Mr. Speaker, I am a little saddened to rise in this House and speak to this bill, particularly in the context of what we see in first nations communities across the country. Just a few months ago, members of the NDP caucus went up to Attawapiskat where we saw the appalling state of housing. We were in communities where many families live in shoddy housing. We have seen problems of funding for first nations schools and the children are in appalling conditions. What we are seeing systematically by the Conservatives is the cutting of funding to first nations communities, those communities that depend on federal government funding in order to establish the schools and have adequate housing.
Instead of putting forward a bill that would deal with the dire shortages of adequate housing and schooling, the government has put forward, as it has done in a number of other sectors, a bill that tries to strangle first nations communities. We saw this with Bill C-377 as well. With the labour unions, which are democratically run and members have the full ability to influence their course of events, the Conservatives wanted to strangle those labour unions with red tape. We see the same thing here with Bill C-27. With inadequate resources that are the fault of the Conservative government, it is trying to strangle the first nations communities.
The government members try to pretend that they are actually concerned about accountability. Here is some accountability for them. In 2006, the Assembly of First Nations said that it wanted to establish an effective financial control system for first nations communities across the country. It wanted an auditor general and an ombudsperson for first nations so that those in the community could follow up with the ombudsperson and, at the same time, it could have an auditor general looking at the finances of first nations, most of which are extremely well run, and ensure that the moneys that are forwarded are put to adequate use. That is common sense. An NDP government would have said that it made a lot of sense and it would support it and put it into place.
Six years later, is there a first nations auditor general? No. Six years later, is there a first nations ombudsperson? No. The whole pretense of the Conservative government to somehow be interested in financial accountability goes right out the window because for six years it has not done what the Assembly of First Nations has said is a solution to this issue. We support those solutions but the Conservatives refuse to do it. Instead, they put forward a bill on which there has been no consultations with first nations at all and a bill that would strangle those already underfunded first nations with the red tape that only the Conservatives know how to impose.
We see this targeting of communities, groups or organizations that the Conservatives do not like. However, let us talk about the accountability of the Conservative government. It cut back on the Auditor General's department. It says that it wants nothing to do with the accountability mechanism that exists for it and that, through underfinancing, it will strangle the Auditor General's department so it cannot look into the expenditures of the government.
We have seen the government attack systematically the Parliamentary Budget Officer. The Parliamentary Budget Officer protects the public's interests. The people watching today understand that we need to have an impartial officer of Parliament who looks into whether the government fudges the numbers. What has the government been doing systematically? Because the Parliamentary Budget Officer has been doing what is for the Conservatives the worst possible sin they can think of, which is telling the truth, he has been under vicious and unrelenting attack by the government.
The government wants nothing to do with accountability, nothing to do with actually having a system of checks and balances. The government relentlessly attacks any independent budget officer, any independent agent like the Auditor General. It does everything it can to undermine that impartial work. Those officers are working in the best interests of the public. The Conservatives are saying that they want nothing to do with accountability and transparency.
What is the result? How accurate is the financial information that we get from the Conservatives? How accurate is the information that they actually provide to Canadians? Let us take just one file, the F-35s. I think that is an adequate representation of how bad the Conservatives are at financial management. This is an untendered contract that they put forward. Originally it was supposed to cost $9 billion. We found out subsequently through the Parliamentary Budget Officer that it had gone from $9 billion to $20 billion to $30 billion. The last estimate before they tried to hide it under their cloak and let things just blow over was nearly $40 billion for the F-35s. There is no accountability there. They did not even tender the contract. Their attempt now to retreat on this issue just underscores their ineptitude and incompetence when it comes to financial matters.
As a former financial administrator, I know when one is putting together the books, one does not cook the books. We need to be honest, whether we are talking about an NGO, a business, a labour organization or a government. The Conservative government cooks the books on an ongoing basis repeatedly. The Conservatives simply do not respect the public's right to know, and the F-35 is one example.
How about the Muskoka summit? We now know, because of a variety of interventions by the NDP, that the summit cost over $1 billion. There is no accountability there. The government just decided to throw that money around and did not even have a paper trail in many cases. When it comes to accountability and transparency, the government gets an f.
Let us look at the West Block renovations that my colleague, the member for Edmonton—Strathcona, has been questioning. The West Block renovations, which were supposed to cost $750 million, are now at somewhere around $1.5 billion. Again, there was no accountability and no transparency. The government throws money around like there is no tomorrow when it comes to its lobbyist friends or when it comes to its pet projects. It does not understand accountability or transparency.
Then we see the actions of individual ministers. We were all appalled by the former member for Durham, Bev Oda, the minister who decided to move to another hotel, hire limousines and pay $16 for a glass of orange juice. When knocking on doors in Durham on Sunday night, all people wanted to talk about was how the Conservatives are so egregiously bad when it comes to entitlement. In fact, one Conservative voter told me that the Conservatives were as bad as the Liberals. We can only agree. The Conservatives are as bad as the Liberals when it comes to entitlement.
What else? We had the Minister of National Defence flying around on Canadian Forces jets and helicopters. When the Prime Minister was in India, he had his limousine flown in from halfway around the world instead of renting limousines that exist everywhere in India. I have been to India and it has a lot of great limousines. We do not even know how much was spent. It could have been a half a million dollars or a million dollars. We have no idea because under the government there is no transparency and no accountability.
We have a government that is trying to strangle first nations. It has put forward suggestions that are clearly a resolution of the problem instead of looking at itself. The government is the least accountable and the least transparent in Canadian history. I . Accountability is something that the Conservatives should be embracing but they are not, which is why we are saying to them--