Benoît Sauvageau

[The Budget, March 8th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I have a very short question. Could we, my colleague and I, have an answer to our questions?

[The Budget, March 8th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to the honourable member's speech and would like to ask her a question. If I understood correctly, she and the members of her party oppose the Liberals' budget. First, she described very clearly why she opposed the government's budget. Then the Conservatives voted against the Bloc Québécois' subamendment on the budget, nevertheless.

There are two parts to my question. First, what are the member's main objections to the Bloc Québécois' subamendment to improve the government's budget, on which we voted yesterday? Second, if her party is opposed to the government's budget, can she assure us that most of the Conservatives will vote against the government's budget and will not find some way of getting out of it?

[Supply, February 22nd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask a question of the parliamentary secretary responsible for health. I appreciated the information he gave me about Infoway. On the Infoway web site, the chair of the board of directors says in his message:

What could be more exciting and rewarding than the opportunity to lay the information and communications foundation for the health care system of tomorrow? Canada Health Infoway (Infoway) is a unique organization dedicated to advancing the development of Canada's health infostructure—

This is what it says on the chair's web site. My questions are therefore in this regard.

I find it a little hard to understand and I am going to ask the parliamentary secretary to explain some things to me. According to what the chair of Health Infoway says, it is exciting and interesting, and the foundation is dedicated to advancing the process. So how is it that the foundation was established in 2001 with $1.2 billion in funding from the federal government, according to the Auditor General, and now there is $1.2 billion and another $200,000?

I think that everybody in this House will agree that there are health needs but there does not seem to be money to meet them. Four years ago, the Canada Health Infoway was given $1.2 billion. Now the foundation has made money with the investments given to it.

This is my first question. Does he think that this is normal?

Second, they earned interest, so they gave out grants. They gave $51 million in grants out of the $1.2 billion. But to provide the $51 million in grants, the administration costs were $30 million. Maybe that is normal. Let us compare.

The Canada Foundation for Innovation gave out grants worth $1.2 billion, and the administration costs were $39 million. The Canada Millennium Scholarship Foundation awarded $1.1 billion in grants, and the administration costs were $47 million. We are talking about $1.2 billion and $1.1 billion, but here we have $51 million in grants. One might say that there is quite a discrepancy and it cost $30 million in administration costs.

My second question: does he think that these administration costs are normal?

I had a third question in regard to interest. His department manages two foundations, namely the Canada Health Infoway and the Aboriginal Healing Foundation. Since 2001, the Canada Health Infoway has been given $1.2 billion. It has received $83 million in interest. The Aboriginal Healing Foundation has received $350 million—a lot less—and has managed to make an additional $3 million in interest.

My third question: since there seem to be some problems with the administration costs, the return on the interest earned and the grants awarded—because it is not normal for a foundation to have $200,000 more now than it did in 2001—first, how does the Secretary of State explain these realities about the Canada Health Infoway? Second, does he support the idea of having the Auditor General take a look at what is going on?

[Supply, February 22nd, 2005]

Madam Speaker, I was listening to the hon. member for Prince Albert, who gave me one more reason to justify the Bloc Québécois opposition when the millennium scholarships was set up. At the time, we had asked for Quebec's share of the money to be transferred to the Government of Quebec so that it could continue to manage its bursary and loan system as it had been doing for many years. I agree with the hon. member when he says that money deposited in bank accounts should not stay there. He is, in effect, saying that the Bloc was right to oppose the creation of these foundations.

I would like the hon. member to comment on this, but first I will quote part of the opposition motion:

That the House call on the government to implement the measures recommended in the latest Auditor General's report to improve the framework for the accountability of foundations—

One measure that could be taken is to support Bill C-277, an act to amend the Auditor General Act (audit of accounts). This would give the Auditor General the right to examine the foundations.

Since the President of the Treasury Board said that this bill corresponds to the Conservative motion, I would ask the hon. member for Prince Albert whether he thinks Bill C-277, as presented by the Bloc Québécois, could be used as one of the measures to resolve the issue of transparency with these foundations.

[Supply, February 22nd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague is totally right in pointing out that the purpose is to increase public confidence in these foundations and even determine how relevant the foundations and their mandates are.

If we agree with the statement of the President of the Treasury Board that the foundations in question are well managed and administered, that they are carrying out their mandates—to the point of being the envy around the world, with foreigners coming here to study how the federal government put them in place—that they are transparent and are a model, since the President of the Treasury Board once said he had the “bestest public service in the world”, we must have nothing short of the “bestest” foundations in the world.

If we have the “bestest” in the world, let us also make it obvious to the Auditor General. She will be delighted.

[Supply, February 22nd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Sudbury for her question. To begin with, I will tell her the same thing I told the hon. member for Mississauga South. I appreciate the fact that her question looks forward to the debate in committee.

Is it a matter of overseeing money or of allowing the Auditor General the right to oversee the foundations? I think that this question can most certainly be asked of the Auditor General during consideration of Bill C-277 in the Standing Committee on Public Accounts. At that time, she will be asked how, in her opinion, oversight of foundations should be ensured. She will explain this to us parliamentarians, and we will appreciate her responses and her comments.

Is it by a management audit of the use of resources? Is it by following the money trail? The Auditor General will surely enlighten the Standing Committee on Public Accounts and parliamentarians on the technical and accounting terms.

[Supply, February 22nd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I will reply to the hon. member by saying that, in connection with the debate on transferring funding for child care, for example, Quebec should have its fair share without conditions. It seems to me that first we could recognize the fiscal imbalance and look at the exchange between the Liberal governments in Quebec City and Ottawa.

If the two ministers manage to agree, a system of child care could be established that would be better for all parents in Quebec and would provide a better work-life balance for more families.

[Supply, February 22nd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to see that the hon. member for Mississauga South is going further and not simply limiting himself to the matter before us today. I believe he already sees the bill going to committee for study.

Of course, the hon. member is correct about the fact that if we grant the Auditor General the power to investigate foundations, the Office of the Auditor General will not do an exhaustive audit of all eight or ten of the foundations every year. Nevertheless, the office will be able to audit all of these foundations whenever it sees fit. That is what we want. The Auditor General does not audit all departments every year, but she can audit any of them.

The Standing Committee on Governmental Operations and Estimates may examine other departments or look at a chapter of the Auditor General's report, although that is usually sent to the public accounts committee.

I agree completely with the hon. member. If we vote in favour of today's motion by the Conservatives, if we vote in favour of Bill C-277 and we say in committee that the Auditor General will audit a particular foundation in a particular year, and that all the others will be examined by the Standing Committee on Governmental Operations and Estimates, that is perfectly correct and a good idea, in my opinion, and I think, in the opinion of all members. It will be debated in committee, but I would be in favour of this idea right now.

[Supply, February 22nd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I am well aware that I am to debate the motion. However, we do not have much time, during the 10 minutes allowed for questions and comments, to address the President of the Treasury Board. That is what I am doing before resuming my speech.

Was he saying that if the federal government transfers funds to a province, such as Quebec, the Auditor General has no right of oversight; consequently, she is unable to investigate the foundations.

However, under the Canada-Quebec-municipalities infrastructure program, whereby each party pays one-third of the costs, money is transferred between the federal government and the province, and the Auditor General has the right of oversight because it is for a federal-provincial-municipal program. She used Quebec as an example, saying that even if there were transfer payments, funding for this program was properly administered.

There are other instances of transfer payments, for example in health, where the department must ensure a follow-up of such funding. But since the Auditor General has been auditing UN files and programs cost shared by the federal government, the province and the municipalities, according to the President of the Treasury Board, she could therefore audit the foundations. But he says no.

This is how we arrive at the point of trying to find, in an instructional approach, not a demagogic one, how and why the Auditor General ought to have an overview of the foundations, and how the government's reasoning, i.e. the foundations' independence, does not hold up to any kind of close scrutiny.

I am totally in agreement with the President of the Treasury Board when he says that caution is required. Saying that the Auditor General ought to be able to vet the foundations is not saying that the foundations are mismanaged. I am not saying that every foundation has its own sponsorship scandal. I am not saying that funds are necessarily being pillaged. What I am saying is that we have a right to know. If they are properly managed, properly administered, properly controlled—as the President of the Treasury Board says they are—let them open up their books and prove it.

Some administrators of foundations have even told me that the Auditor General had to be allowed to come and that they would be only too pleased to show her how well they manage their affairs. Yes, they did support Bill C-277, they told me, because they were proud of the way they were administering the foundations and the foundations' funds. There was no problem.

Others called me to indicate their disagreement, but not out of fear of being found dishonest, or any such thing. If I am not mistaken, it was Canada Pension Plan, which has a federal-provincial transfer, and they asked me to raise the possibility of such an audit. I am totally in agreement with that. If it cannot be done for some legal or accounting reasons, I do not want to show any disrespect for the law and regulations.

If a foundation cannot be included in such an audit for this or that reason, it will be excluded, and parliamentarians along with the Canadian public can be told why it cannot be audited. This is why the Auditor General always adds, at the end of her recommendation, the phrase “with a few exceptions”. These exceptions will have to be defined at the committee stage. We will be able to do it there, and I am glad of that.

This recommendation by the Auditor General is not something that just dropped out of the sky yesterday. It relates to a recommendation subsequent to an April 2002 Auditor General report. Three years ago, she wrote:

Substantial amounts of public money have been transferred to foundations. I am concerned by the limits placed on Parliament's ability to scrutinize them.

While the President of the Treasury Board is in the House, I will quote two other facts which bother us and which suggest that the Auditor General should have oversight over foundations. In her Status Report, tabled February 15, in paragraph 4.64 she says:

However, some sponsoring departments informed us that they had first learned of the amount to be paid to foundations only when federal budgets were announced.

I think this is rather worrisome.

Tomorrow, the Minister of Finance will present a budget in which he will announce that some foundation will receive $3 billion more. The sponsoring minister will then say he did not know it, he did not ask for it, he did not apply for it, and that he is finding out as the budget is brought down. Is this normal? I do no think so. I could ask that question of the President of the Treasury Board.

However, in the same report, the Auditor General has a table showing the foundations. The hon. member for Sudbury told us that it was not known how many foundations could come under the Auditor General's scrutiny: tens, hundreds, thousands. The cancer foundation of Lanaudière region is not there. The foundation to preserve the shores of the St. Somewhere River, in someone's riding, is not there. There are eight foundations mentioned on page 4 of chapter 4 of the Auditor General 's report.

There are a number of questions to be asked about this table, Exhibit 4.2. For example, Canada Health Infoway Inc. was founded in 2001. Four years ago, the federal government gave $1.2 billion to Canada Health Infoway Inc. Today, Canada Health Infoway Inc. has $1,200,002,000 in its account. It received $1.2 billion and now it has more. That is amazing. If this foundation has respected the government's mandate for it, despite its independence, to assist in disseminating health information—and this is not an investment fund like the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec; it is supposed to be a foundation—we can see that it has more money now than it did four years ago. Can we ask questions? I think so.

There are other interesting examples, such as the Endowment Fund, which is a group of funds that includes the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Fund. The Endowment Fund was set up in 2001-02 and has granted $10 million in subsidies. It received $389 million to set up, has granted $10 million in subsidies, but cost $11 million to administer. Can we ask why it cost $11 million in administration fees to grant $10 million in subsidies? I am not saying this is wrong, I am just saying it might be questionable.

Then there is Sustainable Development Technology Canada, which was set up in 2001 and received $350 million. Since 2001, it has granted—sustainable development technology is the environment minister's hobby horse—some $6 million. Any idea how much it cost to administer? Seven million dollars. The administration costs outweighed the value of the grants. This is something the Auditor General might want to look into.

Do you understand, Mr. Speaker—and Mr. President of the Treasury Board—that this raises questions? I am not a big tax expert, nor am I very good at counting, so I will not dwell on the interest earned column, because I see that—although I am a poor administrator, at least I am not as bad as some people—some figures are not as good as others. To receive $2.5 billion and to be unable to earn interest on that amount might be a management problem.

This is not a scandal like the sponsorship scandal, but, if, through these statements, the Auditor General has some questions or leaves us with some questions, then it seems to me that we should get to the bottom of this.

First we are told this can adversely affect the foundations' independence. Yet, when a foundation receives all its funding from the federal government, it is not exactly financially independent, is it?

Earlier, I asked the member for Peace River, if I am not mistaken, how taking a look to see if the money is properly managed can adversely affect a foundation's strategic decisions. As far as I am concerned, a foundation such as, for example, the millennium scholarship foundation—I should point out here that we want all foundations to be abolished—gives scholarships to a number of students. If the Auditor General takes a look to see if the foundation's budget is well managed, the mandate of the millennium scholarship foundation will still be to give scholarships to students. I do not really understand the government's argument about the independence of foundations.

Second, the member for Mississauga South said that these foundations are audited nevertheless. He is a qualified accountant who knows there are two types of audits: financial audits and value-for-money audits, or performance audits.

Calculating that an organization received $100 million and spent $100 million is internal auditing. Such auditing is conducted in every department. However, determining whether this $100 million went to the brother-in-law of André Ouellet's sister-in-law and was used to take trips, drink champagne and so on, is another type of auditing called value-for-money auditing.

It is true that audits are now conducted in departments and foundations. It is true that foundations are subject to internal auditing. What the Auditor General is asking, and what we are asking is that these foundations be subject to external audits.

I do not want to hear all day long that there is an audit. It is also true that there is an external audit, because I know the member for Mississauga South will mention it.

However, it is the board of directors that decides who will do the audit. In the case of Canada Post, it was discovered that the board of directors, which was friends with the director and CEO, appointed external auditors who were not accountable to the government, but to the board. There may be a problem here.

Why, as parliamentarians, would we agree to give $9 billion to foundations and say that we do not what to know what is going on? If it is true that we do not want to know because this money is being properly administered, and if it is true that we do not want to know because there are internal audits, I must inform the Liberal member that each department has an internal audit branch. Why are we asking the Auditor General to look at all this then? Is it because they are all corrupt and all thieves? No, not all of them are. It is because we want to know how these funds are being administered. And the same is true for the foundations. The Auditor General called for this in April 2002. The Standing Committee on Public Accounts called for this in May 2003. The Auditor General called for it again this year and there is a bill that, I learned this morning, the government will support. So, it is about allowing the Auditor General to have the right of oversight for the eight, possibly twelve, major foundations which are currently funded by taxpayers' dollars.

Of these foundations, for the benefit of the member for Sudbury, it is not about, for example a anti-cancer foundation in her riding and where the volunteers could say—because that is what she said in her first intervention—that if the Auditor General audits the anti-cancer foundation cancer in her riding of Sudbury, it may be because there is something suspicious going on. The Auditor General will not go there. She could, if the bill passed, look at the operations of the Canadian Foundation for Innovation, which received $3.6 billion. Here is a surprising fact: there is still $3.1 billion left. It did not spend much.

Mention has also been made of the Canada Millennium Scholarship Foundation, the Canada Health Infoway, the endowment funds and Genome Canada. With regard to the latter, the Auditor General is verifying if it is a foundation under its letters patent of incorporation or if it is not an independent organization.

There is also the Aboriginal Healing Foundation, the Canada Foundation for Sustainable Development Technology and the Canadian Health Services Research Foundation. In my riding, I have no volunteers at Canada Health Infoway. I do not have any volunteers at the Aboriginal Healing Foundation. This is to reassure the member for Sudbury who was saying that she was afraid the Auditor General would go to the private foundations in her riding. I do not wish to get into this.

I merely want to ensure that we have a right of oversight over the eight foundations which have received $100 million or more from the federal government over a 12-month period, as the Auditor General called for in 2002 and again in 2005, as the committee called for in 2003 and as Parliament will shortly as well. I think this is only right.

The Auditor General said the following in 2002:

The audit found:

significant gaps and weaknesses in the design of delegated arrangements;

limits on what the Auditor General can look at, which prevents her from giving Parliament proper assurance that the use of federal funds and authorities is appropriate;—

She is not saying they are mismanaged, simply that she does not know whether or not their use is appropriate.

—the “parking” of billions of dollars of the public's money in foundations, years before it is to flow to the intended recipients;

little recourse for the government when things go wrong;

limited opportunity for Parliament to scrutinize these delegated arrangements.

If the Auditor General called for this in 2002 and again in 2005, if the President of the Treasury Board says he has nothing to hide, if the Standing Committee on Public Accounts has been calling for it on numerous occasions, I am sure that everyone will agree with this opposition motion presented today by the Conservatives. We will therefore have the pleasure of seeing full unanimity within the House of Commons.

Now, in connection with Bill C-277, I have just learned this morning that everyone will be in favour, and thus there will be another opportunity for full unanimity within the House of Commons. After study and a rational and informed analysis of the matter, we will make it possible for the Auditor General to audit certain foundations. If, for legal or technical reasons, certain others cannot be audited by her, we will at least have been given an explanation to pass on to the public.

[Supply, February 22nd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, for starters I would like to thank the President of Treasury Board—something that is not done very often in the House of Commons—for having just said, if I understood correctly, that he would support Bill C-277 after the second hour of debate. He said that he did not agree with the principle, but he wanted Bill C-277 to go to committee, where the debate would be held

With the avowed support now of the President of Treasury Board for Bill C-277, I am very pleased to learn that I will have the unanimous support of the House when we vote on this bill. It will therefore move along quickly; it will go to committee to be studied, as the President of Treasury Board wishes and as I do myself. I thank him therefore for his support this morning during the debate.

However, I have a few little concerns in his regard. During the debate, he said that the Auditor General could not be asked to audit the books of foundations because money is transferred to them and that, otherwise, this would mean the Auditor General could be the Auditor General of the UN. But the web site of the Office of the Auditor General, contains the following and I quote:

The Office of the Auditor General audits a number of United Nations agencies and has served as one of the auditors of the UN itself. The Office has also been one of the most prominent supporters of training programs for auditors from national audit offices of developing nations—

Since the Auditor General can audit the UN because the government transfers funds to it, according to the President of Treasury Board, she can therefore audit foundations. But he says she cannot. For example, the government transfers funds to Quebec and other provinces, and the Auditor General cannot audit this money. Therefore, on the strength of this, she cannot audit foundations.

I will return to my speech in a minute. I just wanted to take this opportunity to intervene with the President of Treasury Board, because there is not really much opportunity to do so during the 10 minutes allotted for questions and comments.

So the President of Treasury Board was saying that if the federal government transfers money to a province, for example Quebec, the Auditor General cannot audit it.

I know, Mr. Speaker, that I must give my speech. I am just making some comments....