Madam Speaker, all the foundations, like the one in question, were created in the late 1990s. They were the brainchild of Marcel Massé, who was president of the Treasury Board under Jean Chrétien.
The government chose to impose austerity on the provinces, cutting transfers by 40% over three years. Ottawa was left with large surpluses. It looked bad on the balance sheets, so they chose to put those billions of dollars into arm's length foundations, creating all these problems we now know about.
Way back in 2005, the then auditor general of Canada, Sheila Fraser, published a damning report. It is now 2024. Is it not time to put an end to all these arm's length foundations, once and for all?