Debates of May 9th, 2013

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

[Bryan Hayes, Conservative, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have this opportunity to respond to the concerns expressed by the hon. member opposite about the funding for Canada's public safety and anti-terrorism, PSAT, initiative.

The Auditor General has been very clear on this issue. When he released his report on April 30, he indicated that he “didn’t find anything that gave us cause for concern that the money was used in any way that it should not have been”.

He had access to all available documentation on this issue and found there were some reporting deficiencies. The Auditor General recommended that our government improve our reporting practices.

I am a CGA. I sat on a finance committee with city council for years and have had financial reports presented to me. Certainly, from time to time, reporting mechanisms and reporting procedures differ. Ultimately we will find that this is simply a reporting practice and the money will materialize. It is in the public accounts.

We agreed with that recommendation and the government is already improving the way it reports on whole of government projects.

We recognize that Canadians are concerned about how their government invests in their safety. The first job of any government is to keep its citizens safe from harm.

Since the tragic incidents of September 11, 2001, the Government of Canada has taken important steps to increase and strengthen security in the air, on the ground and at sea.

One of the things we did, and it is something many Canadians have experienced first hand, was to create CATSA, the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority.

CATSA plays a critical role protecting travellers at Canadian airports by screening passengers and their belongings before they get on the plane, screening checked bags to look for explosives and other objects that would pose a threat and screening people who enter restricted areas at airports. The government has also been working on improving the infrastructure for air travellers.

On planes, that means we have reinforced cockpit doors to prevent unlawful intrusions. We have also introduced highly sophisticated detection equipment to screen travellers and their luggage. We have redesigned the sections of flight attendant training that deal with air security.

In airports, we have increased the number of screening officers. We have also enhanced requirements for airport security plans and have introduced the restricted area identity card for Canadian airports. The card strengthens airport access control. It is the first dual-function biometric card, using both iris and fingerprint identification.

However, air travel is only one part of it. We are also working to improve security for ground travel.

Our Conservative government has been working since May 2007 with major rail, transit and intercity bus operators from across Canada and their primary associations, including the Canadian Urban Transit Association and the Railway Association of Canada. We have developed a series of voluntary security standards and security guidance documents with these associations.

We also changed some of the laws to better respond to threats. For instance, the International Bridges and Tunnels Act came into force in April 2007. The act provides the government with the legislative authority to ensure effective oversight, including safety and security of the existing 24 international vehicle bridges and tunnels and 9 international railway bridges and tunnels, as well as any new international bridges or tunnels built in the future.

Thanks to this legislation, the Minister of Transport has the authority to issue an emergency directive in response to a potential threat to the safety or security of any international bridge or tunnel.

Under amendments made to the Transportation of Dangerous Goods Act in 2009, the federal government has the authority to ensure effective oversight, including security, over the transportation of dangerous goods on our roads and rail lines.

In November 2007, the Minister of Transport and the Railway Association of Canada signed a memorandum of understanding that reflected the core principles of a good security regime, including regular updates to risk assessments and security plans, drills and exercises, training and awareness and incident reporting.

Beyond land and air, the marine security program protects Canada and Canadians by safeguarding the integrity, efficiency and security of Canada's marine transportation system against unlawful interference, terrorist attacks or use as a means to attack our allies.

Marine security program personnel conduct inspections, review and approve security plans and work with stakeholders to assist them in meeting the requirements of the Marine Transportation Security Act and its regulations.

Established in 2004, coastal Marine Security Operation Centres, MSOCs, have the authority and capacity to support a national response to perceived and real marine security threats to our country. MSOCs are located in Halifax, Dartmouth, Victoria and Niagara.

We rely on the skills and knowledge of federal government departments and agencies responsible for marine security, asset support or maritime expertise to ensure that MSOCs are effectively protecting our marine borders. These centres have the authority and capacity to use all the civilian and military resources necessary to detect, assess and support a coordinated response to a marine security threat or incident.

In addition to these investments in air, ground and marine transportation security, the government continues to work closely with international partners and allies, sharing information of interest such as threat assessments, best practices and mitigation strategies to help develop harmonized and compatible security systems. This information is shared bilaterally as well as with international forums such as the International Civil Aviation Organization.

In addition, the aviation and marine transportation security clearance programs reduce the risk of security threats by preventing interference with the aviation and marine transportation system through background checks on employees who perform certain duties or who have access to certain restricted areas of airports and ports.

These comprehensive background checks better protect Canada's transportation infrastructure, employees and passengers against insider threats and reduce the risk of having individuals linked to organized crime working at airports and ports. The government also conducts and participates in government and industry-led exercises on air, marine and surface security to ensure the government and industry are ready to react in emergency situations.

These are wise investments protecting Canada from threats, investments that began under the PSAT initiative.

Before I conclude, I cannot support this motion. The Auditor General reviewed all available documentation during his audit and concluded, “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”.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for his speech, even if I do not agree with his analysis or conclusion.

I would like to share a story that will strike a chord with any parent. Last winter, I asked my son where his other mitten was. Children are always losing their mittens in winter. He said that he did not know. I asked if he had lost it again. He told me that he did not lose it, but that he just did not know where it was.

The Conservative government has that exact same attitude. It says it did not lose $3 billion, but that it just does not know where the money is. It is somewhere. It may have been spent. If that is the case, it was not misspent, but the government cannot say how it was spent or if it is in a reserve fund. The Auditor General is telling us that there is a lack of information.

The government advocates transparency, but it does not follow through. There is constant secrecy and denial. It hides information. Many departments and agencies have a failing grade when it comes to access to information.

The entire Conservative government deserves an F. It needs to tell us where that $3 billion is. That money belongs to Canadians.

[Bryan Hayes, Conservative, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Mr. Speaker, one of the challenges I have with this motion is that it asks for a forensic audit. A forensic audit is an examination of an organization's or individual's economic affairs, resulting in a report designed especially for use in a court of law. It is ridiculous that the opposition would bring forward a motion that speaks to having to do something in a court of law.

Forensic accountants may be involved in recovering proceeds of crime and in relation to confiscation proceedings concerning actual or assumed proceeds of crime.

The NDP is talking about crime. However, no crime has occurred. The Auditor General has been very clear in terms of what he stated. Specific to reporting, one of his quotes is that the departments are responsible for accounting and reporting their spending through the Public Accounts of Canada. He says, “The spending within the departments would have undergone normal control procedures in those departments; so there are internal controls in departments about spending and they would go through all of those normal processes. We didn't identify anything that would cause us to say that we felt that anything was going on outside of those processes”.

To ask for a forensic audit is unbelievable.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to my colleague's speech and I think I heard him say that the money would appear, that somehow it is going to materialize. That is interesting. We will wait to see how that all works out. However, I would like to ask him a question about money that we know exactly how it was spent, and that is money that relates to government advertising. I would like him and his colleagues to listen for a second and then explain how he can justify this when looking into the eyes of his constituents.

The government has erected 9,000 billboards at a cost of $29 million. It is running economic action plans now on an annual basis at about $100 million a year. It spent $23 million doing media monitoring for 60% of the backbench MPs in the Conservative caucus. It is spending $90,000 per advertisement on each and every ad during the hockey playoff series. That alone would pay for 40 to 50 additional summer student jobs. Can the member and other members of the Conservative caucus, who I am sure are ashamed of this, explain to Canadians how this is possibly defensible given the situation we are in now economically?

[Bryan Hayes, Conservative, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am really not sure what that question has to do with this. I am surprised you are not bringing it to the member's attention, because that is not at all what we are talking about today.

I can state that we, as a government, have spent significantly less on advertising than the former Liberal government and we will continue to do so.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as always it is a great honour to rise in this House and represent the people of Timmins—James Bay. I will be sharing my time with the member for Welland.

We are here today to make the simple request that the government admit that it lost track of $3.1 billion and work with us by bringing forward the documents so we can find out what happened to the money. We have heard a number of fascinating euphemisms, such as the money is not lost, it just has not been found, and that the money is horizontal. Perhaps that means it is under someone's bed. We heard that it will materialize. Is the government just expecting it to appear at some given time? What that speaks to is the sheer level of defiant incompetence within the government.

I remember when the Conservatives replaced the Liberal Party in 2006 and made a promise to Canadians. At that time, Canadians were frustrated by the years of arrogance coming from the Liberal Party and the numerous scandals. The Conservative government at the time made a promise that it would come in and clean up Ottawa. It was a simple promise that it would bring a standard of ethics back to Ottawa.

That is not what has happened. What we have seen is a level of defiant immaturity on the most basic issues of public policy. It is like the government created this carnival circus of spite and mediocrity and has attacked all of the existing standards of transparent accountability essential to ensuring democratic foundations.

At the centre of a lot of these scandals, we see the present Treasury Board president who bragged about destroying Canada's long form census. At the committee hearings he said that if one person in the country objected, that would be enough to destroy this system that was a gold standard around the world for gathering information. Then the government came out with Bill C-30, which shows that it is more than willing to intrude on the privacy of Canadians. In fact, it thought it was perfectly fine to spy on Canadians. Again we see that its decision on the long form census shows a level of managerial incompetence that is staggering.

As well, the member took $50 million of border infrastructure money and blew it on the most outrageous and needless projects, such as building gazebos, investing money in a sunken boat, and putting a lighthouse in a forest in northern Ontario, while telling senior citizens living in poverty that he was sorry but the cupboard was bare and these are tough times. However, the member took money that was meant for border infrastructure security and blew it in his riding. We now find out there is $2.1 billion of secret contracts being shovelled out the back door, again happening under the Treasury Board watch. The government is not even meeting the basic guidelines. It is taking money without any sense of accountability.

Now $3.1 billion has gone missing and the Conservatives are saying not to worry because it was spent well, but cannot tell us where it was spent. That is not a standard for accountability.

Canadians watching the government wonder what is happening in this nation. People do not expect government to do everything. They expect the government to play a role at times when people need it, such as with respect to pensions, infrastructure and health care. The role of government is to maintain a good standard of public policy that is accountable, transparent and can meet international norms.

Canadians expect government to unify and bring people across this great country together. However, what we have seen in this carnival circus of spite and mediocrity is that sneering has replaced leadership and that the 140-character attack has replaced debate. We are seeing this sense of political mendacity being moved throughout every level of the government, including its committees and backbenches. I have not even mentioned the fact that it is spending millions of Canadian taxpayer dollars to keep tabs on its own backbenchers. The level of suspicion and wastefulness is staggering.

We also see attacks by the Conservatives on science and international institutions. Canada once had a reputation as a country that was the model of openness and decency. Under the current government, Canada is now becoming a stranger to the world, a place where the government responds with suspicion and distrust, and representatives of the United Nations are being ridiculed.

We see the Conservative backbench ridiculing members of the United Nations who are dealing with the fact that in the far North, in the riding of the Minister of Health, for example, people cannot afford food.

The government attacks. It attacks international institutions. It has shut down Rights and Democracy. It has shut down the Round Table on the Environment and the Economy. It has attacked, relentlessly, the role of the Parliamentary Budget Officer, whose primary job is to provide documents to Parliament.

The Conservatives have turned this House of Commons into a place where the role of the MP to hold the government to account has been shut down through efforts to shut down debate time and time again. What we are left with is this culture of arrogance where the Conservatives believe they are entitled to their entitlement. They believe that their friends, like Mike Duffy and Patrick Brazeau, can get away with things because they are Conservatives.

It is a level of arrogance that even outstrips something the Liberals had, and I think that is staggering. It is an insult to the Canadian people who were promised that the Conservatives would do government differently.

Now $3.1 billion is missing. That is incompetence. It is incompetent management when the President of the Treasury Board says that he does not know where the money is but that it is okay, and that we should trust them. That is not what should be done in accountable government. In any western nation that would be considered an abomination. The Conservatives have taken the Berlusconi model and just made it meaner. It is not an acceptable standard.

We are asking the Conservatives what happened to the money, and they cannot explain it but they tell us all the good stuff they are doing. Meanwhile, they continue with their cuts. They continue wasting money on their ads. They continue wasting money spying on their own members.

They continue wasting money going after civil rights activists, like Cindy Blackstock, spying on her, going to court to fight basic things that most Canadians would consider issues of decency and fairness. Those are words that do not belong in this government's lexicon. It makes me think of Andrew O'Hagan's recent article on Maggie Thatcher, where he said that her legacy was to make England a seedier and greedier place. The kind of attitude that we are seeing from the government, where it has taken the level of partisanship to the level of almost psychosis, is dividing Canadians to change the channel on the fact of basic incompetent mismanagement.

I would suggest that if we were to go into any Tim Hortons in any place in this country, and we asked people if it was okay that the government cannot find $3.1 billion and whether they trusted the government, I do not think we would find a single Canadian who would answer, “Yes.”

The contempt that the Conservatives have for Canadian taxpayers' dollars, with their friends like Mike Duffy and Patrick Brazeau and with their attitude of their secret contracts, refusing to say whether it is tendered, refusing to come forward and produce documents showing how money is spent, is an example of why the government has lost touch with the Canadian people.

What we are asking for in the motion is fairly straightforward. We want to know where the documents are. Is it a case like that of the President of the Treasury Board, who took $50 million from the border infrastructure and funnelled it through his constituency office, burying the paperwork, and got away with it? He buried the paperwork. He hid the paperwork. He said, “Sorry, there is no paperwork.” That was not true. There was paperwork. He did it on homemade forms.

Were the Conservatives filling out homemade forms? They can blame the former Liberals for being part of it, but they should have changed the system. If there was a problem when the Liberals were doing it, they could have changed it but they did not.

Now we see this level of mendacity and this level of incompetence being shown to the Canadian people in a level of arrogance that shows they do not believe they are accountable or need to explain what happened to $3.1 billion. It is simply not acceptable.

[Bryan Hayes, Conservative, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my challenge here is that, in the normal process, what would happen with the Auditor General's report, in all likelihood, because apparently it contains a little controversy according to the opposition, is it would go to the public accounts committee.

Undoubtedly when the resolution fails, which it will, this is going to go to the public accounts committee. So my question to the member is, does he not think that the public accounts committee is capable of doing its job, bringing forward witnesses and reviewing this report? Considering the public accounts committee is chaired by a member of the opposition, I would think it would be able to.

That is my question. Does the hon. member not agree that the proposed resolution is redundant because there is a committee in place that will undoubtedly look at this report, and report back to Parliament?

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the real question here is not whether I believe that the committee is able to do its job but whether I believe the government is doing its job. Clearly, it has not been, and clearly, the Auditor General supports the position of the New Democratic Party.

The government is saying it is just a little bit of controversy that it lost $3.1 billion dollars. The Auditor General said:

...it’s important for there to be...a way for people to understand how this money was spent and that summary reporting was not done.

Where is the money? It is a simple question. If the government has nothing to hide, it should be willing to bring forward the documents and exonerate itself.

What is it trying to do is play procedural games to escape from the basic fact that it cannot account for $3.1 billion through its own incompetence and it is hiding whatever documents there are that would show where the money was spent.

[Claude Gravelle, NDP, Nickel Belt, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have a document here in my hands. It is clearly indicated on the document that it comes from the Government of Canada, which is the government over there.

The document speaks about political party years and the surplus number of budgets. It is about accountability. I would like to quote these numbers. It says the NDP had a surplus 48% of the time; that is 65 surplus budgets. The Conservatives had a surplus 41% of the time; that is 101 deficit budgets. The Liberals had a surplus a dismal 27% of the time; that is 80 deficit budgets.

These numbers are so important that I would like you, Mr. Speaker, to ask unanimous consent for me to table these numbers.

[The Deputy Speaker]

Does the member for Nickel Belt have unanimous consent to table this document?

[Some hon. members]

Yes.

No.

[The Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

There is no unanimous consent.

[Claude Gravelle, NDP, Nickel Belt, ON]

Mr. Speaker, that is what we are up against. They will say or do anything to keep Canadians from knowing what the real numbers are.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, in 2008 the world economy was in the worst tailspin since the depression and the major financial houses in the United States were melting down. Back then, the current Prime Minister said it was a good time to pick up some deals. That showed how out of touch the government was. It said there would be no spending to stimulate the economy and that the government was fine.

At this point, the government had already blown through the surplus. It was already going into deficit. It said that if Canadians let the NDP get into power, there might be a $30 billion deficit, but within three months it had racked up a $50 billion deficit. The Conservatives had no plan for dealing with the economic crisis at the time. They thought it was a good opportunity to go and pick up some good easy gifts.

It shows a level of incompetence and a lack of managerial skills in the government that when they lose $3.1 billion, they tell us not to worry: the money is horizontal.

What kind of answer is that to the Canadian taxpayer?

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Timmins—James Bay for sharing his time with me.

The member's last comment was that the Conservative Party said it was horizontal. The last time I checked, if somebody is horizontal, that person is actually asleep; however, if someone loses $3.1 billion, that person must not be asleep but comatose, because if the person was just asleep and woke up and rolled over, the money might be found under the mattress. In this particular case the government cannot find the money at all; it does not know where it is.

The government says it just lost track of it; it is not really lost. The Conservatives need to find themselves a good bloodhound. Maybe they could find the track and find where they lost it, because they have clearly misplaced it.

When we talk about that type of money and the size of the Government of Canada, we have to ask ourselves if it is a rounding error. Because the government spends billions of dollars, it might be a rounding error, but that is not the case here. Here we have slightly less than $13 billion, of which the government lost $3.1 billion. The government has simply lost track of it. If we do the quick math, that is about 24%. If a business lost track of 24% of its product, it would go bankrupt, yet the Conservative government says it is okay; the money just went places.

The Conservatives relied on the Auditor General's report. The Auditor General went through a list of possibilities with government departments and said, “The funding may have lapsed without being spent. It may have been spent on PSAT activities and reported as part of ongoing programs. It may have been carried forward and spent on programs not related to PSAT.”

The interesting part about those three statements is that there are two common words in every one of those statements, and those words are “may have”. The government does not know, and the Auditor General did not know either. He had no idea. This was purely a “perhaps”.

Let me posit another “perhaps”. Perhaps the government did spend it somewhere else and does not want to tell us. The Conservatives cannot tell us that they did not, even though they continue to say that nothing was misspent because the Auditor General said so. No, the Auditor General said they might have done something; the Auditor General did not say they definitely did something.

The problem is that it is open. We do not know what they did with it because they cannot find it. If they could find it, they could tell us what they did with it, but they cannot find it, so they cannot tell us. How do we know that they did not misspend it?

When I asked the President of the Treasury Board the other day about it, he did not know either. He could not tell me where he put it. He does not know. He says he believes the money is in the public accounts. Oddly enough, the Auditor General disagrees. He says the money is not there. The President of the Treasury Board needs to go back and take a look.

My good friend from Pontiac has moved this motion to do just that. Let us find out where that $3.1 billion actually went.

The Conservatives said they would account for every penny. That being the case, I would look to my young colleagues, the pages, to do the numbers for me. If we take $3.1 billion and multiply it by 100 pennies, how many pennies have the Conservatives lost? We are now talking about a number that would probably be best presented with a digit behind the 10, since we would probably have to do it to the fifteenth power or whatever.

I may not be a mathematician, but I am a Scotsman by birth and I count every penny and I tend not to lose them. Perhaps that is why we need to become government in 2015: so we can count the pennies. We will not lose them, unlike the Conservative government, which has taken $3.1 billion and literally lost it.

A number of things are happening with this issue. What is PSAT? Canadians deserve to know. Is it some sort of department that does not really matter to people a lot and is not that important? Is it one of those things that just happens and does not affect Canadians in general?

Let us see what PSAT is.

According to the Auditor General, the PSAT department has five initiatives, and he outlined them in his report.

The first initiative is keeping terrorists out of Canada while keeping Canadians safe. I would say that has an effect on Canadians.

After September 11, 2001, we knew what we needed to do and we allocated money to do it. It was the previous government that started it.

The second item is “deterring, preventing, detecting, prosecuting and/or removing terrorists”.

The third is “facilitating Canada-U.S. relations”. Canada and the U.S. share one of the biggest unguarded borders in the world. We have an obligation to our partner and friend across the 49th parallel. For me, where I live, it is across the Niagara River. I know that where you are, Mr. Speaker, it is across the Detroit River. We are very close. We can literally see our friends across the way.

The fourth item is “facilitating international initiatives”. The fifth is “protecting our infrastructure and improving emergency planning”.

Funding of $13 billion was provided to protect Canadians against terrorists, to ensure terrorists were not in our country, to deport them if we needed to, to protect vital infrastructure, and to show our intentions to our common friend across the way, with whom we have been at peace for over 100 years, one would think that we would be saying to them that we spent every last nickel and penny to make sure it happened.

However, what do we have? We have is a Conservative government that says that it kind of wanted to do that, but kind of lost track of $3.1 billion. To our friends across the way to the south, the Conservatives say they are not sure if they did, while to Canadians they say they are not sure if they did all the safe things that they were going to do because they did not spend the money—perhaps. They may have, but the problem is that now they cannot tell us.

To me, not being able to track the money is on a par with the possibility that things may have been left undone in protecting Canadians against terrorists because the Conservatives do not know what they did with the money. That is a critically important piece. That is an answer the government has not been able to give, because the Conservatives do not know if they did or did not spend the money. Which parts of that security that should have been done did they perhaps not do? I qualify it very specifically with the word “perhaps” when I say that “perhaps” it was left undone and Canadians were less secure than they might have been if the Conservatives had spent the money in the first place.

That is a question the government members cannot answer because they cannot answer to where that $3.1 billion is. The Treasury Board Secretariat has not been able to do that.

When I was reading through chapter 8 of the Auditor General's report, I found it fascinating that the department was given $2.75 million, a relatively small amount, to build a reporting system so it could track the $13 billion. The amount of $2.75 million is a relatively small number, but it is a big number for Canadians. For the average Canadian, $2.75 million is a lot of money. The department had almost $3 million to figure out what it did with the $13 billion; it spent the $3 million, and then it lost $3 billion. There is an example of government incompetence for us.

If the Conservatives are spending money to devise a system to track a system that is spending money and then they lose the money, in a math class they get an F, an unadulterated F for failure, pure and simple. It is not even an issue of not doing the right thing, of not doing the things against terrorists that they said they would do, because they do not know if they did them.

It is also about their saying they could count, and they cannot. Then they want to tell us it is there, that we should not worry, that they will find it, maybe, because they might have put it somewhere.

Let me just say this. If they cannot find it for us now, in 2015 we will look for it, we will find it and we will tell Canadians what the Conservatives did or did not do with it. Then we will actually ensure Canadians are safe. We will spend the appropriate amount of money that needs to be spent to ensure Canadians are not under threat by terrorists, to ensure they are safe and to ensure that infrastructure is looked after, unlike our friends across the way, who lost track of $3.1 billion and think it is okay.

I say to my friends across the way that it is not okay. You failed Canadians miserably when you lost the money. You lost track of it. You do not know where it went and you cannot defend it. It is a lot of money. Unfortunately, you have lost track of it. You need to come clean and tell Canadians where it went.

[The Deputy Speaker]

The member's time has expired. I would ask him and all other members to direct their comments and questions through the Chair, not to other members.

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Edmonton Centre.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, one of my jobs is as Canadian co-chair of the Canada-U.S. Permanent Joint Board on Defence.

Let me say what is not okay, and that is to insinuate that somehow the Americans have no confidence in what we are doing with respect to collective perimeter security. Collective perimeter security of North America is something the NDP has consistently opposed because of some of the members'—but probably not the member for Welland, because he lives close—knee-jerk anti-Americanism when it comes to collective security.

I can say that the Americans have every confidence in the co-operation they are getting from their allies across the border in Canada, and we have every confidence in them. To suggest that because of some accounting things that went on in 2001 we are somehow shirking our duties with respect to the collective protection of Canadians and Americans is simply false.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I know that my colleague is passionate about security, and I respect his duty and service to this country as a former member of the armed forces. I have said it before and I will continue to say it every time he asks me a question, because I admire his service.

Unfortunately, I disagree with him. The problem is that the government cannot tell us if it actually expended the money the way it intended to. It cannot. Did it leave bits out of the security piece it intended to do? It does not know, and neither do Canadians, and that is why I say neither do our friends across the way.

He is absolutely right that I live within a stone's throw of the border. The Americans are great friends of ours. They have been coming back and forth across the border for hundreds of years and continue to. We have many friends in the U.S. Those of us who live in border areas respect and love our friends across the border. We truly do.

I respect the fact that my colleague says that we need to be careful about it. I agree with him that we need to be careful about it. That is why the government has to tell us where the money is. What did it do with it? How did you spend it? If you spent it appropriately, then we can say that.

[The Deputy Speaker]

Again I would ask the member to direct his comments through the Chair and not to individual members.

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Hamilton Centre.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is a veteran member of the public accounts committee and happens to be the senior lead for the official opposition. He was in attendance on May 2 when the public accounts committee held its public hearing with the Auditor General on this report. During the course of that meeting, one of the members asked the Auditor General this question: “Is there a risk that some of the $3.1 billion may not have necessarily been spent on what Parliament had approved it for?”

The answer by Mr. Ferguson was this: “I guess I would have to say that there would be a risk because there is not enough information to answer the question completely”.

Is the hon. member as concerned about this risk as we found out we should have been with respect to the border security infrastructure money, which happened to find its way to building gazebos in northern Ontario? Is that concern shared by the hon. member?

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Hamilton Centre is absolutely correct. He quoted the Auditor General quite clearly and succinctly. I share the Auditor General's concern about risk. As much as he said “may” have in the three scenarios that he and the department said could have happened, they clearly could have added another “may have”, which is that there is a potential risk that it was not spent the way the possibilities were laid out. There is no definitive answer. No one knows. The government will not provide an answer, because it seemingly does not know. Otherwise, I am sure the government would provide a list of things it spent it on.

It has been unable to do that, which clearly indicates that they do not know and that the Auditor General, Mr. Ferguson, was correct in his assessment when he said that there is, indeed, a risk that the money went to another place. That is potentially why the government does not want to provide the information. Perhaps it went to pay for a gazebo and perhaps not in northern Ontario. Perhaps in some other place in this country there is a new gazebo being erected as we speak that would be quite lavish. Clearly, for $3.1 billion, one can build a lot of gazebos.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is indeed a pleasure for me to rise in the House to talk about the hon. member's motion. I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Portage—Lisgar.

The motion before us relates to the reporting of the public security and anti-terrorism initiative funds, as examined by the Auditor General in chapter 8 in the spring 2013 report.

Let us turn our attention instead to what really matters: the work done every day to keep Canadians safe and secure while encouraging economic growth, development and job creation. In fact, let us take a very recent example. In the immediate aftermath of the Boston bombings, officials with the Canada Border Services Agency and U.S. Customs and Border Protection were in contact to coordinate efforts to protect public safety on both sides of the border. This example speaks to the strength of our relationship with the United States overall.

Our American friends and neighbours know that they can count on us to be a stalwart partner in protecting safety and security for both of our countries. We are more than trading partners; we are friends and neighbours. When our nations are under attack, we stand together defending our shared values of freedom, democracy and the rule of law.

Providing the level of security we need in today's complex threats environment is a significant undertaking. Doing so without encumbering the biggest and most important bilateral trade relationship in the world makes the challenge even greater. With our government's efforts here in Canada, and in collaboration with our partners in the United States, it is clear that we are making substantial progress toward our goals. We continue to move forward with the implementation of the beyond the border action plan and in developing and implementing new measures to strengthen our mutual security while fostering the economic relationship between Canada and the United States.

We are moving forward with our commitment to the integrated cargo security strategy. We are continuing to harmonize standards and test new approaches to further ease congestion at the border. Last October, we launched a pilot project for marine cargo arriving at the port of Prince Rupert in B.C. Cargo cleared for entry into Canada is simultaneously cleared for entry into the United States. Cleared once: accepted twice. We expect to launch a second pilot for incoming cargo at the Port of Montreal in the upcoming months.

In March 2013, Secretary Napolitano and the Minister of Public Safety signed a memorandum of understanding clearing the way for a pilot project in which U.S. Customs and Border Protection will conduct cargo pre-inspection of U.S.-bound trucks in Canada. In addition, the pre-load air cargo targeting pilot has been under way since last fall. An expanded version of the free and secure trade program is being tested at the Blue Water Bridge at the crossing in Sarnia. If the pilot is successful, we could see this implemented on a permanent basis at all three ports where the free and secure trade program is now in place.

We are also installing new wait-time technology at key ports to enable more effective logistics planning. In British Columbia, NEXUS lanes opened in Douglas and Abbotsford last November. We opened an additional lane to better manage peak-period traffic at the Surrey/Blaine crossing in February. In Ontario, a third NEXUS lane was opened at both the Peace Bridge and Fort Erie crossings.

We continue to promote membership in NEXUS, and we now have over 800,000 members. NEXUS itself was created as part of the public security and anti-terrorism initiative. Expanding our trusted trader and trusted traveller programs, reducing paperwork and expanding pre-clearance programs are all integral to making the border more efficient and supporting economic growth in both of our countries.

Increasingly, we see businesses on both sides of the border building products together and working to produce and assemble parts and components. We are also addressing these threats to our joint security and economic well-being.

In March, our government introduced new legislation to address the growing problem of counterfeit goods. This legislation gives new authority to police and customs officials to seize and destroy shipments of counterfeit and pirated products. It will also establish new criminal provisions for copyright and trademark infringements. It will help ensure that businesses in Canada and the United States enjoy similar protection from counterfeiters. This is a global problem, and we continue to work with our partners in the United States and with our allies around the world to identify and respond to these kinds of threats.

As close as we are, Canada and the United States are independent countries, with their own sovereign interests, which we will continue to pursue in our own ways. There are, however, areas in which our sovereign interests coincide, such as preserving and growing our economic relationship and protecting the peace and security we enjoy. We cannot do these things effectively if we act unilaterally. The connections are too many and too complex, so we are compelled to work together.

The beyond the border action plan is a commitment to do just that on these key items. We are developing and implementing innovative measures that enhance our joint security while ensuring that the legitimate flow of goods, services and people across our shared border is as efficient as possible. We are making real progress toward those goals, and with the continued support of organizations such as the Canadian/American Border Trade Alliance, we will continue to get the results we want and need.

Much good work is being done to ensure the well-being of Canadians. The programs conducted under the auspices of the public security and anti-terrorism initiative represented the beginning of a new focus on the safety and security of our fellow citizens. In fact, the audit conducted by the Auditor General found that the overwhelming majority of spending reported by departments was evaluated and was consistent with the objectives of the public security and anti-terrorism initiative.

Where the Auditor General had concerns, they were about the clarity and categorization of reporting between government departments over the period of not just one year, but from 2001 to 2009. The Auditor General has provided recommendations to help improve the reporting process. We on this side agree with those recommendations. The Treasury Board Secretariat agrees with those recommendations.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech, which was very enlightening. So far, the Conservatives have avoided talking about the missing $3.1 billion. It is all well and good to list all of the anti-terrorism measures that have been implemented—these are important and I do not deny that, because we all agree that public safety is important—but today, we are talking about transparency, as the Auditor General pointed out.

My colleague quoted selectively from the report. I would like to share another part of the Auditor General's report. With respect to the Public Accounts, he said:

The information reported annually in the Public Accounts was at an aggregate level and most of the PSAT spending was not separately reported as a distinct (or separate) line item. Furthermore, with over 10 years elapsing since the beginning of the PSAT program, much of that information is now archived and unavailable.

It is not simply a matter of checking the Public Accounts. The government must work with all parliamentarians and with the Auditor General. I wonder what my colleague thinks about that.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments made by my colleague. He has filled in on a couple of committees, and I always have an appreciation for his questioning and ability to understand things.

That is why I want to speak about the whole issue around the public security and anti-terrorism initiative fund. That is what this discussion is and should be focused around.

Quite honestly, what I am hearing from the other side I find a little disrespectful. We have members on the other side who are taking on the challenge of what the Auditor General is saying.

The Auditor General is saying that he did not find anything to give him cause for concern that any money was used in any way that it should not have been.

One can twist the words and come up with one's own initiatives. However, quite honestly, I think the reason those initiatives come up is that the NDP does not have a platform on which to run in a budget. It has not supported one of the initiatives in any of our budgets since I have been elected and since that party formed the official opposition.

I understand the anxiety the members must have over there, as they need to search and swing things to try to get something to come to fruition. However, that is not the way it is, not by the Auditor General's report.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I think it is important that the Conservatives recognize that citizens have an expectation of government. Government collects a phenomenal amount of tax dollars every day, and citizens have this expectation that the government knows what it is doing with those tax dollars.

In this particular case, we have $3.1 billion, which is an astronomical amount of money. If I were to pose a question to any minister of the government as to what the government is doing with the taxpayers' dollars it is spending, one would like to think I could get a tangible answer. However, that is not the case with regard to this $3.1 billion.

My question to the member is specific. If one of his constituents were to raise the issue of the $3.1 billion that is unaccounted for in terms of where or if that money has been spent, how would he answer that constituent?