Garry Breitkreuz

[Questions Passed As Orders For Returns, May 2nd, 2000]

Could the government provide a list of the contracts and the value of each of these contracts entered into between the Government of Canada and/or its Agencies and KPMG Peat Marwick Thorne and its affiliates for each of the years from 1992 to 1999?

Return tabled.

[Treaties Act, April 13th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, we have money freely flowing from the Human Resources Development Canada offices to individuals and businesses without being properly accounted for. But for our farmers, they basically have to walk through fire to receive money from another government managed program.

The internal audit of HRDC exposed severe mismanagement of 459 job creation programs worth almost $1 billion. Some of the major problems were 80% of grant recipients showed no evidence of financial monitoring, 72% had no cash flow forecast, 87% showed no proof of supervision and 11% had no budget proposal or description of expected results. In one instance, seven people listed as unknown on the applications received $11 million. This is hard to believe.

The money flows out of the human resources development department without proper checks or balances. However, another program, the agriculture income disaster program, or AIDA as it is known, is the exact opposite. Farmers fill out, or in most cases pay their accountants to fill out, complicated forms and then submit their applications to an AIDA office. Months later the farmer finds out if he qualifies.

One producer in my riding told me his application was submitted in May 1999, but it took until March 2000 to be processed. That is almost a year. How long does it take for a human resources grant to be approved and distributed?

The AIDA applications are also heavily scrutinized. The forms go through a number of government staff and each one looks for ways to limit the payout to the farmer. In one case a farmer in my riding found out that his AIDA application had been worked on six times. By the time it had gone through bureaucrats, his payout was a fraction of what he had expected.

Does this type of scrutinizing take place at the human resources development offices when they are looking at grant applications? Is it true that the officials in charge of AIDA have been told to reduce payouts and limit benefits because it is agriculture and not HRD? There appears to be a deliberate scheme to not support farmers but to shovel taxpayers' dollars to patrons of HRD.

Should I be telling farmers in my riding to skip the AIDA procedure and go to the human resources development office for assistance?

A recent Globe and Mail article discovered 49 of Canada's top 100 most profitable companies have received grants in the past three years totalling $4.2 million from the HRDC office. Each of these companies has made a profit of at least $70 million. Do we have to show a profit of $70 million and contribute to the Liberals before qualifying for grants from the federal government?

We have farmers who are struggling to stay afloat and one of the main reasons for their problems is that the government taxes them to death and does not defend them at the international bargaining table. The government is taking dollars out of farmers' pockets and funnelling them to rich corporations.

If the government does not want to give farmers their money back, why does it not just reduce taxes? Taxes kill jobs. The grants at HRD use tax dollars which come directly from the farmer. In fact, farmers pay huge amounts of tax on the inputs they buy to grow their product. Fertilizer, fuel, chemicals and machinery all have a hidden tax component.

The grants at HRD are shovelled out through what is called a job creation fund. Let us rename this the job destruction fund. It is driving farmers off the land and many other Canadians do not have jobs because of the high taxes needed to support the Liberals' jobs destruction grants program.

It should not be easy to access public funds, but there is an obvious double standard taking place when we look at the HRDC programs and compare them to the AIDA program. I would like to know how the human resources development minister can justify handing out a billion dollars in grants with no accountability while our farmers continue to struggle and cannot access funds set aside to help them.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2000, April 13th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, hundreds of millions of dollars will be poured into VIA Rail and a lot of that passenger service is in eastern Canada. It was only a few years ago that the government withdrew all support for the grain transportation network on the prairies, known as the Crow rate. Does the member feel that there is some political interference here in the rail transportation system in the country?

What is economically more important to the country, grain transportation on the prairies or serving the passengers who travel between Quebec City and Windsor? I realize VIA crosses the country but that service is primarily in eastern Canada. Is this fair? Does this seem like a good economic decision, or were politics involved in this decision to spend hundreds of millions on VIA Rail and leave the farmers on the prairies to basically fend for themselves?

[Budget Implementation Act, 2000, April 13th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I have listened to the comments of the hon. member. We in the Canadian Alliance Party have proposed some solutions to the present unfair taxation system. One of those solutions, solution 17, moves towards a single tax. Included in that is a move toward equality for spouses with regard to the deduction they are allowed.

We are proposing a $10,000 deduction for either spouse. It does not matter who is earning the income. We are also proposing a $3,000 deduction for each child. I wonder if the hon. member has some reaction to that.

We feel that it would support the family and children. It would not reduce the incentive for one of the parents to stay at home if he or she so chooses. What reaction would the member have to the proposal of moving to a single tax, increasing the deductible to $10,000 for both husband and wife and increasing the child care deduction to $3,000?

[Supply, April 4th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, give me a break. I cannot believe it. We are all here to try to improve the lot of Canadians and to pass good laws. For this member to give the impression that it is only the government that cares about it is demeaning to what we are trying to do on this side of the House. I really resent that.

I want to make the point that it is an advantage not just to backbench MPs on the government side, but to all MPs in the House that we have a free flow of information. With a free flow of information and openness in government all Canadians would benefit. That is the bottom line. The only way democracy can function is if we have a free flow of information. If something is hidden we cannot make good decisions. That is what this discussion is all about. The government hides information so that we cannot hold it accountable, and it is the people of Canada who in the end suffer. That is my main point. Let us not lose sight of that.

[Supply, April 4th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, the member has asked two good questions.

With regard to the first question about the public and all the information, what I was trying to explain to the member is that the government has a deliberate strategy to put so much information into a certain place and to put in so many numbers that it is confusing. The government has a deliberate strategy to confuse. That is the point I was trying to make.

In the access to information request that I put forward, I read that part of the government's strategy is to try to deceive people by putting information in and taking information out. When questions are asked, the government indicates that it is explained. The government puts out information that needs to be cross-referenced and wiggles out of almost any accountability. That is the problem.

As far as what the member was saying in regard to access to information, that is exactly what we are trying to do here today. We agree that needs to be fixed. We do not have a problem with that, but it is the government that has to fix it.

The member knows that a private member's bill is open to a free vote and we have no problem with having a free vote on that kind of thing.

However, without our raising the issue, I do not think the member opposite would get much support. In fact I think he only has 70 members supporting it so far. Perhaps we have to start putting public pressure on the government to open up the information act and make sure that it is available to everyone. That is our point and that is why the debate today is so important.

[Supply, April 4th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to advise you that I am sharing my time with the member for Kelowna.

When we listen to some of the members opposite, we would think that there is not even a problem. But things are so bad that we had to bring forth this motion today on behalf of all the opposition parties.

I will be revealing something a little bit later on in my speech that will probably be like a bombshell thrown into this place. But first of all I want to describe my personal experience.

When I first came to parliament back in 1993, I thought that if we spoke the truth and if we put forth arguments that were reasonable and analysed the information available, it would affect the decisions made in this place. What a surprise I received when I got here. Government members really do not listen. They invoke closure on controversial legislation that we oppose, but most serious of all, we cannot analyse the information because it is not available in a timely fashion. The government delays its release.

For example, I have made about 80 access to information requests. Hon. members will wonder why I even have to apply for the information. They would think that it would be shared freely. In fact, the government boasts that it is doing a good job managing our money and running effective programs. We would think that it would be anxious to share that information with us and the public. But there really is a problem with open and transparent government. That is the reason we brought forth this motion.

The government, as the President of Treasury Board has said, talks about the complexities of government and the need to modernize. Canadians expect a government in modern times with the technology available to have information readily available. In fact, it appears as if the government is using the modern means available to it to hide the information.

Some of the examples of government hiding information are almost unbelievable. The information which should be made available in 30 days sometimes has taken almost a year. Hon. members have heard that right, almost a year. In fact, after the government was stonewalling some of my requests, I had to complain to the information commissioner. It took almost one year to find out how much money was being wasted by the RCMP on the gun registry. Probably the information was embarrassing, but it is not being released as it should be.

There are other problems. A billion dollar boondoggle is unfolding with regard to the gun registry.

Over $300 million has already been wasted on laying a piece of paper beside every gun in Canada rather than improving public safety by putting more police on the street, and the government does not want the public to know about it. That is probably why I am having difficulty having my access to information requests complied with.

What are some of the other problems? I revealed on approximately March 9 that the justice minister blocked 172 pages of the Canadian Firearms Centre budget documents. The excuse was cabinet secrecy. I did not know about that until I started trying to find out how much the government was spending. It has come up with a new excuse, cabinet secrecy.

The minister's departmental officials are even refusing to provide the proposed budget allocation for this coming year, saying that they do not need to release that information. The government has also used cabinet secrecy to withhold from the public a 115-page report on the negative impact of the Firearms Act on the economy. It has done the study but it will not release the results of the study and the cost of its legislation for businesses, how it will destroy thousands of jobs and all the money that will be wasted.

It gets even worse than that. I discovered through access to information that not only does the government hide information from members of parliament so we cannot hold it accountable and tell Canadians what a mess it is making, it even hides it from the courts.

That is the bombshell I will tell members about. Here is what I found out.

I will give a preamble. An eight page document was released to me entitled “Cost Presentations Options” was dated February 5, 1998. Here is what option C, the incremental approach, says when it comes to releasing the costs, “If pressed, confirm actual spending of the past three years on C-68. Provide arguments why we can't produce a definite cost forecast”. In other words, the government already planned strategy as to why it would not release the information as to how it would explain it does not want to release the information.

Under timing considerations it proposed releasing the cost of the gun registry at the same time that the government went public with the federal budget. The reason was that “A lot of numbers are mentioned during that period,” referring to the budget, “and we benefit from the sheer volume of numbers being released (i.e. unlikely to attract a lot of attention)”.

The hon. member said that if the government does things in a certain way, put it on the Internet and so on, that will help. We have clear evidence here that it will release so much stuff, so many numbers will be put out, that it will be mind boggling and the public will not know. This is clear evidence that it is like a culture of deceit over there.

Here is the bombshell. This is what the minister's bureaucrats admitted in a document I received through access to information.

During the Alberta reference court proceedings, we argued that we were not in a position to reveal costs. Announcing the costs before a decision may add a bad `obiter' in their decision.

Documents provided to me in response to previous access to information requests proved the justice department had been keeping an annual summary of the gun registry costs since 1995 and even though those detailed financial documents were available, they were telling the Alberta Court of Appeal that they could not reveal them. They would not even tell the courts and one has to ask why.

Deceiving the public is bad enough, but deliberately deceiving the Alberta Court of Appeal must surely have some consequences. Why should Canadians care about whether we have open and accountable government? Does this debate even matter today?

Let me say this. This strikes to the very heart of democracy. There must be a free exchange of information. Without information as to how the government operates, we cannot hold the government accountable. Democracy just cannot work. Second, it is the money of the Canadian people that is being spent. They should know where that money is. We are talking big bucks. When almost half of some people's income is going to government, that is a lot of money.

Third, if the money is being used to buy votes, that thwarts democracy and it should not be happening. How can proper decisions be made if we do not have all the information available? That really thwarts democracy. If it is being misused, that is also of great concern.

Why does someone who has been drinking refuse a breathalyser test after being stopped by a police officer on a public highway? Why do they say “No, I do not want to take the breathalyser”? If a person refused a breathalyser, they can be assumed to be guilty. Is that why the government refuses to be open and accountable and release the information?

The fourth point I want to make as to why Canadians should care about what is going on here is the big issue of trust. Trust does not just reflect on the government. It reflects on all of us in this place. People do not trust the government because of the fact that they discover huge boondoggles long after they have been out of this place.

Maybe there is another bombshell I can drop right here. I made a request on the cost of the gun registry and Canadians may find this unbelievable. I cannot use a prop in the House but I received a budget document on the cost of the gun registry. Everything was itemized except the column where the numbers should have been. It was completely blocked out. Is that access to information? That is what I am concerned about. That has to stop. We need to have that information because without it I cannot do my job and that should be a concern to all Canadians.

[Agriculture, April 4th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, today the agriculture minister appeared before the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food. I was hoping to get some answers as to why the government was not getting the $1.7 billion it promised into the hands of struggling Canadian farmers. Unfortunately the only response I got from the minister was more Liberal rhetoric.

Farmers in my riding say AIDA is inefficient, rigid and filled with complicated forms and bureaucratic red tape. Frustrated farmers may not even apply for assistance this year as it appears hopeless.

AIDA must be overhauled. The whole program must be reviewed and revamped to help farmers. Taxes on fuel and other inputs could be reduced immediately. The Liberals have already broken their promise to get the money out in time to help farmers. Will they make a commitment to get the remaining $1.2 billion out in the next couple of weeks so farmers have the resources to put in their crops?

Farmers send a lot of money to Ottawa hidden right in their input costs. Why not refund it now?

[Supply, April 4th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, the member made the point that access to information threatens the programs he described. I would like to know how openness and transparency threatens the programs he described and the moneys that government is spending. How in the wide world can accountability of government spending threaten these programs?

[Health, April 3rd, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberals and the NDP are wailing and wringing their hands over Alberta's bill 11. Terms like two tier medicare and private clinics are used as if they are strictly forbidden in Canada just like they are in Cuba and North Korea. It is strange that only certain provinces and sectors of the health care system are targeted by the socialists for their criticism.

Two years ago the Globe reported that 21 special private clinics were operating in Canada. In most provinces these clinics are even funded by the taxpayer, except in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Manitoba where clients were charged $300 to $500. No one said a word about these clinics or anything about these provinces violating the Canada Health Act.

We have a government that allows privatization of health clinics that provide abortions but not private health clinics that provide medically necessary heart surgery. This is an obvious double standard. The dictionary defines a standard that applies to others but not to oneself as hypocrisy.