Madam Speaker, it is linked. Perhaps the member opposite could stop interfering. That gentleman has been here long enough and knows the rules of the House. I beg him to stop interfering and just allow me to give my speech, like an adult.
As I mentioned, this is about blocking accountability. We saw it at the operations committee, where ministers could not log on. Even after a year of having a hybrid Parliament, the ministers could not log on. Bureaucrats, who were there to defend the government or the estimates, were not able to sign in. We had meetings cut short because of the lack of resources. Let us be clear that it has nothing to do with safety. It is about reducing accountability.
I had asked a question on Friday about Bill C-2, and whether the new spending in four parts had gone through the Treasury Board approval process. The members opposite were not sure, but they assured me that they would probably follow the rules. I asked because new spending is required to go through the Treasury Board approval process. In parts of this bill, the Liberals might be able to say that it is a tax issue and therefore it does not have to. They may get away with that, but not all parts of it are. There is some new spending that has to go through the Treasury Board approval process. This is why I am worried. I did not get a straight answer.
If we look back at the previous Parliament and the wage subsidy of $110 billion, famously a lot of it went to very profitable companies. We asked the president of the Treasury Board at the time, who is now the health minister, if the wage subsidy went through the Treasury Board approval process. It was $110 billion.
Does anyone have an answer or a guess? Of course it did not.
What did we end up with? Let us look at some of the people who received some of that $110 billion of taxpayers' money. Rogers Cable, a government-protected duopoly that received $26 billion for a buyout of Shaw, received government handouts. Lululemon, which at the time had increased its market capitalization by $9 billion, still got taxpayers' money. Air Canada famously got taxpayers' money through the wage subsidy and used it to help pay executive bonuses. Bell Canada, which I think is the largest of the telecoms, is another protected duopoly in a lot of markets. It received money. Telus is another one worth billions with huge profits. It increased its dividend. I know this because I am a shareholder. It was able to increase dividends at the same time as it received taxpayers' money. Nutrien is another one and, of course, what would a trip to the Liberal trough be without SNC-Lavalin and Irving also receiving money?
That is the issue. Has the new spending in Bill C-2 gone through the Treasury Board approval process properly, so that we know the taxpayers' money is getting to the businesses and people who are truly in need?
Bill C-2 is a bit of a “forward/backward” budget. The famous Allan Fotheringham, also known as Dr. Foth, used to call our old Progressive Conservative party the forward/backward party. That is similar to Bill C-2. At the same time as we have a labour crisis, we have the government offering incentives for companies to hire, but also incentives for people to stay home. We are subsidizing one and the other.
We see again that the government wants to put more money into the recovery sickness benefit and the caregiver benefit, both of which had billions set aside for them in the economic update. The government underspent by about 90%, so the money was not needed, yet here we are with $500 million and $300 million being put back in. We want to see more oversight. It is not that we do not support Bill C-2, but that we want to see proper oversight and a proper plan.
The other part of the bill talks about helping at-need industries, such as hotels and restaurants. I proudly grew up working in the hotel and restaurant industry, and did so for 35 years. When I talk to hotel and restaurant owners and workers, they are not asking for another handout, please. They want bums in beds. They want bums in seats. They want people travelling again. They want to see a plan. Hotels with mortgages of $50-, $60- or $70 million are not going to last forever on subsidies. Small restaurant owners are not going to last forever with subsidies. We need a plan to get the economy going. We need a plan to get people travelling again.
We need to address the issue of the difficulty of travellers coming into Canada with PCR testing. A three-day visit is not enough.
What we are looking for is not only a plan for the current government to get people working again, but also a plan to address our concerns with respect to its accountability and its oversight of this pandemic.