Madam Speaker, Canadians are frustrated by the government's reckless, wasteful spending. There is a long list of waste and mismanagement, money that could have been used for seniors, for health care and for home care.
On October 27, I raised one of the items on that list, the $2.2 billion a year increase on professional and special services by the Conservative government since 2005-06. That is an average increase of 9.4% a year on consultants, contractors and temporary workers. The answer I received from the Minister of Finance was unsatisfactory.
Since first coming to power in 2006, the Conservatives have increased spending on management consultants by $355 million, an astounding 165% increase over the previous Liberal government.
We do not need the finance minister of our country spending $122,000 of hard-earned taxpayer money on sole sourced contracts to write him a speech, a speech that any number of his dedicated, competent public servants within his own department could have written. That contract was awarded to a personal acquaintance of the finance minister, a Michael Harris speech writer. That $122,000 could have paid for other things, such as the salaries of several nurses, for example.
How about the two VIA Rail press releases that cost taxpayers $3,400 to draft and post online? That is another connected Conservative consultant.
It is quite astounding when we look at some of the waste and mismanagement of the government. It certainly frustrates Canadians, and I know it certainly frustrates me, at a time when we are being forced to cut back and at a time when more people are unemployed, when we have record unemployment and when we have a record number of seniors living in poverty. As I said today, 25% more seniors are living in poverty. It is astounding. Students are facing rising debts and families are having to make tough choices.
The choice the Conservative government is making is to spend frivolously borrowed taxpayer dollars. It is spending “like it is Christmas”, which is a quote from an hon. member of the Conservative Party and a member of Parliament. For many families, however, Christmas is a lot more frugal and a lot more painful this year. Frugality is something the Conservatives may want to adopt as they move forward.
I will now get back to the list of waste I mentioned earlier. It is not just the shocking increases in consultants on which the Conservatives are wasting money. It will cost $30 million to replace the census with an inaccurate and voluntary version. The government spent a record $130 million last year in advertising, which is more than all the beer companies in Canada combined spent on advertising.
If we drive around the city in all the different communities, we would see many ads. There has been a $10 million increase in Conservative ministers' offices since 2007. I could go on and on. My point is that the government is wasting a lot of very hard-earned taxpayer dollars. When will it wise up and start spending--