Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be given the opportunity to rise on this matter.
We all acknowledge that Canada now is in a very difficult situation financially. The Conservatives have run up a $56 billion deficit, the largest deficit in Canada's history, after inheriting a surplus of almost $13 billion. The Parliamentary Budget Officer tells us that the deficit is structural, that without major changes it will not be addressed. Canadians are rightfully asking what the plan is to get us out of this mess.
The only real item that has been brought forward so far was by the Treasury Board President, who stated that he would be eliminating some 250 plus positions. The problem is that most of those positions are already vacant. The total savings of that move, even if the positions were filled, would only be about $1.5 million. The government, with much fanfare, held a press conference and announced the elimination of these positions as proof of its austerity, of its dedication to eliminating waste.
Yet we heard just moments ago a Conservative member attack a debate about the tens of millions of dollars being wasted through these partisan mailings, but it is not just these mailings. I will come back to some of the other things that are being done and why this issue is so important in terms of establishing the right precedent going forward.
A lot of difficult choices will have to be made as the government comes to grips with the mess it has created with this deficit. They will not be easy choices.
One of the easiest things to do would be to take the low hanging fruit. I would suggest that the more than $10 million that are spent a year, some $30 million if we extrapolate the postal costs for ten percenters, has to end. In fact, at its awards last week, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation stated that number one on the list of the most egregious abuses in government spending was ten percenters.
We are hitting a quagmire in this debate. Members are saying that because one member sends them, everyone should send them, so therefore we should just continue. At some point, somebody has to say enough. At some point, we have to acknowledge that this practice is wrong. We have to collectively agree to give it up. The notion that one party should continue to send them but another party will not, on principle, is ridiculous. That would put one party at a tremendous electoral disadvantage. We all collectively have to disengage from this.
A list was prepared last week of the top 20 users of the ten percenter program, 19 were Conservatives and one New Democrat. Individuals in all parties are using them, but let us take a step back and end it.
We talk about restrictions that are placed on these programs, but even the existing restrictions are not followed.
As a case in point, ten percenters were sent into my riding, which clearly violated the rules in place for these mailings. We sent this to the legal staff of the House of Commons, which said that this was campaign literature and it “contravened the bylaws of the Board of Internal Economy”. That was July 17, 2008. No action was taken whatsoever. These mailings have gone out many times. This abuse continues. All the rules are continually and flagrantly violated.
Some members have essentially been accused of supporting pedophiles through the use of these messages. Some have been accused of being anti-Semitic. The ten percenters are being used for highly partisan purposes and, in some cases, as one member alluded to, bordering on hate mail.
Who is paying for this? The taxpayers of Canada. They are expected to pick up the bill. I have talked to constituents who have stacks of these ten percenters. Some constituents save them just because they are outraged and find them so ridiculous. When they look at that giant stack of nonsense, they get enraged because times are tough. They believe we all have to chip in to fight this deficit, to get around the corner in difficult times, yet they see this kind of egregious waste.
They get upset when they open the flyers and are asked essentially to select their voting preferences. They are asked which party leader they like, so the parties can then turn around and use the responses to phone for campaign donations and to get signs posted.
That is without question what some parties are doing with this information. It is an abuse, pure and simple. If we allow this to stand and take the time to just say this is okay, then it opens the door to continued use of taxpayer dollars as if they were part of a campaign war chest.
When we see what is being spent on advertising for the economic stimulus plan, this money is staggering. If we turn on any major event, whether the Olympics, the Oscars or the Super Bowl, there are those ads. In a time of supposed austerity, that naked partisan spending is on full display. In fact if we take a look at it, the government is spending more to promote itself than all beer companies combined. Are we going to allow these precedents to take hold and become established as part of the process of this place?
It was only in 2005 that spending on ten percenters was half of what it is today. Where do members think the trajectory of this is going? What does it say of this place? What does it do to the tone and tenor of debate?
If there is any question whether or not there is additional spending this touches on as well, let us take a look at some of the other egregious increases in spending in a number of different areas that absolutely need to be trimmed.
Under the Conservatives, spending on transport and communications has risen by $820 million, or 32%, since 2005. By comparison, over the last four years of a Liberal government, the increase was 2.3%.
Spending on management consultants went up $355 million over that same period, an increase of 165%.
Although the government announced a freeze on departmental spending in this year's estimates, the Prime Minister's own department, the Privy Council Office, is getting a $13 million boost in spending for support and advice to the PMO. That is a 22% increase in advance of the freeze. The Privy Council Office has already seen its budget increased by $31 million since 2005. Public opinion research has gone up by $5 million. The increase in the size of the cabinet of the Conservative Party has cost taxpayers $3.9 million. Communication services in the Prime Minister's office have increased by $1.7 million.
There is a decision we have to make, and that is, what are taxpayers responsible for paying? What are we, as political entities and parties, responsible for? When those lines start getting erased, when parties start using taxpayers' moneys for such overtly and blatant partisan purposes, we all suffer. We have to take a moment to stand and say this is going to be over.
For my colleagues in the NDP who are struggling with this issue, whom I have heard say they recognize there is abuse, there is every opportunity to continue using their franking privileges. There is every opportunity to continue disseminating a message, but any rules that have been placed on these have been violated. Any time we have tried to control them, it has ended up in abuse and waste. The time has come for us to end this practice, to rein it in and to draw a firm line between what should be paid by parties and what should be paid by taxpayers.