Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to join in the debate. Like many members of the House, it was just moments after the minister brought down his budget, not too long ago, that many of us were called to the phone to give our opinion. I reacted very positively and I will explain why.
On page 4 of the budget the minister talked about the accountability that Canadians deserve. I will centre my remarks today on just that. On page 15 of the budget the finance minister said he had been across Canada and everywhere people told him they wanted the government to be more accountable and more transparent.
Finally, I want to quote from his budget speech when he said, “which is why we are making accountability a cornerstone of this budget”. I stand here with all honesty and I would to God, that could be true. This country, not just government, but in our larger business and so on, needs a healthy dose of an anti-toxin to get rid of some of the unaccountability that we have faced.
When I took the budget home and read it and I asked people what they thought of it, their response was, “Who cares?” They said all they read about was some corruption that was going on. That is a disgrace to the country. Just yesterday was typical. Every day, every week that goes by we pick up the paper and read about more fraud. There was an article in the Toronto Sun about the kickback on federal credit cards which were abused for over 20 years.
What do the people out in my part of the country call this? They say that if it is going to continue, who cares about the budget? I would hope that every department, every bureaucrat and every person who has anything to do with cutting cheques, and those who are receiving them, can live up to being accountable. Canadians are totally fed up.
An elderly gentleman, a real scholar and who I think is getting close to his nineties, sent me a letter. He said that never before has there been a decade in the history of Canada that the government has been involved with more corruption and more fraud than this past decade.
He is probably right. Every year that I have been here we have had major fraud cases before us. I think the Minister of Finance truly meant what he said, that Canadians deserve accountability. Canadians are demanding accountability and they are losing faith with governments, provincial and federal. We can tell by looking at the percentage of people who turn out to vote. It is going down and down and down because of that disease called unaccountability.
My constituency has a lot of governments. I have been involved in governments of one type or another for 24 years. I have helped to prepare budgets and have put my signature to them. In all of those years, I remember only once that somehow we were out $24, not $24 million. Why is it that the present government cannot follow the paths of local governments with accountability?
I will be sharing my time, Mr. Speaker, with the hon. member who just came in.
Let me tell members about the people in the northeast corner of Saskatchewan. They came into this country just before World War I. They did not come from countries that had democratic governments. They did not come from countries that had organizations at the local levels. They came into a rural municipality with school districts and they accepted that type of accountability. They made the finest citizens, and many of them live in my constituency.
We see in the budget the idea that we will turn over more money to everybody but I do not see within the budget any mention as to how the government will control the money that is being handed out. Oftentimes we have $6 billion which is unaccounted. At the present time the Minister of National Revenue simply says that the money that has been taken in GST fraud will be written off as uncollectable taxes; $30 million, $40 million, who knows if it will go to $1 billion? That is not acceptable and Canadians are not accepting that.
I do not know what the people here say, but where I come from people are totally disillusioned when they pick up the paper every day and see another fraud, another scam. Some people say “So what? That is the basis of democracy”. Do members know how democracy started? They took old King John down to Runnymeade and said “If you don't start being responsible to your people, we're going to knock your head off right here”. That is how it began. Accountability and democracy go together but somehow we have let accountability go and in doing so we have let democracy go.
In the area that I represent, I have 45 rural municipal governments, 7 school divisions, 2 cities and 57 towns and villages. I would bet money today that come the end of the current fiscal year they will not be out one cent. We need to ask ourselves a question. Why does the government get involved with the GST fraud, the HRDC fraud, frauds and frauds? We need to take a good look at where those billions of dollars go. There is no machinery there to account for how this money will be spent. It is most common in my province.
I was pleased to hear what the minister had to say. I even believe what the finance minister said about accountability. I believe he knows what he is talking about and I believe he really wants that to be part of this budget. I think everyone in the House, particularly on the government's side, better say that we will come in with a fraud-free year and that we will not let this fraudulent activity, which has gone on for a decade, continue into another decade.
No one would be happier than the citizens out there. Instead of 50% and 60% of people voting, we could have 70%. That would be a great delight to everyone.
