Ken Epp

[Supply, February 8th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to stand in defence of the people of Canada, particularly the people of my wonderful riding of Elk Island, and to address this very timely issue.

Yesterday I moved a concurrence motion in the report of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts. The report which was tabled in the House last November would have addressed this question. Of course the government has been sitting on it. We began the debate and the very first Liberal member who rose moved to stop the debate. Of course the Liberals have the majority and stopped the debate on it.

One gets the impression that the Liberal pork-barrelling the program we are talking about represents is a favourite program of the government. The Liberals just do not want to see it attacked or criticized or repaired.

I am very pleased to note today that all members on the opposition side have spoken in favour of this very timely motion. It is time that all of us, not only members in the opposition but members on the other side, to do so. They were behind their leader in the last two elections. They said they would follow the leader of the Liberal Party who would take them into power with integrity and who promised a new trust in government. That is wonderful. I believe that people voted for the Liberals because of that promise.

I venture to say in all sincerity that members on the government side will apparently today, so we are told, stand on command and vote against the motion in defiance of their own sense of integrity because they know that this problem has to be fixed.

I will use a bit of my time this morning to give a little math lesson because it has been overlooked so far. The Prime Minister has tried to diminish the size of the problem by saying that only 37 projects are suspect and that the rest are all fine. He is also saying that the 37 being questioned will be clarified and all will be well.

There are two ways of dealing with a problem like this. One way is by denial, get out the damage control troops to see whether the damage to the Liberal Party and the government of the day can be minimized. The other way is to honestly face up to it.

I have told this story in the House before. I will briefly repeat it and anyone who wants the full story will have to go back. I remember one time in my life when I did something that really was bad. I mentioned this story in the House a couple of years ago. I was a youngster and I suppose I was following the lead of some of the older people in the group. We were out for a bike ride and we ended up at a neighbour's place in the farm country of Saskatchewan. The house was vacant. As I said the last time I related the story, much to my sorrow and personal regret now, when we left not a single window was left in the building because we had broken every one of them by throwing rocks at them. It was dastardly.

I do not know what the other parents did, but my father took me to the owner. I will not mention his name again; the last time Hansard misspelled it because I forgot to give the correct spelling. I had to look that man in the eye and say, “I broke the window”. He also required that I pay it back.

I was a youngster on a Saskatchewan farm in the late forties. We did not have a great deal of money. Money was hard to earn. I picked up beer bottles for about two years and sold them in order to repay the debt. I am grateful to my dad for the lesson he taught me.

To me, that is a way of solving a problem. When one has erred, the best way of fixing it is to face up to it, admit it and then make restitution.

Here is a situation where the Prime Minister is trying to minimize the problem and explain it away instead of saying to the people of Canada, “Yes, the auditor general in his report brought this problem to our attention and we will do something about it”.

In fact, nothing was done. The previous member from the Tory party brought out this point too. One of our people made the access to information request. I do not know whether Canadians know this but when a request is made under the Access to Information Act one of the first things that happens is that the department getting the request fires off a warning memo to the minister that says, “Hey, they are looking into something here. Let us be prepared”.

In a sense that becomes part of the damage control team trying to get the defences ready even before the attack is launched. It just so happened that within a couple of days of that access request being filed the minister said, “Oh, oh, we have been caught. They are on our trail. I guess now we will have to be honest”.

I hesitate to say this, but an honesty that is forcibly extracted somehow rings hollow. I do not want to impute any improper motives to the Prime Minister or to the various ministers who have been involved in this scandal but I think it rings hollow.

Getting to my math lesson, as members know, I have been an instructor of mathematics at the technical institute in Edmonton. I did not specialize in statistics but I know a little about it. One of the things that happens when a sample is done, within a statistical range of error, it is appropriate to apply the results of the sample to the entire population.

For example, the Liberals like to gloat that right now if 2,000 Canadians were asked how they would vote in the next election, something like 35% or 36% would say they would vote Liberal. How did they get that? Out of the 2,000 people maybe there were 800 or so who said they would vote Liberal. They took the 800 out of 2,000 and extrapolated it to the entire population and said that is how the entire population would vote. That is how statistics work. As a matter of fact statistical methods are used all the time in many different industrial processes and certainly in socioeconomic studies and investigations.

In this case there were some 30,000 projects. The internal audit came as a result of the auditor general putting his finger on a problem. That is when the internal audit was called and appropriately so. The auditor general pointed out there was a problem way back last April, almost a year ago. The department said that it needed to look into it and fix it, which was an appropriate response.

The internal audit looked at a random sample of 459 projects. These projects were not chosen because they were suspect; they were picked statistically at random. That is my understanding of how these projects were chosen. Of the 459 we have these percentages. These are the numbers plus or minus a certain range due to statistical variation which is very normal in statistical studies. My guess is that it could be plus or minus 5% or thereabouts.

Taking a sample size of 459 and extrapolating it to 30,000, this is what we have. Of the projects that were reviewed, 15% did not have an application on file. That means out of all of them we could extrapolate to say that there are 4,500 projects that were approved without even having an application on file.

[Supply, February 8th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, in the interests of truthfulness, the name of the party is the Canadian reform conservative alliance. The member has it wrong.

[Supply, February 8th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, this member is speaking in favour of being truthful. The name of the party is the Canadian alliance. The member is not correctly expressing the name of the party.

[Supply, February 8th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Because of the member's excessive knowledge on this topic and the interest being shown, and I noticed the member for Durham had a question he would like to ask, I wonder if you would seek unanimous that the question and answer period be extended by five minutes?

[Committees Of The House, February 7th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, again I appreciate the question. Here is a person who says that we should deal honestly with the question of child poverty. Child poverty results from families who do not make enough money relative to the expenses they need to provide for the needs of their families.

What does the government do? It taxes them. People making $20,000 a year or less for their families put $6 billion a year into the federal coffers. The Liberals ought to be ashamed of themselves for doing that.

I believe what we need to do to fight poverty is first of all to allow Canadians to keep some of their earnings. Poor people are taxed at the highest marginal rate of anyone in the country because of this Conservative-Liberal regime we have been under for the last 30 years. That has got to be fixed.

There are also certain people who have very specific definite needs. They need the help of the community, and I would say they absolutely have it. However, for those who are able to work, the best help we can give them and the best way to fight their poverty is to set up an economic climate where there are so many jobs that they all have a job and can provide for their own families.

[Committees Of The House, February 7th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, as I mentioned in my speech, an agreement was reached with all of the provinces except Quebec. I am going to say something now which could come back to haunt me but I am going to say it anyway because I believe in brutal honesty.

I believe that Quebec is the only province standing up for the constitution of Canada. Quebecers are the ones who are saying that this is a provincial jurisdiction and the federal government has been encroaching on provincial jurisdiction steadily over the last 30 years by an increasing use of the spending power. The government has gone into areas where it ought not to be. As a result people in Quebec are saying “We want out of here because you are not even obeying your own constitution”.

I am not at all happy that I said that. I am not happy because it is the truth and because it points out a fundamental problem in this country which has not been dealt with by past Conservative and Liberal governments. I am talking about a respect for the law and order of our constitution.

I must add that we want to live together as a federation. I want Quebec to stay in Canada. I want Canada to stay together. We must learn to work together. This means that Ottawa, this parliament, the government, must respect what Canadians are expecting from their constitution and from their individual provincial rights. Too often the government steps on the toes of those people in the provinces who simply want to do things that are good for their country.

I say it is time to fix that part of it. Then we would not have Bill C-20 and all the other stuff that goes with it.

[Committees Of The House, February 7th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I value the comments made by the member from the Bloc.

The government is so eager to get back to Bill C-20 that it is going to shut down debate on this motion. That is what it just indicated.

I honestly think if we had a government in Ottawa that was responsive to the needs of the people in Canada and was accountable and treated taxpayers' money as if it were its own, as I pledged to do when I was elected, we would not have the scenario of people in Quebec eagerly trying to get out of this country. I believe the problem is right here in Ottawa.

We have botched the administration of the country and there is not an adequate reason for people to want to stay in the country. We should give them that reason by providing them with openness, accountability and absolute transparency when it comes to stating government objectives and evaluating whether those objectives are being met. We need to ensure that the people in Quebec as in the rest of Canada, the taxpayers who part with their hard-earned money, know for certain that their money is not being misused, abused and boondoggled.

[Committees Of The House, February 7th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I believe that after my speech there should have been an opportunity for questions and comments and I do not think you called for that.

[Committees Of The House, February 7th, 2000]

I appreciate the indulgence of my colleagues, since I believe these issues are very important. They certainly are these days as we listen to the big questions on the billion dollar boondoggle.

I will now talk a little bit on why I am moving concurrence in this report.

The report makes a couple of important points. Every province and territory in the country, with the exception of Quebec, has reached an agreement with the federal government on the new social union and on the way in which they will fund some of these shared programs. I think there is probably a consensus across the country for that initiative.

I have been in a number of different parts of the country, but primarily my own province, and I have not met people who want to withhold assistance from those fellow Canadians who are in need. However, they are demanding and insisting that the money be properly managed. It is a very simple question: Is it going to be properly accounted for?

The objective is to improve the work incentives for those people involved, to provide benefits and services for low income families with children, and to give those with disabilities the added ability to get jobs and look after themselves as much as possible and to get assistance from fellow Canadians who would like to assist them. We would like to do this through an accountable tax program. The key element is accountability.

In the report, the committee said “Accountability is a key element in the design of both programs. In official statements, all signatories have made commitments to account for expenditures of funds and of outcomes”. Having signed onto this shared program idea, the provinces and the federal government have made the commitment. The report goes on to say “Notwithstanding these commitments, it is unclear how the accountability for overall results of these programs will be achieved”. There are then some observations and recommendations.

An official from the department, who attended the committee meeting, said “Citizens, legislative bodies and audit offices may justifiably seek assurances that these new arrangements increase or at least do not diminish accountability for expenditures on shared social programs and their outcomes”. That is a very desirable goal. As I said, in the milieu that we are in right now in parliament today, it is so appropriate. That is why I chose to bring forward this motion for concurrence today. We believe we need to meet those joint goals together.

I will move on to some of the recommendations that the committee is making. Let me be very clear on this. On the floor right now is my motion for concurrence. If the House concurs in the report, it means that these recommendations are adopted by the House. I want to read them into the record because they are so important.

Recommendation number one from the auditor general via the public accounts committee is that Human Resources Development Canada and its signatories determine specific quantitative expectations of performance for their respective program goals along with implementation time lines for the national child benefit program and the employability assistance for persons with disabilities program.

Recommendation number two is that Human Resources Development Canada and the other signatories regularly report on progress in setting quantitative goals and implementation of deadlines in their respective reports to the public and their parliamentary legislatures.

This is a critical recommendation and ought to have been implemented about six months ago. That is that there be a regular report and that it be tabled in all of the provincial legislatures as well as in this House so that there is openness and accountability and we do not have to get out the damage control troops to try to ease a problem.

The third recommendation is that Human Resources Development Canada with the other signatories develop a common data reporting framework and protocol aimed at achieving quality, consistency and comparability of program data.

I am running out of time so I cannot explain this, but it is very important that there be consistency from province to province on what the goals are and how the achievement of those goals is measured. If we do not have that, then these reports can be fudged and will be meaningless. Therefore that is a very important recommendation.

Recommendation number four is that Human Resources Development Canada and the other signatories endeavour where feasible to present audited data in the annual progress report. The executive summary of that is simply that we want the data to be reliable, hence the call for it to be audited.

Recommendation number five is that HRDC together with the other signatories ensure that the annual progress reports of these initiatives are tabled in their respective parliamentary legislatures at the earliest opportunity after the report is released to the public. Again we have this accountability to the public and to the legislatures.

Recommendation number six is that HRDC and all the other signatories commit resources to implement the necessary evaluations of these programs. I will not read the names of the programs again. What we have is the necessity for adequate staffing so that accountability can be achieved.

I am personally very upset. Imagine if a bank said it had lost $100,000 of our money and that we could not have it back and when asked to explain where it went, the bank said “We are sorry, we had to cut back our staff”. Would we accept that from a bank? No. Will the taxpayers accept that from the government? No, they will not. It is a lame excuse. It is an unjustifiable excuse and the government may not use it. The government must put adequate resources to the accountability of these programs so that we do not get a repeat of the billion dollar boondoggle.

As a little aside, the auditor general also reported on programs such as TAGS. The jobs training fund has been the focus of the media and of the public in the last month, but the issue is much larger. Again it was last April, almost a year ago, when this was said.

The auditor general in looking at TAGS said that 26% had no clear objectives and 33% did not meet the criteria for the labour adjustment measure under which they were approved. Eighty-four percent did not have verification of contracts and 83% had no supporting documentation. This is a completely different program. The auditor general has pointed it out. It has been reported to the committee which said, “Let us deal with these things” and the House said, “No, let us sit on it”.

Canadian taxpayers are sick and tired of being sat on. We are being taxed to death. Meanwhile the government through its different agencies is totally failing Canadian people in providing accountability on how the money is spent and also that the objectives that are said to be met are being met.

If members have questions I would certainly be happy to expand on what I have said.

[Committees Of The House, February 7th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I move that the first report of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts, presented on Monday, November 15, 1999, be concurred in.

I am very pleased to rise today to debate a very important and critical concurrence motion.

I will bring the members of the House, and perhaps those who are watching in CPAC world, up to speed on what is happening. It just so happens that some time ago the auditor general presented one of the quarterly reports. That quarterly report of the auditor general has to do with the accounts of the country and how the public money is being guarded by the government.

As we know, the auditor general's reports are tabled in the House. Following the tabling in the House, they are normally then referred to the appropriate committee. The particular committee that receives this report is of course the Standing Committee on Public Accounts.

Chapter 6 of the auditor general's report was tabled in the House in April 1999, almost a year ago. The public accounts committee tabled its response to that report on November 15, 1999.

Something that happens here in the House is that we spend a lot of money operating the Office of the Auditor General and a lot of money on MPs and senators in parliament who try to hold the government accountable. We spend a lot of money in many different departments and many different areas of responsibility asking for reports. The reports are then referred to the committees and in due time the committees report back. That is where it bogs down. The reports are tabled in the House and the government must then bring forward a response. It usually sits on the reports until the next election. Most of those very good reports go completely unnoticed in the country and are not acted upon on behalf of taxpayers.

Today we have the sixth report of the auditor general as responded to by the public accounts committee with its first report being tabled in the House on November 15, 1999.

My motion for concurrence was made just three days later because even back then we were very well aware that expenditures out of the human resources portfolio were not being well managed. This particular auditor's report and the report of the public accounts committee addressed the question back in the middle of November last year. Had we given a sense to that report at that time we probably would have avoided what has now become the billion dollar boondoggle. The recommendations that were made by the public accounts committee should be acted upon on behalf of the taxpayers of Canada.

We need to be very careful. We need to make sure that we do not just routinely sweep this report under the rug. I will take a little bit of time to explain to the members what is actually involved in this particular report. I will urge them to vote in favour of my motion, which is to concur in this report. When we concur in it, the recommendations that were presented by the committee will be enacted. In other words, there will be some accountability to our hard-working, beleaguered taxpayers who send bushels of money—I suppose I should say billions of bushels of money—to Ottawa where it is administered and mis-administered.

We want to address the important questions that address the House these days. The phones in our riding offices are ringing off the hooks these days. Canadian taxpayers want to know what is going on. They want to know how we can tolerate this total waste of money and the lack of accountability for it.

The auditor general identified a number of areas in his first quarter report of 1999. Chapter 6 of the report deals with a couple of the issues that we are dealing with today. It was a program funded by HRDC, the human resources development portfolio. We should listen carefully to what it says.

The report deals with, among other things, the national child tax benefit and the way in which it is administered. The auditor general points out that the benefit has highly praiseworthy goals, such as reducing poverty for children, which is an issue this government has put at the forefront and which resonates with many Canadians. None of us want our children to live in poverty. We know that children who live in poverty are living in families that are suffering from poverty. The very government that has this high goal continues to tax Canadian families with incomes of $20,000 a year or less. It takes $6 billion a year from those poor families in income tax. One really wonders what it is about.

Along comes the auditor general's report stating that the national child benefit, which, among other things, was supposed to reduce child poverty, is not being properly monitored and that there is not an adequate indication that the goals it has struck for itself are being met.

The auditor general raises some important questions. For example, the audit report talks about the definition of poverty and asks for clarification on what it really means. That has never really been done. When we target programs to people who are in poverty we need to know who those families are.

He mentions that there are many short term goals, some political only, and that we should be looking at long term goals as pertaining to the welfare of our families in Canada.

We need to define our goals so that the target we are shooting at is clearly known. When I was a youngster we used to say that if we shot at nothing we would be sure to hit it. Here we have another government program that does not have clearly defined goals. It just generally shoots at random in some location with taxpayer dollars and wherever it hits it is considered a success. Witness the statements made by the Prime Minister and the Minister of HRDC today. What they are getting away with is really atrocious.

The accountability that is required is spelled out in the report from the auditor general. He mentions specifically the national child benefit and the employability assistance for people with disabilities. I emphasize that when I move for concurrence in this report I am speaking in favour of assisting people who need help. Many times when we bring these issues forward the Liberals and some of our other political adversaries try to characterize us as not caring about these people. That is a false characterization. We do care about them. We care about them so much that we would like the money taxpayers give toward helping them to actually get to them and to actually achieve the specified goals.

When the auditor general wrote his report he said that there was lack of accountability. It is a cost shared program with the provinces.

It is not clear who sets these goals or who monitors them to make sure they are being met. There are general statements of accountability. It always makes wonderful politics to say that they want to be accountable. Every politician will say that because it resonates with the taxpayer. However, are they actually doing it? The auditor general said no and the public accounts committee said no. Some specific recommendations were made to correct this.

It is important to have an annual report that supplies in detail the information that is required in order to evaluate whether or not there were proper evaluations and whether goals were appropriately set.

Mr. Speaker, I find it difficult to speak with all the noise I hear with my left ear. I would ask that you intervene on my behalf.