Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak to the budget implementation act.
A few weeks ago, I spoke to the original budget and I had different names for it. One of them was the “Honey, I sunk the kids” budget, because it sinks our children and grandchildren by adding almost $100 billion in debt over the next several years. In fact, about five years from now, we are going to be spending more on interest payments than we do on our military.
Another name for it is the “Dude, where is my infrastructure” budget. The government, in offering so much infrastructure, it is almost like watching the Oprah Winfrey Show. Instead of Oprah saying, “You get a car, and you get a car, and you get a car”, it is Liberal after Liberal saying, ”Here is infrastructure for you, here is infrastructure for you, and here is infrastructure for you.”
Unfortunately, none of it can be found. The PBO cannot even find half of what has been promised in budget 2016. Of about $15 billion identified in 2016, only $7.2 billion can be found. A lot of it is missing. A lot of it has lapsed. I understand that. He did note that of the $7.2 billion that has been spent so far, it has only created a certain number of jobs. In fact, it has cost us $700,000 per job created by the Liberals' infrastructure spending.
I have another different name for the budget. I am going to call it the “Vantablack” budget. For members who are wondering what Vantablack is, it is a chemical substance made of vertically aligned carbon nanotube arrays and is the darkest substance known to man, absorbing 99.965% of radiation in the visible spectrum. In fact, Liberals talk about openness and transparency. They say that sunlight is the world's best disinfectant. Liberals said that they will shed new light on government and ensure it is focused on the people it is meant to serve, which is Canadians. However, even a supernova could not shed enough light to get past the Vantablack in this budget. We have seen the Liberals fail again and again on transparency.
We have seen the President of the Treasury Board fail with his update to the Access to Information Act. Our office has been submitting maybe ATIPs, access to information requests, since we started here two years ago. Some of them are almost two years old. At the rate of the Treasury Board president's sloth-like pace, we could actually see these ATIPs being eligible for parliamentary pensions before they actually come to light.
There is a gentleman named Allan Cutler who helped the government operations committee write a very good report, which the President of the Treasury Board promptly threw in the garbage. It was about improving whistle-blowing protection for public servants. He submitted an ATIP regarding the UBS banking scandal, one of the largest banking scandals in the world. It involves Canadian firms and banks sending money abroad, basically laundering money and bringing it back. He received a response from the government saying that it would take 800 years to fulfill the ATIP. Members are hearing that right: 800 years.
We also have the Atwal case, where the Prime Minister trotted out the national security adviser with some cockamamie story about rogue Indian government involvement. I had to laugh. I am sure a lot of us saw the interview with the public safety minister, where the press cornered him and he ran so fast to the elevator. He ran at such a speed even the Russians were asking for a doping test.
We also see the lack of transparency with respect to shipbuilding. The PBO said the national shipbuilding strategy was about $60 billion. We have some experts saying it is $100 billion now. We are not sure because the government will not release the RFP to the public or even to the Parliamentary Budget Officer. To talk about the costing for this shipbuilding program, the Parliamentary Budget Officer actually had to go down to the United States and use his top clearance to access its costing for the Arleigh Burke ships to bring back and extrapolate the cost for Canada because he cannot get the costing or the access for the DND.
I want to quote from the budget. I want to thank the Liberals for only spending about $800 on the cover, unlike the $200,000 they spent for last year's cover. For those following at home, on page 313, it says:
Compared to FES 2017, direct program expenses are lower, reflecting lower projected expenses for consolidated Crown corporations...year-to-date results...and updated departmental outlooks.
That is fine. When we look at page 324 of the budget, we see that the actual spending between 2017-18 and 2022-23 for operating expenses is only increasing 1.8% overall.
Normally I am quite fine with lower spending. However, with over five years of inflation, five years of population growth, as well as billions for the national housing strategy the Liberals have announced, billions and billions for ships, billions for infrastructure, half of which I know cannot be found, and billions for indigenous plans, a lot of these are very valid plans, but there are billions and billions that are not reflected in the outlook for program expenses.
We asked the government's finance officials to explain where the money is as identified on page 313. They have updated departmental outlooks. Where is the money? They refused to respond. The Parliamentary Budget Officer asked for specifics on the spending the government is doing over the years. Where is it going to cut to get 21.8% when there are billions in spending? The government refused to publish the information. A couple of scant details were sent to the PBO and were marked as confidential. Again, it gets back to zero transparency with the government.
Here is the kicker, the real part behind the “Vantablack” budget, as they call it. It is not the 600 pages of legislation. It is not the 200-page morass of the BIA that is the explanation of the carbon tax. It is not even the issues identified on pages 313 and 324 which I just spoke about. It is what is called vote 40. That is the $7.4-billion slush fund that is in the estimates.
The estimates process is when Parliament actually approves specific spending. The President of the Treasury Board has decided to try to reform the estimates process to make it more transparent. He is obviously going the wrong way. He is making a lot of changes which take away accountability from Parliament for the sake of transparency. This is what the Parliamentary Budget Officer shared about the main estimates:
With respect to delaying the main estimates, the Government indicates that the core impediment in aligning the budget and estimates arises from the Government’s own sclerotic internal administrative processes, rather than parliamentary timelines.
The President of the Treasury Board said that these materially delay the implementation of the government programs.
The government's own administrative issues are the problems with the line in the estimates. What is the solution? It is less oversight and scrutiny. The government cannot get its act together to get its programs out the door, so it takes away the ability of members of Parliament and the public to hold the government to account.
Normally there are spending authorities put into the main and supplementary estimates. Ministers come to committee with their deputy ministers and their staff to defend their spending decisions and explain exactly what the spending is going to be used for, but this is all taken away now for $7 billion. When we take away infrastructure from the operating expenses, it is over 10% of the government's spending and the oversight is taken away. Now $7.4 billion will sit with the Treasury Board to dole out without explanation or oversight until it shows up in the public accounts after the next election. The government is very good at avoiding scrutiny and this is just one other step.
The Prime Minister's own cabinet and the Treasury Board oversight team have not actually vetted the $7.4 billion in the slush fund. It makes one wonder why he thinks they are actually worthy of parliamentary approval if the cabinet has not even approved them. The alleged programs being funded through this vote have not been approved by cabinet nor have had Treasury Board oversight. If they end up actually being ineligible for funding, the money is frozen. The Liberals are assigning funds to programs that have not been approved yet on the chance that they are feasible when they could be putting that money toward needed things such as infrastructure.
The language around vote 40 is so vague one could actually drive a truck through it. There is no actual legal authority that says the money set out in vote 40 has to be used for the items identified. The government can take that money and spend it any which way it wants. The same people that brought the sponsorship scandal, the same people who thought it was a great use of taxpayer money to spend $8 million on a hockey rink on Parliament Hill, the same people who spent $500,000 to wrap a building in Canada 150, the same people who cannot even plan a birthday party for Canada on July 1, want $7.4 billion for free spending without oversight.
That is a disgrace. This side of the House will not stand for it. Canadians will not stand for this attack on parliamentary principle and oversight, and I will not stand for it either.