Madam Speaker, on June 21 I asked a question in the House as follows:
—the Conservatives are now making cuts they knew about well before the recent election but chose to hide. On the chopping block are thousands of jobs, including the entire Audit Services Canada department, the auditors that serve all the other departments of government.
As I commented at the time, that is a very self-serving move for a government that was found to be in contempt due to secrecy and dishonesty before the last election. I received an inadequate response to my question. I want to make a few more comments.
One should not be surprised by the government's decision to cut jobs from the public service given that the key to its deficit reduction plan seems to be to cut federal jobs and essential public services while putting a whopping big hole in the treasury with its ill-timed next round of corporate tax giveaways to large companies. I remind members opposite that these tax levels without that additional tax break are already 25% below the comparable tax levels in the United States. These are companies that are already competitive from a tax perspective.
The current Conservative government is presiding over $11 billion in cuts and has decided essentially to transfer billions of dollars from services for Canadians through civil servants into the corporate bank accounts of large companies which, on average, do not create jobs or have not been net job creators over the last two decades. The thing that is particularly egregious is that the government knew about these cuts and had planned for them before the election but chose to hide that information from the Canadian public during the election.
During the campaign, the Prime Minister said, “Anybody who says you can’t find money in Ottawa without cutting vital services to people is simply living in a fantasy world”. I think we have a Prime Minister who may be living in a fantasy world if he believes that one can make major cuts to departments like the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and Environment Canada, and to scientists and ozone and climate change expertise without harming the long-term well-being of our country and Canadians.
It is particularly disturbing that on the chopping block was Audit Services Canada, an organization with “a 50-year track record of helping to improve public sector accountability and operations”. That is something that is badly needed in the Conservative government: accountability. This organization's sole purpose is to audit government expenditures to ensure that the Canadian public is getting value for its money and the best bang for the buck. That is an important function.
I would like to point out that the former Treasury Board president said that attrition will account for virtually all public service job reductions, but that simply is not so. I have a list of the positions that are being cut in various organizations like the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, Environment Canada, the Bank of Canada, the Department of National Defence, 687 positions at Public Works and Government Services, and even positions at Treasury Board.
The government's approach to managing its deficit is wrong-headed.