Mr. Speaker, the bill introduced by the member for Outremont, the leader of the official opposition, is very important. It contains ideas that the Conservatives will find revolutionary.
The bill lists the skills required to hold the position of parliamentary budget officer. The incumbent must be bilingual; have experience and knowledge of the federal budget process; and have an appropriate educational background, including a graduate degree in economics, finance or accounting.
The bill states that it is important not to leave the position vacant, as the Conservatives have done, and to ensure, in advance, that there is someone to take over the reins. Here is another idea that the Conservatives will find revolutionary: ensure that the parliamentary budget officer has access to all of the documents required to do his or her job. Incredible. These truly are revolutionary ideas.
Perhaps we ended up in a somewhat difficult position because the Conservatives did not understand the importance of establishing a rigorous process for analyzing the budget, our finances, and the approach advocated in this bill. I will come back to that later. However, it should be said that, had the member for Outremont and Leader of the Opposition's bill already been implemented, we would not be in this same unfortunate position regarding the Conservative government's current and previous budgets.
As members of the House know, I am a former financial administrator. I made a living managing budgets, studying them, analyzing them and making sure that the numbers matched what was in the budget. It is no secret: the NDP already has financial management experience.
By and large, whether we are talking about a Conservative, Liberal, or NDP government, it has been clear for a long time now that New Democrats are the best at managing finances. Those are not my words. This is coming from the Minister of Finance and the federal Department of Finance. For the past 20 years, every time there is a new fiscal period, they keep saying that NDP governments manage the country's finances better than any other government.
The Conservatives are a distant second. However, they are ahead of the Liberals, who are always in last place. I think we can anticipate the Conservatives' slogan for the next election campaign, “Vote Conservative. We are not as bad as the Liberals”. That might be the slogan they will use.
If the Conservatives keep it up, they might surpass the Liberals when it comes to bad financial management and perhaps even corruption—just look at what is happening right now in the Senate and in other areas.
It is quite simple, especially when we look at where the Conservatives have failed. If the type of structure that the Leader of the Opposition is proposing for the parliamentary budget officer had been in place, as is the case in a number of other countries, including the United States—my colleague from Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie talked about this—the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Sweden, South Korea, Australia, we could have avoided the problems related to the F-35s that my colleague from Edmonton—Strathcona mentioned and everything related to the deficit and poor financial management. I am referring, of course, to the $2 million limousine that was sent to India, all the problems surrounding the G8 summit in Muskoka, and all the wrongdoing by Bev Oda, Mike Duffy, and Pamela Wallin.
All these problems could have been avoided if the Conservatives' guiding principle had been to manage the country's finances properly. It would have made a difference. Having a parliamentary budget officer in place also would have made a difference.
Despite all the poor financial management, not one Conservative MP stood up, before last week, to say that we could not go on this way. Canadians should not have to watch their quality of life erode, or do without housing or access to employment insurance benefits when they need them just because the Conservatives are incapable of managing finances properly. This would have made a difference.
On this side of the House, we believe that putting those financial structures in place and using the NDP model to make sure there is pure financial accountability in the federal government right across the country, we can ensure a better quality of life. We can avoid the kinds of problems that we have seen repeatedly from the government. It is a government that is simply incapable of properly managing the finances of the country.
We seem to constantly have the Prime Minister going off with his pet projects, rather than putting the fundamentals in place to make sure we have the kinds of things that Canadians need for their quality of life.
For example, when there are 300,000 people on the streets of our nation, the government should ensure there is employment insurance so that when people lose their jobs, they have the wherewithal to put food on the table. It should make sure that our health care system improves. Those are the kinds of investments that we need, but we are not seeing that from the Conservative government. This is a fundamental problem.
We have a different belief of how this country can be prosperous and how Canadians can have a better quality of life. They can say on that side of the House that they have created hundreds of thousands of low-paying jobs for temporary foreign workers; on this side of the House, we believe in creating high-paying jobs for Canadians. That is the kind of approach that we would take in government.
The member for Edmonton—St. Albert was so very clear last week. I said that up until now, no Conservative MP has stood up for proper financial management. No single Conservative MP has done that. I think that in a very real sense, tragically, they have all betrayed their constituents.
However, one member, the member for Edmonton—St. Albert, actually stood up on principle and resigned from the Conservative caucus last week. He spoke about ministerial opulence. He spoke about the spending scandals. He said "I no longer recognize much of the party that I joined".
That is a harsh indictment of a Conservative government that is simply incapable of even effectively managing the nation's finances. They certainly have not contributed to the quality of life that Canadians need to see.
I think it is fair to say that an increasing number of Canadians right across the country are saying that we can no longer afford to have a Conservative government in this nation. They are looking forward to 2015, when they will be electing, for the first time, an NDP government that actually takes proper financial management as an important principle. As the ministry of finance has been saying for 20 years straight, New Democrats manage finances better than any other party.
We balance the books. We pay down debt. What we do is simply take wise financial counsel, as millions of families across this country do. What they do is put priorities first. They do not invest in pet projects; they invest in making sure that the quality of life of Canadians is taken care of. That is what we will be doing in 2015, with a parliamentary budget officer fully in place to boot.
I can hardly wait for 2015, and I think a lot of Canadians feel the same way.