Debates of May 9th, 2013

Opposition Motion—2013 Spring Report of the Auditor General of Canada

[Matthew Dubé, NDP, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise today to speak to this motion.

When I began my parliamentary career, I myself was on the Standing Committee on Public Accounts, where I had the opportunity to see various reports by the Auditor General, read the public accounts and see how the process works. That puts me in an even more interesting and beneficial position because I can see just how much of a mistake, a monumental oversight, losing $3.1 billion is. We are talking about billions of dollars here. It makes absolutely no sense.

To begin with, I would just like to say that this is interesting because we are talking about a very large amount of money. However, day after day, we are on the receiving end of somewhat personal attacks by government MPs. They make up stories about this or that and create myths. They say that tax rates will increase because of the New Democratic Party's tax and spend plan. They can call it what they want, but it is this government, and not the NDP, that is mismanaging things and hurting Canadians by increasing their taxes. It is this government that, once again, lost $3.1 billion. I cannot say it enough.

Today, when they get up during question period and say the same things yet again, you will note the irony in their attacks. Their government is in absolutely no position to criticize others about how they spend and manage taxpayers' money. It is quite disgraceful.

What we are seeing today is also a question of ministerial accountability. Each day, the leader of the official opposition, the member for Outremont, has been raising this matter. The members for Welland and Pierrefonds—Dollard, who also serve on the Standing Committee on Public Accounts, are also asking about the $3.1 billion. The Prime Minister and the President of the Treasury Board disdainfully reply that they just have to look in the public accounts, that it is all there. That is simply not true; it is not in the public accounts.

I would like to know if the President of the Treasury Board is going to go see the Auditor General and tell him that if he forgot to check something, he just needs to look in the public accounts because it is all in there. He needs to have a bit more respect than that for the Auditor General, his expertise and the work he does, work he was appointed to do. He is perfectly capable of saying whether or not the money is in the public accounts, and that is not the case today.

I would like to thank the member for Pontiac for moving such an important motion, which is asking the government and the House to require that the necessary documents be provided to parliamentarians and the Auditor General so that they can do their work. The member for Pontiac mentioned the Auditor General's quote, which the government is repeating over and over again. It is just the opening of the quote. A teacher would not be too happy if a student were to use only part of a quote in a paper.

I cannot imagine that taxpayers and the Auditor General are too happy that only part of a quote is being used. We have to look at the entire quote to understand what is being said, which is that there is no indication that the money was misspent—on things like gazebos, something the G8 fund was used for—but the fact remains that the money cannot be found. This is by definition a scandal, a disgrace and a very serious problem.

The Auditor General said that the money does not seem to have been spent on anything illegal or inappropriate, but he does say in no uncertain terms that the money is nowhere to be found. He does not know what this money was spent on, which is a very serious problem. The President of the Treasury Board needs to live up to his ministerial responsibilities and submit the documents, not only to the Auditor General, but also to parliamentarians, so that we can exercise diligence and identify the problems.

The funny thing is that this is not a new problem. The Conservative government is not alone in this. This problem started under the Liberals.

We saw this in 2004, when Sheila Fraser issued her report. She is a well-respected auditor general who did an incredible job, including uncovering the sponsorship scandal. I will save that topic for another day, but it was the same kind of mismanagement of taxpayers' money that we are seeing today. Ms. Fraser's 2004 report showed that there were serious structural problems with regard to how spending on the public security and anti-terrorism initiative was being reported and that the Treasury Board Secretariat needed to make some serious improvements.

Nine years later, no improvements have been made and the problem still has not been resolved. This $3.1 billion is gone without a trace. That is a lot of money. What is more, when the Auditor General and his assistant appeared before the Standing Committee on Public Accounts, they said that instead of improving the way it accounts for money, the government seems to have stopped counting money altogether. New ways of reporting this money are being proposed for next year, but what do we do in the meantime?

Considering the level of government spending we are talking about, if we spend an entire fiscal year without any mechanism in place or without making any improvements, we will be sucked into a black hole devoid of transparency, ethics and accountability. It is irresponsible.

Yesterday, when the hon. member for Pontiac asked the government a question, I heard the Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages jeering. He said that it had only been a year, which is not very long. He was wondering why we were whining. The government has spent that year making billions of dollars in expenditures without knowing where taxpayers' money is actually going. That is shameful and unacceptable.

The public security and anti-terrorism initiative began in 2001 following the September 11 attacks, which is understandable because we were trying to improve public safety by implementing anti-terrorism measures. This is still a relevant issue. Think of the debate surrounding Bill S-7, which seeks to implement new anti-terrorism measures. I gave a speech about this bill about two weeks ago. In it, I mentioned that it is unfortunate that the government is making cuts to public safety resources. I also indicated that, rather than giving more resources to the men and women who protect us, for example RCMP officers, the government decided to make cuts and introduce a bill that violates our civil liberties.

I am asking myself a serious question today. Before making fundamental changes to issues related to civil liberties, should the government not stop making cuts and ensure that the money that is already being invested in this regard has been well spent? We are talking about significant amounts of money. Today, there is a $3.1 billion hole in the Public Accounts of Canada. This money is lost or missing.

On behalf of the taxpayers in my riding and all ridings, since we are here for them, I am calling on the government to take responsibility and start doing some real work to stand up for taxpayers and make sure that their money is well spent. The government must tell us where that $3.1 billion went and give the relevant documents to parliamentarians and the Auditor General.

I hope that they will support this motion and finally take responsibility. It is the least they can do.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate my hon. colleague on his speech.

We can now safely say without a doubt that the Conservatives are just as bad as the Liberals when it comes to managing public finances. We all remember the Liberal scandals in the past. Now the Conservative scandals are adding up. The latest one involves $3.1 billion.

What does my colleague think could have been done with that $3.1 billion in his riding? How could that money have been spent usefully, rather than just leaving it sit there? No one seems to know if it was even spent. No one knows where it went. How could the $3.1 billion have been put to good use?

[Matthew Dubé, NDP, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for the question.

Indeed, there are many pressing needs in the areas of infrastructure and culture, for instance. We could be here all night listing all the needs. A couple of things that come to mind are the new Champlain Bridge and Fort Chambly, which needs some serious repairs, despite the excellent job the city is doing, even with very little assistance from the federal government. That would have been money well spent.

I am sure that all of my colleagues, regardless of their political affiliation, could list needs in their regions that could have been met with that missing $3.1 billion.

I would like to come back to the preamble to my hon. colleague's question. He talked about how bad the Liberals and Conservatives are at managing public funds. That is what matters here today. My hon. colleagues from Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher and Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie also mentioned that earlier.

Since the beginning of the week, we have been hearing about interference in the activities of crown corporations. The Prime Minister is fond of saying that the Conservative Party takes taxpayers' money very seriously. So, I hope his party will take this $3.1 billion very seriously.

[Andrew Cash, NDP, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, while I was listening to my hon. colleague's speech, I was thinking about some of the members on the front bench of the Conservative Party who were on the front bench of the Mike Harris government in Ontario.

When the Harris government took power in Ontario, one of the first things it did was fill in a big hole on Eglinton Ave. that had been dug to build a subway. It cost the taxpayers millions of dollars to fill that in. Some members may remember that. Now we are spending millions to dig that hole again to build a subway.

That is the kind of economic model the Conservative government operates under. It is no wonder the Conservatives have lost $3.1 billion. It is no wonder they have the biggest deficit in Canadian history.

I wonder if my hon. colleague can talk a little bit about the disconnect between the idea, on the one hand, that the Conservatives are sound fiscal managers and the reality that they are incredibly, unbelievably inept at this.

[Matthew Dubé, NDP, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question.

It is connected to what my colleague from Sherbrooke asked. Examples abound of how the Conservatives have mismanaged infrastructure and other files. We could certainly do better. I think that Canadians deserve better. The missing $3.1 billion is a glaring example of this.

His comments and question are spot on. It is exhausting to hear the Conservatives go on about how they are sound fiscal managers and how we would spend our time taxing Canadians. The reality is that no one knows where this $3.1 billion went, and the government has completely lost track of it.

This money was meant to be spent on public security and anti-terrorism initiatives. This government claims to be tough on crime, but when the time comes to spend the money on public safety initiatives, the government suddenly has no idea where that $3.1 billion went.

That is unacceptable. The government went on and on about common sense, and those provincial examples apply here. The time has come for common sense. I think it would do a lot of good on the other side.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I certainly welcome the opportunity to stand in the House today and respond to the hon. member's motion. I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for North Vancouver, the Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board.

The motion in question concerns chapter 8 of the 2013 Spring Report of the Auditor General of Canada on the reporting of public security and anti-terrorism initiative funds. I have reviewed the motion in detail and appreciate this opportunity to correct the false assumption on which it is based.

The Auditor General and his office have had full access to all of the public security and anti-terrorism, or PSAT, reports. He has been clear, saying, “We didn't find anything that gave us cause for concern that the money, you know, was used in any way that it should not have been”.

That is not all he said. He also confirmed in his testimony before the Standing Committee on Public Accounts that characterizations of these funds as lost are inaccurate. In fact, he clarified in his testimony that the reporting on the funds in question was purely an internal government reporting process. He verified that the shortcomings, which our government acknowledges, did not prevent parliamentarians or Canadians from scrutinizing spending through the estimates process and through the public accounts process. Those are the facts.

It is also a fact that our government has taken decisive action to ensure the security and safety of Canadians. Canadians can be assured that government funding tagged for security initiatives was used for that purpose. Core security-oriented organizations, such as the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority, or CATSA, the Canadian Border Services Agency, National Defence, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, are the types of agencies that report through PSAT.

On July 14, 2000, I was in the Pine Lake tornado, so I have seen death and destruction among neighbours and students. Our family lived through this disaster. I had to speak to my students when I came back in September about that event. A year later, we were getting over this trauma. When the world witnessed the destruction of the twin towers by terrorists in 9/11, those images affected me on both a personal level and as a horror shared with my fellow citizens. Again, I had to discuss with my students the intolerance and the devastation in the fall of 2001.

I understand what it is like to try to make sense out of both natural and man-made disasters. When it comes to terrorism, I take it very personally.

In a post-9/11 environment, Canadians expect law enforcement to adopt a proactive posture in order to disrupt terrorist plots before an attack occurs. Our government has taken strong action to keep Canadians safe, including measures such as the recent combating terrorism act, targeting serious drug crime, cracking down on organized crime and preventing nuclear terrorism.

I think all members in the House would agree with me when I say that terrorism is a heinous crime. Its objective is to strike fear into all citizens and to discourage us all from going about our lives freely and without fear. Terrorists live by a philosophy that rejects the democratic process, and their motivation is fundamentally at odds with our rule of law.

Acts of terrorism cannot be allowed, and our government continues to act to prevent the types of tragedies we have seen in New York and in Boston.

We are balancing, though, two very distinct needs in this post-9/11 world. We will keep our country safe and we will be responsible with taxpayer dollars while doing so.

This chapter of the Auditor General's spring report 2013 comes with important recommendations that our government agrees with and intends to implement. We acknowledge that there was some lack of clarity and some aspects of horizontal reporting, despite all expenditures of the federal budget being reported through the regular parliamentary reporting cycle.

Despite all the factual statements made by the Auditor General, the NDP is again willing to be deceitful and is attempting to manufacture a scandal, despite formal assertions that our reports to Parliament are sound.

Let me reiterate that the premise of the motion in question is completely false. The processes that departments follow for reporting to Parliament and Canadians on their spending and results were respected.

The audit acknowledges that deputy heads, as departmental accounting officers, are responsible for accounting and reporting their spending through the Public Accounts of Canada. These reporting requirements are in addition to the internal reporting requirements imposed under the public security and anti-terrorism initiative.

All government spending, every nickel and dime, is reported to Parliament and accounted for in the Public Accounts. This took place in 2001, in 2002 and so on all the way to 2009. The Auditor General said that he did not find anything that gave him cause for concern that money was used in any way that should not have been.

On the contrary, what the Auditor General has concerns about is the clarity and the characterization of reporting between government departments over the period 2001 to 2009. The Auditor General's recommendation focused on improving that reporting process.

Our government accepts his recommendation and is committed to improved public reporting on initiatives that involve multiple departments. In fact, our government has already taken action to improve public reporting on such horizontal initiatives.

In the fall of 2011, the Office of the Auditor General said that the government did a good job of monitoring progress and spending for economic action plan initiatives, saying that the government was diligent in monitoring the progress of projects and their spending.

With respect to reporting to Parliament and Canadians, the government has taken several steps to improve financial reporting and to support parliamentary scrutiny of estimates and supply.

On April 22, a new searchable, online database was launched that for the first time ever would consolidate all information on government spending in one place. The website allows the public and parliamentarians to track government spending, showing trends and government-wide totals for specific areas like personnel spending.

This is in addition to other significant actions that we have taken. For example, we now post financial data sets on the Treasury Board Secretariat website and the open data portal. We also now publish quarterly financial reports.

Our government has made ongoing improvements to the form and content of reports on plans and priorities and departmental performance reports.

Clearly, much effort has been made to improve reporting. Therefore, I ask the House to reject the hon. member's motion and to reject this diversion from what really matters: the work done every day to keep Canadians safe.

[Alain Giguère, NDP, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Mr. Speaker, this morning I had breakfast with people from food banks across Canada, the people who feed those who do not have the means to feed themselves. If these people had $3.1 billion, no one would go hungry in Canada.

The government cannot claim that this is nothing but an administrative problem. We are talking about $3.1 billion that should have been spent on public security but instead went missing. What disappeared? The needs were estimated at $12.9 billion, so what was not done? Did the government forget to automate passport applications or requests to verify when Canadians are leaving the country? What did they cut for that $3.1 billion to go unspent? What public security measures were cut?

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer, AB]

Mr. Speaker, those unfortunate people who have to go through food banks also expect honesty. The statements coming from the opposition are misleading and they are political mischief.

Let us go through what the motion is about: $3.1 billion of missing funds outlined in chapter 8, that is what is mentioned. The opposition motion is based on a false premise and the members know perfectly well that in the words of the Auditor General:

We didn’t find anything that gave us cause for concern that the money...was used in any way that it should not have been

As the opposition knows full well also, there is no indication that any dollars are missing, misappropriated or misspent. Only time missed comes into play in the Auditor General's report. I would like to read from the press release in which the Auditor General said:

We believe that the government missed an opportunity to use the information it collected to generate a picture of spending and results under the Public Security and Anti-Terrorism Initiative across departments...

He went further to say:

The government recognizes that it needs to improve the way it reports financial and non-financial information for future government-wide initiatives.

I mention the word “future” for the member.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is very clear from the Auditor General's report that he cannot identify where the $3.1 billion was spent or whether it was spent, so in that case it is truly missing. However, I would like to read from the auditor general's report of late 2004, Sheila Fraser, who had this to say about the anti-terrorism initiative:

The current management framework of the Public Security and Anti-Terrorism initiative met most of our audit criteria. The vast majority of funds allocated in the 2001 Budget have been channelled to identified priority areas. In addition, the Treasury Board Secretariat is taking care to track spending...

At the end of 2004, it was tracking the spending so the problem came later, presumably under the Conservative government.

Could the member indicate what went wrong once the Conservatives came to power?

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer, AB]

Mr. Speaker, certainly, I would love to explain what took place. In fact, in the Auditor General's report I can read through what happened in 2004. It says:

In our 2004 audit, we examined the management framework of the Public Security and Anti-Terrorism Initiative, including funding allocations and spending. We identified weaknesses in the way the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat assessed departmental proposals for funding. We also found that the reporting process needed to be improved.

I think that is how the present Auditor General categorized the types of things that were said. Therefore, I question perhaps how up-to-date the member is with regard to that.

Let us talk about the situation between 2001 and 2009, and I suppose as well to go back to the motion. It says, “issue documents from 2001 to the present”. The audit was from 2001 to 2009. Therefore, either the opposition members did not read the actual audit, or they are purposely trying to create some misdirection to align the conversation with the misguided and malicious talking points.

[Andrew Saxton, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board and for Western Economic Diversification]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to speak to the motion before us today.

I would first like to thank my hon. colleague from Red Deer for the great work that he does on the public accounts committee. I would also like to thank the hon. member for Pontiac for bringing this issue forward and for the opportunity to talk about our government's strong record in cracking down on crime.

Before I go any further, I want to clarify the Auditor General's statements on this chapter. I was at committee. He confirmed that this money was not lost and that he found no reasons to make him believe money was misspent.

Since our first day in office in 2006, our government made a firm commitment to Canadians that would make their safety and security a key priority. Chief among our efforts includes moving forward with measures to address the threat of terrorism very seriously. Terrorism is a global phenomenon and Canada is certainly not immune. Several hundred Canadians have been killed or injured in terrorist incidents in the past several decades. We can all recall tragic events like the 1985 bombing of Air India flight 182. In the past decade, our world and the way we view it has changed since September 11, 2001, when terrorist acts took place in New York, Virginia and Pennsylvania and claimed thousands of lives, including 24 Canadians.

We also clearly recall recent attempts to blow up airliners, such as the failed underwear and shoe bombers' plots in 2009. Most recently, the Boston Marathon bombings have again reminded us that we are not immune to terrorism. The memory of the victims of terrorism and the pain of their families strengthen our resolve to fight criminals and terrorists at home and abroad and to stand up proudly for the principles that bind us: freedom, democracy, rule of law and human rights.

Our goal is to continue to build the resilience of our society and all communities to all forms of violent coercion. Since first coming to power, our government has taken decisive action to address the evolving threat of terrorism, both within and beyond Canadian borders, through legislative changes, targeted programming, criminal investigations and other initiatives.

As security threats are borderless, particularly threats to our cyber networks and critical infrastructure, in 2010 we launched Canada's cyber security strategy and the national strategy and action plan for critical infrastructure. Through our beyond the border action plan signed with the United States, we have strengthened aviation, marine and rail security in Canada, including our more rigorous screening for port and airport employees, enhancements to technology and improved security procedures.

We have improved information sharing among the agencies involved in detecting terrorist financing. We have listed terrorist entities under the Criminal Code to send a strong message that Canada will not condone any kind of terrorist activity. We have passed the Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act, which allows victims of terrorism to sue listed foreign states for committing an act of terrorism or for supporting listed entities under the Criminal Code. Hitting these entities in their bank accounts and pocketbooks helps prevent and deter them from carrying out further acts of terror.

Countering terrorism and securing Canada is a shared responsibility that involves many organizations from all levels of government: law enforcement, border services and private-sector and international partners. While terrorism remains a threat, it is one that we are better able to deal with as a result of greater collaboration and partnerships.

Given the global reach of terrorism today, addressing the threat requires universal co-operation. We stand firm with our allies against the threat of terrorism. By combining resources and aligning our focus on a common set of priorities with our international partners, we are in a better position to target the threats to our safety and security.

These priorities are clearly laid out in Canada's counterterrorism strategy, a comprehensive strategy introduced in 2012 that outlines our efforts to prevent individuals from turning to terrorism, detect terrorists and their activities, deny terrorists the means and opportunities to attack and respond in a rapid and proportionate manner. It speaks frankly about the terrorist threats we face at home and abroad and the importance of strong partnerships and collaboration among government, security agencies, law enforcement and community groups, among others, and it underscores Canada's contribution to the global efforts to counter the terrorist threat.

We have made great progress in meeting our commitments under the three previously mentioned strategies, and we will continue to put forward a clear focus on combatting terrorism and countering violent extremism.

At the same time, we have no plans to stop our work to strengthen our justice system and keep Canadians safe through a number of robust measures. We will continue to take action on crime, as we have done since we came to power. We have toughened sentencing and bail provisions for serious gun crimes. We have strengthened the sentencing and monitoring of dangerous, high-risk offenders. We have ensured that murderers connected to organized crime will be treated automatically as first-degree murderers, and we have imposed mandatory jail time for drive-by or reckless shootings. Our government has ended sentence discounts for multiple murders and it has passed legislation to abolish the faint hope clause, which allowed early parole for murderers. We have delivered legislation that limits credit for time served in pre-sentence custody.

I am very proud to note that our government has passed legislation to help reform the pardon system. In particular, we have made sure that the Parole Board of Canada has the discretion it needs to determine whether or not granting a pardon would bring the administration of justice into disrepute. I am equally proud to note that our government has passed legislation to strengthen the national sex offender registry and the national DNA data bank so that all persons convicted of sex offences are registered.

All in all, our government has taken significant action that achieves results in tackling crime in our communities and in countering terrorism. We will continue to do more. With each of these measures, we have kept one goal at the forefront: to keep Canadians and their families safe. We have done all these things, and more, while ensuring that we are using Canadian taxpayers' dollars prudently.

Indeed, we have taken great strides to leverage partnerships across governments, with law enforcement and security agencies, and with our international partners. By combining resources, and aligning our focus on a common set of priorities with our international partners, we are in a better position to target the threats to our safety and national security.

Law-abiding Canadians expect to live in a country where they do not have to worry when they go to bed at night. They expect, and rightfully so, to live in a country where their government is working with its allies to create a strong and robust national security system that is ready to prevent, detect and respond to any type of emergency. They want to know that their streets are safe and that their children are protected against predators.

This is the commitment that our government has made and it is one that it has kept.

Today's opposition motion is not concerned about the well-being of Canadians. Instead, it is focused on manufacturing a crisis where the Auditor General himself has clearly said there is none.

[Djaouida Sellah, NDP, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to the speech by my colleague opposite from the very beginning.

The Conservatives can say what they want, but there is no trace of $3.1 billion. That is what we are debating.

How will the member explain to Canadians, who work very hard to make ends meet, that the government can find no trace of the $3.1 billion? I would like him to answer my question.

[Andrew Saxton, Conservative, North Vancouver, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the Auditor General said that there is no indication that any dollars are missing, misappropriated or misspent. In fact, I was in committee when the Auditor General himself said, “We didn’t find anything that gave us cause for concern that money was used in any way that it should not have been.”

I would like to ask the member opposite why she is disagreeing with the Auditor General himself.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I think the hon. member over there is denying the undeniable.

In the Auditor General's report, he said:

However, information to explain the difference of $3.1 billion between the funding allocated to departments and agencies and the amount reported spent was not available.

In other words, the money may have been spent appropriately. It may be in the public accounts. Perhaps it lapsed or perhaps it was spent. We do not know what it was spent on.

How can the hon. member possibly deny that this $3.1 billion is missing, in the sense that we do not know what it was spent on, or whether it was even spent? That is very clear from the Auditor General's report.

[Andrew Saxton, Conservative, North Vancouver, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am glad that the member of the Liberal Party asked me a question, because it was exactly scandals that took place in that government that required us to bring in tough new rules when we came to power in 2006 with the Federal Accountability Act.

I want to address his immediate question with regard to the matter at hand and this matter relates to the categorization of expenses by Treasury Board between 2001 and 2009. His government was in power part of that time. All of the funds in question are accounted for in public documents presented to Parliament, including the public accounts.

Let me repeat. The Auditor General said there is no indication that any dollars are missing, misappropriated or misspent, and that Treasury Board Secretariat has accepted all of the Auditor General's recommendations.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague the Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board for clarifying this issue once again.

I want to ask him about what kind of feedback he is hearing from his constituents.

The opposition continually tries to manufacture scandals and the Canadian people are much smarter than the opposition gives them credit for. The Canadian public saw this report, heard the comments from the Auditor General, and heard that no money is missing and that the Auditor General is satisfied. He has suggested some improvements and we have taken those suggestions.

I am not getting calls or emails in my office from Canadians. Why? Because Canadians do not buy the nonsense from the opposition.

I am wondering if my colleague has had the same experience. Does he find that Canadian people are basically looking at the opposition and saying same old game, it is trying to make a scandal where there is no scandal?

[Andrew Saxton, Conservative, North Vancouver, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the number one priority of government is to keep its citizens safe, safe from terrorism and safe from threats. That is what my constituents want. My constituents expect us to have measures in place to make sure that their safety is protected.

Since coming to government in 2006, we have taken extensive measures to make sure that public safety is one of our top priorities, and we are making real progress in that regard.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to speak to this matter.

The subject, of course, concerns the missing $3.1 billion. Why are we here today? Among the many troubling revelations in the Auditor General's spring report was a rotten Easter egg in the form of a $3.1 billion hole in the government's public security and anti-terrorism spending. It turns out the Treasury Board Secretariat simply cannot find the money. Notwithstanding the opposition members' statements to the contrary, it is abundantly clear from the report that they cannot locate that $3.1 billion.

It is not surprising coming from this President of the Treasury Board. Simple details like the term “border infrastructure” can mean gazebos in his riding. Or what about $5 billion in budget cuts announced last year? We still do not know where those cuts are, which is why the former parliamentary budget officer had to take the government to court.

What is worrying is that this audit only covered public security and anti-terrorism funding. We have no information on other government programs. We have no idea what other programs and services that middle-class families rely on are not getting the funding the government says they are.

In the Auditor General's report, the Treasury Board provided three possible explanations for where the missing billions were: one, the money lapsed, in other words was not spent; two, it was spent on public safety and anti-terrorism, but was not properly recorded; or three, it was carried forward and spent on non-public safety and anti-terrorism programs.

Those are mathematically what the options must be. It was not spent, it was spent on public security or it was spent on things other than public security. The government simply has no way of knowing which of those three options was the more prevalent. They all stem from the same problem: the TBS tracking process for those funds was not developed enough to keep track of everything.

However, it was a tracking system. I was completely blown away to read in the report at paragraph 8.24 that:

In 2010, the Treasury Board approved the Secretariat’s request to end the government-wide reporting requirements on Initiative spending. The last reports entered into the database are those related to the 2008–09 fiscal year. The Secretariat stated that it would develop a new mechanism for managing and collecting performance information on the Public Security Initiatives. At the time of the audit, a project was in the pilot stage, but a new mechanism was not yet in place.

This is deeply concerning. It would appear the Treasury Board now has no system at all to monitor public safety and anti-terrorism spending. We have actually regressed. The Treasury Board promises to have a new system in place by March 2014, nearly a year from now and four years from when it killed the original system. Whatever the flaws of the old system, certainly it must have been better than nothing. Or perhaps it was not, but right now what it has had for three years is nothing in terms of monitoring those public expenditures on security.

I turn now to the response we have had from the government on this matter. The President of the Treasury Board has repeatedly told this House that all the money is accounted for and can be found in the public accounts for the years 2001 to 2009. This is a laughable response. Every financial transaction is “recorded” in the public accounts to some extent. What we do not have is any details in terms of where that money is in the public accounts. We know it is in the public accounts, but we do not know where in the public accounts, so in that sense it is truly missing.

The minister's response did not provide us with any information, nor does it do anything to calm the concerns of Canadians that the current government simply cannot keep track of its own money. That is why I have asked the Conservatives, in a written question, to detail where in the public accounts these funds can be found. I eagerly look forward to their reply.

As I said previously, we do not know if there is a systemic problem with other categories of expenses. The Auditor General only examined public safety and anti-terrorism funding. Again, we do not know if other funding destined for services for middle-class Canadians may not also be missing.

I also want to share my concerns about the NDP's reaction to this matter. The NDP motion we are debating today demonstrates a curious lack of understanding about the role and powers of the Auditor General.

The Liberals support publishing the information related to this audit so that Parliament and Canadians can examine it for themselves. However, the portion with respect to turning the data over to the Auditor General is interesting, as he already has that power. He certainly would have looked at all the relevant information. We do not need a motion to ask him to get the information to which he is already entitled.

Subsection 13(1) of the Auditor General Act states:

Except as provided by any other Act of Parliament that expressly refers to this subsection, the Auditor General is entitled to free access at all convenient times to information that relates to the fulfilment of his or her responsibilities and he or she is also entitled to require and receive from members of the federal public administration any information, reports and explanations that he or she considers necessary for that purpose.

The law is perfectly clear on this matter. The Auditor General would not have had to contend with security matters either, as subsections 13(2) and 13(3) also grant the Auditor General access to secret materials as long as his staff take the oaths required of public servants handling such information.

Therefore, it is fair to say that access to the required information was not a problem for the Auditor General. The problem was that the information did not exist.

This is also a question of resources. I would contend that if that money could have been found, then the Treasury Board would have found it during its consultations with the Auditor General on this report. No government wants the Auditor General to tell the public that we have lost $3.1 billion. It is the worst-case scenario. I imagine many Treasury Board officials worked late hours trying to find the missing money. I have no doubt that if it could have been located, it would have been, and the Auditor General's office would have been shown exactly where it was. It is purely a case of self-interest. I imagine the government and the public servants worked very hard to find the missing money, and did not, because the information did not exist.

That said, of course we are in no way opposed to giving the Auditor General more resources. If his office thinks that more resources would help answer this question, then let us provide more resources.

The Liberals support this motion because more transparency is good. The Auditor General has raised serious concerns about the systems used to track government expenditures, and Canadians deserve to see how it is done so that they can judge the government's track record.

Before I move on to the next portion of my remarks, I want to comment on the general tone of the NDP's response to this matter.

Good government is about solutions. However, we do not see many solutions emanating from the NDP. I find this particularly surprising, considering how plainly obvious the solution to this problem is. Perhaps it is simply easier to point fingers and try to score political points. I was dismayed to see the member for Pontiac ignore an obvious solution proposed by the committee we are both members of. The solution is to change how the government appropriates money.

The government operations and estimates committee held a wide-ranging and in-depth study on the process of supply. We heard from experts inside and outside the government, including former parliamentarians, the Auditor General, a former clerk of the House, other governments and the Parliamentary Budget Officer. Our committee made numerous recommendations, some of which the government has endorsed, others not so much.

However, the most important recommendation that was made was to transition the estimates from their current vote structure to a program-based structure. Our current vote structure is archaic and cannot keep up with the size and scope of 21st century government. Its failings are well known.

Most departments have three votes: operating, which means paying for public servants and hydro bills; capital, for acquisitions; and grants and contributions, the funds that are handed out to Canadians.

If a department wants to transfer money inside its vote, it only needs the approval of the Treasury Board, not Parliament. It only has to tell us if it wants to switch money between the votes, such as as fire a public servant and buy a new ministerial limo.

The best example of this problem may be the G8 legacy fund debacle. As a consequence of the confusion with our current system, parliamentarians thought that when they approved the supply bill, they were authorizing money specifically for the border infrastructure fund. That was not the case.

In fact, Parliament approved a single massive pot of money for infrastructure construction; the only condition was that the money be spent on infrastructure. That is why the Treasury Board was able to create a new program, the G8 legacy fund, and provide it with funding by taking money from the border infrastructure program. The Conservatives did not have to tell Parliament they were doing this, since the money all came from the same large pot that Parliament had approved for infrastructure. However, if Parliament had to approve spending by programs rather than in the current way, this would have been impossible, and we would also have been able to track public security spending.

Therefore, our primary proposition is to amend the NDP motion to include a solution to the problem, and the evident solution so that this will never happen in the future is to do the estimates according to programs rather than according to the current archaic system.

I would like to read my proposed amendment.

I move, seconded by the member for Bourassa, that the motion be amended by adding the following: “And that, in order to avoid losing funds in the future, the House requests that the government take all actions necessary to transition to program-based appropriations according to the timeline provided to the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates.”

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

It is my duty to inform hon. members that an amendment to an opposition motion may be moved only with the consent of the sponsor of the motion, or in the case that he or she is not present, consent may be given or denied by the House leader, the deputy House leader, the whip or the deputy whip of the sponsor's party.

Since neither the sponsor nor any of these other members are present in the chamber, I cannot consider that there is consent for the amendment. Therefore, pursuant to Standing Order 85, the amendment cannot be moved at this time.

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Rivière-des-Mille-Îles.

[Laurin Liu, NDP, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I wonder why the Liberals think they have any credibility when it comes to this matter.

I would like to give the Liberal member a short history lesson. In her 2004 report, the Auditor General examined the management framework for the PSAT initiative, including all funding and expenditures. She identified weaknesses in the way in which Treasury Board evaluated departmental funding proposals. She also noted in 2004 that, under the Liberal government, the reporting process needed to be improved.

Why did the Liberals not take action when they were in power in response to the 2004 Auditor General's report, in order to put in place a more solid reporting procedure and a better method of evaluating funding?

Clearly, the Liberal government mismanaged this file, just like the Conservative government. An NDP government will be transparent and truly accountable to the Canadian people

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member might recall that I read a quote from the 2004 Auditor General's report, in which she states that, until the end of 2004, the Treasury Board tracked all public safety spending. This means that the problems began after that, when the Conservatives were in power.

The problem I have with the NDP's proposals, as I said in my speech, is that they do not offer any solutions. The amendment I proposed offers a solution to help ensure that this kind of problem never happens again.

The NDP does not have any solutions to suggest.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, audits, of course, are looking for the paperwork to match against the money that is spent. Certainly I can recall a recent audit in which the comment was, as in this case, “There is no evidence of wrongdoing, but we cannot find the paperwork and we cannot figure out exactly where the money was spent.”

Would the hon. member for Markham—Unionville contrast and compare the reaction of the Conservatives when fingers were pointed at much smaller amounts of money in the Attawapiskat community with the way they are sloughing this off as though nothing has happened when $3.1 billion cannot be tracked?

This is lousy attention to detailed paperwork and keeping track of money. The Conservatives were contemptuous when it was a small first nation community, but now they just say, “Look the other way; there is nothing here.”

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from the Green Party for that excellent comparison. I think it is telling when the Conservatives bring in a third party administrator to deal with an impoverished, small aboriginal community, maybe dealing with, I do not know, hundreds of thousands of dollars, and then they slough it off when $3.1 billion goes missing under their watch.

I think this shows a certain tendency to take on small, poor communities with a vengeance and to simply ignore the problem of $3.1 billion going missing under their watch.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, in trying to get a better understanding of just how much $3.1 billion is, it is fair to say that it is virtually 50% of the total budgets of some provincial governments here in Canada. We are talking about a significant amount of money.

The government is standing in its place and saying that it is not true and that the money has not been lost. Could my colleague point out in a very simple fashion why Canadians need to be concerned about this $3.1 billion and explain what it is the Auditor General is actually saying?

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is true that $3.1 billion is a huge amount of money. It is so big that it is hard for many Canadians to picture an amount that size. It is perhaps half the budget of the Province of Manitoba, or something like that. That gives some idea of the magnitude.

Our amendment would be a practical solution to this problem. We acknowledge it is a huge matter when an amount of this size goes missing. However, our proposal would ensure that such a thing would not happen in the future, whether it is a Liberal government or a Conservative government. That is the practical nature of our suggestion to bring a solution to this matter.