Mr. Speaker, it is always a great honour to rise on behalf of the constituents of Calgary Shepard.
This is the 14th report of the Public Accounts committee, a committee I got to chair briefly. I know that there are other members here who have had the honour of chairing that committee as well. It is one of the most interesting committees to be on because it is one that deals very closely with the Auditor General and with their reports.
For constituents back home, the 14th report is an audit of several government programs, and I see five of them, that account for hundreds of millions of dollars, and of how the money is spent. All of these programs deal with input costs and how the government is trying to offset the high cost of certain grocery products available in the aisles. The report accounts for how, in this particular case, the programs try to provide reasonably, affordably priced groceries for people who are trying to purchase them.
For weeks now, we have been talking about Bill C-234, which is now stuck in the Senate because Liberal-appointed senators will not lead it to a vote so it can be passed after the House has already spoken. I have always been taken by the argument, made by the member for Wellington—Halton Hills, that Bill C-234 is a spending bill. The House has Standing Orders, and there is a long constitutional tradition that, when we pass spending bills in the House of Commons, the Senate of Canada, the other place, does not have the right to continuously block it; it has to pass those types of bills.
In a private member's bill, we cannot pass new taxation but we can do a carve-out, and Bill C-234 would do a carve out. There is already a carve-out that was, by the Liberal government's own admission, created by the government for individuals with heating oil—