Mr. Speaker, government members opposite talk about perceptions and realities. Let us take a look at them. Of course they would like the perception of all Canadians to be that they are prudent financial managers and taking care of taxpayer dollars.
The reality is the very opposite. This has been exposed to the light of day through the HRDC fiasco. It is unbelievable and it cannot be hidden. That is reality. That is the reality government members are running from. They would like to create a smokescreen, a diversion, and make up a bunch of excuses about what they are doing, as though they really are prudent financial managers.
Let us take a look at some of the information that has somehow slipped through the minister's fingers, because we know she likes to hang on to it very tightly. Here is some that has slipped through the net. I will read from a letter from the minister of human resources when she wrote:
It greatly concerns me that Treasury Board regulations were not complied with in relation to issuing advances to sponsors and carrying over between fiscal years. This is an unacceptable practice that is completely avoidable. Every officer responsible for managing this fund should be cognizant of the regulations under which they work.
These are the minister's comments to people within her department. She acknowledges that treasury board guidelines are being broken. This is the minister and the government that put these guidelines in place. They are the ones who need to be held accountable and responsible for what it is they have done. We are bringing the motion forward in the House today to hold the government accountable.
The President of the Treasury Board said earlier in the House that the motion brought forward by the Canadian Alliance did not mean much, that it was meaningless. I would argue exactly the opposite. The President of the Treasury Board knows that the treasury board has been issued with directives to release the internal audits for which we are asking, and it has not done so.
Members of the official opposition, members of the Canadian Alliance, even filed access requests for some of the information which should be made public. It should already be out there in the open, and it has not been released.
We are bringing forward the motion today because of the smokescreen mentality of the government. It does not want the information to flow which should be in the public domain because it would expose the government further to what it really is, an irresponsible manager of the public purse. It has demonstrated that through its actions throughout the HRDC fiasco.
We see it spreading to other departments now. The government would like for Canadians to believe that it is a good manager when the opposite is true. It cannot hide from that reality. That is a reality and the government is in the midst of it. Canadians are not happy about it at all.
I would like to read a little more from some of the information we have from within the human resources department, some questions and some draft talking points given to employees which indicate in many ways that HRDC was not complying with the rules.
Here is a question within an internal document:
We were told to be flexible and responsive and not to lapse funds. Now we are being told we have to obey the Financial Administration Act and Treasury Board guidelines. Why doesn't management make up its mind?
That is a fairly indicting comment from within the department itself about its own guidelines. It has to issue questions and answers to its own employees about why management does not make up its mind, be flexible or obey the rules. That is unbelievable.
That is the kind of information that is being exposed in the light of day when we get it. This information is not forthcoming from the current government because it has to run and hide and get into damage control mode any time information is released. It is accountable for Canadian taxpayer dollars and it is blowing it in a big way. The document goes on to say in answer to the first question posed:
—the minister and the Deputy Minister have instructed us to follow the rules starting immediately.
What does that imply? It implies that the rules were not followed previous to this directive. It is unbelievable that employees had to be reminded to follow the rules. Another question was:
So what are the new rules? We have to know before we can talk to partners/sponsors.
The answer was:
The rules are not new. They are just being enforced.
They were not enforced before. That is the implication of that comment. Again I would state that this is glaring evidence of the problems the government is running from with the whole fiasco and why the President of Treasury Board and the government are not releasing information as quickly as they need to do. They are over the time limit in releasing information and as a result information is not coming forward. That is simply wrong.
This document from the human resources department goes on further with another question:
Do we really have to start these measures of enforcing the rules before this year's fiscal year-end?
The answer was:
We must obey the Financial Administration Act and the Treasury Board guidelines. This is not an option.
It is as though it were some new piece of information that they should be obeying the regulations and following the rules and guidelines, thereby implying that the guidelines were not being followed previously. That is why there are major problems and that is why we are bringing the motion forward today.
Canadians need to know this. They need to sift through the information screen being placed in their way by the government and take a look at the reasons behind it. The Liberals will stand to say one thing but they will do a very different thing with their actions.
I suggest that Canadians judge the government on its actions. What are its actions? Its actions have shown very clearly that it is a very poor manager of the hard earned tax dollars of Canadians. Money has gone out through some of the HRDC programs without individuals even applying for funding. Yet they receive funding and very few checks and balances have been placed on that funding.
That is not government money. The Liberals seem to think somehow that it is government money. They are taxpayer dollars, hard earned dollars that people go to work every day to earn, to make a living. The government, which imposes the highest tax rate possible on Canadians, then squanders away much of this money in an unaccountable fashion.
I do not think people have a problem if dollars are being managed wisely. Canadians are generous people, but they sure have a problem when they see their money wasted and they see their money blown on programs that do not even have accountability measures built in.
That is unacceptable and that is why we are bringing the motion forward. That is why we are holding the President of Treasury Board, the Minister of Human Resources Development, the Prime Minister and the entire group over there accountable for releasing information. They need to do that and they have failed to do so.
It is almost like the Wizard of Oz. When we pull back the curtain and see a little man sitting behind it we wonder how we were bamboozled by this individual. It is amazing. I ask Canadians to pull back the screen and examine in the light of day the actions of the government and exactly what it has done with Canadians' hard earned tax dollars. They will be appalled. The government should be and needs to be held accountable.
We are waiting in its stead to fill the void that is being created by a government that has simply lost touch with Canadians and with its responsibility to manage taxpayer dollars. That is why we brought this motion forward.
We implore all members of the House to support this motion, which will hold the government accountable, so that we get the information that should be public but is not being released, to examine the actions of the government and to make the government accountable.
