As my hon. colleague from Barrie—Innisfil said, it makes you want to cry. I thought for sure I had to get that in there.
Madam Speaker, I shake my head again at the comments made earlier about the competitive advantage. What is really interesting is that if we look over the list of all the companies that we have given millions of dollars to over the years, we see that the government has done business with them as well. It is interesting that not only do we give them big subsidies, or “loans” that have never been repaid, but we also do significant business with them as well.
One of these companies is IBM. Members might be familiar with IBM. It is a very old company. It made its fortune during the lead-up to and during the Second World War. I believe it is the company that is at the centre of the Phoenix fiasco.
Here we are paying out $33 million to IBM. Has that money ever been repaid? We do not know. Will it ever be repaid? We also do not know. Therefore, I commend the member for Beauce for bringing this particular bill forward, because it has highlighted for me how we have given certain companies in this country a significant competitive advantage.
We often have a very rigorous competition when we hand out contracts. I understand that this was done in the case of Phoenix. When a company lands a government contract, it becomes quite a player in its particular industry. A company that has a government contract will often go out and market that fact. I see all the time companies saying that they have contracts with the Department of National Defence. They wear it as a badge of honour. However, we have not only given IBM contracts; we have also given IBM $33 million with no repayment schedule that we, as the taxpayers of Canada, can see.
Another one on this list is $4.5 million for Lockheed Martin Canada. I thought that was fairly interesting. I understand we may have given Lockheed Martin this money for the work that we had done collectively with a number of other countries when we were developing the F-35. This money may have been a gift for the development work that Lockheed Martin needed to do. I do not know for sure. However, what we do know is that the government has ignored the F-35. Here is this big gift of money to Lockheed Martin, and we have no idea whether we are ever going to get it back. We certainly will not be buying F-35s at this moment, so that money seems to have gone off to develop airplanes for the world. I know that many of our allies are using that airplane, but I do not see that we are necessarily getting a great return on investment for that one as well.
Another one that was interesting to me was Navstar Canada, Inc. If I understand correctly, these are the folks who build heavy-duty trucks. I thought that was interesting.
I used to work in the automotive field. I worked on diesel pickups for most of my life before I got here. I am familiar with Navistar. I believe it provided engines for Ford pickup trucks. It is interesting to see that Navistar received a loan at some point in 2005 of $30 million. To its credit, it paid some off. From the sheet I am looking at right now, it looks like it paid off a whole $410. Over the last 10 years or so, it has paid off $410. That is significant. It was one of the interesting numbers, because it actually changed, unlike a lot of the numbers I have gone through. For example, the government gave MDS Aero Support Corporation $6.1 million in 1997, and the books show that it still owes $6,100,000.
I again commend the member for Beauce for bringing this forward and for bringing it to my attention. Corporate welfare is one of my great frustrations, particularly from the Government of Canada, regardless of political stripe.
I congratulated my friend Austin earlier. He is a mechanic in northern British Columbia. I do not know exactly what he makes, but as someone who has worked in the field before, I imagine that he pays probably $12,000 in income tax every year, and probably about $7,000 to $10,000 of that is federal income tax.
We can see how many mechanics it would take to pay those kinds of numbers, when we are dealing with Navistar Canada's $30 million. It would take a lot of mechanics working across the country to pay that $30 million.
We have heard about trips that have been taken by people here that have cost taxpayers $200,000. When we break that down into the average automotive mechanic's contribution to the federal coffers, it works out to 200 mechanics working all year to pay for the Prime Minister's trip.
What is even more egregious about this is that in some cases, people who are working in the world of commerce are competing in the marketplace only to have their tax dollars, the money they worked all year for, go directly to their competition. I have a good example of this in my riding. The government gave a grant for last-mile Internet. One particular company got a $2-million grant to bring the Internet. It caused competition with the folks who were already operating in that space and had been there for 30 years. A new company that received a large grant from the government is now competing with the mom-and-pop shops that had been operating there for over 30 years.
That grates on me incredibly. Folks have worked hard for a very long time to build the basic infrastructure for the Internet in northern Alberta, only to have larger companies come in that have good grant writers and that get government grants and then compete in exactly the same space with exactly the same products.
In this particular case, a constituent of mine was servicing several hundred farmyards and acreages in northern Alberta, and he was able to provide adequate Internet service for about $69.99. The other company, which received a large grant from the government, came in and for $39.99 was able to provide the same Internet service. It basically put the other guy out of business. He had to do other things.
This is where government subsidies are a real frustration, particularly where I come from in northern Alberta. We are a free market place. We typically like that. When it comes to the Internet, there is a lot of competition, and that has driven the government down, for sure.
I thank the member for Beauce again for bringing this legislation forward. I am very disappointed to hear that the government is not going to support the bill, although I am sure we have achieved something just by getting this list out.