountability, we will support this motion.

After the 2009 budget was tabled, the Conservatives tabled with the main estimates, a request for a vote of $3 billion to be spent by June 2009, this coming June, by Treasury Board. So, 11/12 of this vote will be voted on this evening as interim supply.

The details surrounding this vote are unknown and that is the scandal. In other words, under the pretext of rapidly injecting money into the economy, the Conservatives are asking Parliament to sign over a $3 billion blank cheque.

Yet as the Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities himself admitted, the political ministers of each region will be consulted concerning the allocation of the money made available by vote 35. This is what I would call favouritism.

In that regard, I would like to quote from a period of questions in the March 5 meeting of the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates, that is, 19 days ago. My colleague, the transport critic and member for Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, asked the Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities the following question:

My second question is about community recreational facilities. The Minister of State Responsible for the Economic Development Agency of Canada for the Regions of Quebec, [the Conservative member for Roberval—Lac-Saint-Jean], announced that his department was prepared to receive applications, but no forms are available. Earlier you mentioned that the [Minister of Public Works and Government Services, the Conservative member for Mégantic—L'Érable], was also looking after this file. Which [of the two ministers] will manage programs for community recreational facilities in Quebec?

The Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities, the Conservative member for Ottawa West—Nepean, replied:

I work constructively with all my cabinet colleagues.

Listen carefully, for all is revealed in his next comment.

The political minister in each region is obviously one of the principal advisers whom I would turn to for advice and counsel. [The Conservative member and minister from Roberval—Lac-Saint-Jean] works for the Regional Economic Development Agency for the Regions of Quebec. Obviously that might be a delivery agent for one or more initiatives. We'll be coming forward in very short order with some specifics on that.

That is favouritism. Is that not scandalous? The Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities will consult his colleagues in each region—the Minister of Public Works and Government Services this time and maybe the Minister of State responsible for the Economic Development Agency of Canada for the Regions of Quebec another time—to determine whether the project is worthwhile rather than examining the quality of the project, all without having any criteria. That is favouritism, that is taking taxpayers' money and doing what they want with it. And to do what? To put up a building here, in a riding that did not win a project last time, or to build a road there, in a riding they want to hold onto in the next election. This is an appalling and unacceptable way of doing things.

I am thinking of forestry workers, the paper mill workers in Gatineau today, who will find out tonight if they are still employed. The federal government has money and what does it want to do with the $3 billion? It wants to hand it out to friends because it is not in the least accountable to taxpayers. That is unacceptable and I understand Quebeckers' and Canadians' outcry and revolt against these types of proposals from the Conservative government.

It is shameful. We should be ashamed and vote against a government that acts in this way. We will support the spirit of the motion by voting for it.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

Questions and comments for the hon. member for Gatineau will take place after oral question period.

West Grey Premium Beef

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Mr. Speaker, today I want to congratulate West Grey Premium Beef, who just took home the top two prizes at Ontario's finest meat competition held by the Ontario Independent Meat Processors, an organization representing 180 different Ontario meat processors.

West Grey's win for best beef steak was announced as part of their annual conference. This family-owned and operated packing plant uses some of the finest cattle produced in my riding. By doing this, the company is able to guarantee consistently high quality beef based upon its flavour, aroma and appearance.

I want to congratulate Doug Calhoun, George Maxwell and Peter Knipfel, and managers Chet Calhoun and Dave Tedford, who together own and manage West Grey Premium Beef. Their commitment to high quality beef makes them an integral part of our community, worthy of our recognition and appreciation.

We have always known that Canada has the best beef in the world, but now we know that West Grey Premium Beef and Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound has the best of the best.