Mathieu Ravignat

[Business of Supply, May 9th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his very good question.

There is a double standard. The Conservatives are poor managers. I think that they believe that managers and employees in the public service cannot manage. I firmly believe that our public servants are practically the best in the world. As for this government, that is another story.

[Business of Supply, May 9th, 2013]

moved:

That, in light of $3.1 billion of missing funds outlined in Chapter Eight of the 2013 Spring Report of the Auditor General of Canada, an order of the House do issue for the following documents from 2001 to the present, allowing for redaction based on national security: (a) all Public Security and Anti-Terrorism annual reports submitted to the Treasury Board Secretariat; (b) all Treasury Board submissions made as part of the Initiative; (c) all departmental evaluations of the Initiative; (d) the Treasury Board corporate database established to monitor funding; that these records be provided to the House in both official languages by June 17, 2013; that the Speaker make arrangements for these records to be made available online; and that the Auditor-General be given all necessary resources to perform an in-depth forensic audit until the missing $3.1 billion is found and accounted for.

Mr. Speaker, I wish to inform you that I will be sharing my time.

I like to try to look at things with as much clarity and wisdom as possible. My dear colleagues will no doubt agree that when the sun is shining, everything is bright and everything is good. Spring has arrived, bringing warmth and hope to all of us, right?

This is therefore a very good time for the tabling of the Auditor General's report. Unfortunately, this debate brings very little light with it. The government is quoting the Auditor General out of context, in order to defend itself. The truth is that, once again, this government has proven that it is a bad fiscal manager and that, although it claims to spend taxpayers' money judiciously, it is not paying close enough attention.

The Auditor General did a good job. I would remind the House that in chapter 8 of his spring 2013 report, a chapter entitled “Spending on the Public Security and Anti-Terrorism Initiative”, he states:

Information on whether departments used $3.1 billion in initiative funding was not available.

It is simple. It means that they did not find any trace of this money, period. During his audit, the Auditor General asked the Treasury Board Secretariat for information that could help explain how the balance of $3.1 billion allocated between 2001 and 2009 was spent.

No clear explanation has been given, but the secretariat has admitted that one possible scenario is that the funds were allocated to various public security and anti-terrorism activities but categorized as ongoing program spending.

It is important to remember how the Auditor General arrived at that sum of $3.1 billion. In 2003, the Treasury Board Secretariat received funding to strengthen its ability to properly report on and evaluate horizontal public security and anti-terrorism, PSAT, activities.

The secretariat was the only department in the entire federal government to collect financial and non-financial information from a number of departments and agencies on this initiative. The information was stored in a departmental database designed for that purpose.

In addition, at the end of 2003, the secretariat established a reporting framework. The Treasury Board expected the departments and agencies to comply with the secretariat's reporting requirements.

The framework required departments and agencies to provide yearly financial and non-financial information about their PSAT-related activities. Then, the Auditor General reviewed departmental projects and approved allocations to determine how much funding had been granted to departments and agencies for the PSAT initiative.

The Auditor General found that, from 2001 to 2009, $12.9 billion was approved for department and agency programming under the PSAT initiative. Treasury Board Secretariat officials agreed with the Auditor General's analysis. The Auditor General then reviewed certain annual reports to see whether the departments had submitted their expenditures and the actual results of the initiative to Treasury Board every year. This covered the expenditures and results that were clearly stated and corresponded to the themes and objectives of the initiative.

By using the information about expenditures set out in the annual reports, the Auditor General determined that, of the $12.9 billion allocated, the departments and agencies had reported to Treasury Board that approximately $9.8 billion had been spent on PSAT-related activities. That leaves $3.1 billion that the government cannot account for.

It is unbelievable. The Conservatives are establishing ineffective and unnecessary laws on terrorism that violate our civil liberties, yet they are unable to say whether the astronomical amount of $3.1 billion allocated to the public security and anti-terrorism initiative was even spent. If it was, how was it spent and on what programs?

What is more, the Auditor General's report showed a blatant and shocking lack of oversight with regard to government progress and the reports on funding for public security. Unfortunately, today, we can add to this amount the $2.4 billion in contracts awarded to external consultants for which the government also does not have any reports.

This did not just occur in 2009. What happened in 2010? Well, the Auditor General and his assistant had plenty of interesting things to say on this subject. They said that their audit stopped there and that it was at that point that this method of reporting was done away with. They added that the Treasury Board Secretariat had stopped collecting data from departments through annual reports and that it was in the process of implementing another procedure that it hoped to launch in 2014.

Yikes. The entire public security and anti-terrorism initiative is being called into question. The Auditor General noted that the Conservatives were not keeping track of money as they should have been and that the government had simply stopped counting. Instead of humbly accepting the Auditor General's report on this spending, the government decided to throw around quotes of his taken out of context.

The President of the Treasury Board said that it was simply an accounting problem and that all of the information was available in the public accounts of Canada.

Here is what the Office of the Auditor General told Maclean's reporters:

The information reported annually in the public accounts was at an aggregate level and most of the PSAT spending was not separately reported as a distinct (or separate) line item. Furthermore, with over 10 years elapsing since the beginning of the PSAT program, much of that information is now archived and unavailable.

Canadians do not have access to all of the information. The Conservatives are fond of defending their actions by sharing partial quotes from the Auditor General. The Conservatives and ministers like to use the following quote: “We didn't find anything that gave us cause for concern that the money was used in any way that it should not have been.”

However, there is more to that quote: “...it's important for there to be...a way for people to understand how this money was spent and that summary reporting was not done.”

What is also shocking is the Liberal Party's silence on this issue. Perhaps the Liberals realize that they are just as guilty. For example,why did they not take action in 2004? What did they do? Nothing. No, the Liberals have no credibility to condemn the Conservatives for losing $3.1 billion, considering their dismal record of losing $1 billion.

If this government truly believes in properly managing taxpayer money, it will support this motion. That $3.1 billion is a lot of money. Our motion is simply asking for information. This government must provide all of the information available on the loss of $3.1 billion.

[Public Works and Government Services Canada, May 8th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, we are talking about $2.4 billion in contracts with no expenditure reports. Is that sound management of taxpayers' money?

Here is another disturbing example: a contract worth over $600,000 was granted to a numbered company with a dead phone at a residential address.

Reports are made in as few as 10% of cases, and 60% of those contracts were granted without a tendering process.

When will the Conservatives clean up the management of the contracting process at Public Works?

[Bill C-60—Economic Action Plan 2013 Act, No. 1, May 7th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I can see that my colleague on the other side of the House has learned his Conservative catechism very well. He can probably recite the formula perfectly. The problem is the formula just does not work. There are as many unemployed now as there were before the recession.

What the member fails to recognize is that the litmus test for any economic policy is the creation of jobs. Where are the jobs?

[Economic Action Plan 2013 Act, No. 1, May 7th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for his question. He is absolutely right.

For example, in my riding of Pontiac, the vast majority of job creators are small and medium-sized businesses, especially those involved in tourism and in small boutiques in the towns.

Small and medium-sized business owners are having a hard time, and the big business model will not help them. They need a tailor-made approach. The government must take their needs into consideration and act responsibly.

It is unfortunate that this budget does not do that.

[Economic Action Plan 2013 Act, No. 1, May 7th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his question. I completely agree with him, which does not always happen with this particular member. However, in this case, I think we are fully in agreement.

Unfortunately, the Conservative government has a very unbalanced approach with regard to promoting business in various sectors in this country. If we look at the amount of time that has been spent boosting up certain parts of our economy versus others, it is clear that the manufacturing industry in our country has been ignored for too long.

We need to do something about stimulating growth, and the wholesale giving of our jobs to either Chinese companies or others is just not the right approach.

[Economic Action Plan 2013 Act, No. 1, May 7th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, let me set the record straight. I do not hate corporations. What I do not like is when corporations do not pay their taxes and when the Conservative government only gives tax breaks to the wealthiest of our country. That is what I am against. If a corporation is a responsible social actor in our society, it clearly has a place.

Also, the member forgot to listen to that part of my speech where I talked about promoting small and medium-sized businesses. The member would know that the Conservatives have cut tons of taxes for large corporations in comparison to cutting them for small and medium-sized businesses.

[Economic Action Plan 2013 Act, No. 1, May 7th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, let us be clear. Budgets are about choices. They are also about influence. The Conservatives have made their choices and they have made them on the basis of their ideology and on those lobbyists who are closest to the PMO. Let us be clear: those lobbyists are the largest and wealthiest corporations and CEOs of this country.

I will admit their ideology rests on a theory, a theory much flaunted by them, that of the Chicago School of Business, that of Friedman and Hayek, what has been called anarcho-capitalism. These academics created a vision for a utopian capitalist society where the role of the state was limited to ensuring the protection of its citizens. The reality is that most of the members in leadership positions on that side do not really believe in the Canadian state. They want to minimize its democratic influence on the economy, and that means austerity wherever it can be had. Do not get me wrong: the Prime Minister and his lieutenants are incrementalists to their own admission, so they are in it for the long haul, knowing that they are confronted with the fact that the vast majority of Canadians in their heart of hearts fundamentally disagree with their dog-eat-dog philosophy. Why do we think they want to rewrite history and get involved in imposing curricula on schools? It is because they want to shape the minds of future generations to their vision.

But as incrementalists, we cannot expect them to be obvious about it. Their excuse for imposing austerity on Canadians is always based on their ideological buzzwords: jobs, growth and prosperity. The common sense revolution all over again. Well the reality is that their approach makes no sense at all for creating jobs, growth and prosperity. Let us consider the facts.

Despite having chosen the path of austerity, Europe, the U.S. and the Canadian economy are not getting any better and the world economic crisis, despite a few good weeks here and there, is nowhere close to the long-term sustainable recovery and strength we have seen in the past. The Conservatives have had to contort themselves to make any sense out of this and how their pie in the sky ideology is not working. That is because their heads are trapped in a utopian, capitalist, ideological cloud. The reality is that ever since a modern free market has existed, there has always been state intervention, and in most cases it has been positive.

The Conservative approach is also based on another myth, a sacred cow so to speak, that somehow corporations invest the savings from tax cuts back into their operations, thus creating jobs, expanding the economy, and generating even bigger revenues for governments. From this perspective, governments should keep slashing corporate taxes, presumably right down to zero. If the tax cuts of recent years continue, that state of nirvana will be reached in 20 years. This is their belief and it is a belief empty of facts. In fact, the worst financial years have always been under conservative governments. Reagan and Thatcher in the 1980s, Bush and now the present Prime Minister are examples of how extreme conservative economic policies lead to greater crises in the economy, not less.

I am exaggerating right, because I am a social democrat? Well, in 2000, the combined federal-provincial tax rate was just over 42%. A decade later this figure has fallen to 28%. The Conservative government would cut it to 25% by fiscal 2013. Members can do the math.

The problem that members might be wondering about is that Conservatives have forgotten about something very simple: globalization. What the other benches do not understand is that there is no guarantee in a global market that corporations will reinvest in jobs in countries to which they have no loyalty. Members should not take it from me, here is what The Globe and Mail had to say about it:

Canadian companies have added tens of billions of dollars to their stockpiles of cash at a time when tax cuts are supposed to be encouraging them to plow more money into their businesses....But an analysis of Statistics Canada figures by The Globe and Mail reveals that the rate of investment in machinery and equipment has declined in lockstep with falling corporate tax rates over the past decade. At the same time, the analysis shows, businesses have added $83 billion to their cash reserves since the onset of the recession in 2008.

However, what big corporations seem to be doing quite well is investing in themselves and in their salaries. The rate paid for a CEO is up at least 100% since the recession. Saved tax dollars are going into bigger salaries, not helping the economy or suffering Canadians.

Also large corporations are now more likely to hide this money than use it. The Globe and Mail reported that, “Investment in equipment and machinery has fallen to 5.5 per cent in 2010 as a share of Canada's total economic output from 6.8 per cent in 2005 and 7.7 per cent in 2000.”

Buying machinery is a good thing, and expanding one's business means stimulating the economy and creating jobs. Now all of this is not to talk about the human cost, which is to drive up the rate of exploitation of the workforce. Their main tactic is to increase the proportion of profit and salary while simultaneously taking advantage of hard economic times to reduce labour costs, and we wonder why they want Canadians to be paid as little as foreign workers. Temporary foreign workers should not be making a substandard wage in the first place. Not surprisingly, the average level of unemployment among Canadian workers rose dramatically during these Conservative government golden years.

In other words, tax breaks and handouts have failed to live up to the predictions of Conservative economists and politicians. The gap between the rich and the working class is at record levels. Over 1.5 million Canadians remain unemployed, and that is just according to understated official figures.

Funding for social programs, health and education is clearly not a priority, and corporate CEOs and shareholders are laughing all the way to the bank.

Another study released on April 6 by the Canadian Centre of Policy Alternatives shows that, “After a decade of corporate tax cuts, the benefits to Canada’s largest corporations are clear but the job creation payoff for Canadians hasn’t materialized.” The study tracked 198 companies on the S&P/TSX composite index from 2000 to 2009. Those 198 companies are making 50% more profit and paying 20% less tax than they did a decade ago, but in terms of job creation, “they did not keep up with the average growth of employment in the economy as a whole. From 2005 to 2010, the number of employed Canadians rose 6% while the number of jobs created by the companies in this study grew by only 5%.”

We on the benches on this side of the House have a different approach, a more balanced one, which takes into consideration the needs of small and medium-sized businesses that, contrary to the lobbyists in the PMO's office, actually create the majority of jobs in this country.

No, we have a different approach, which balances the needs of small and medium-sized businesses with those of average Canadian families of the middle class and the working class.

Bill C-60 does not address Canadians' real concerns. Instead of adopting meaningful measures to create jobs, the Conservatives are imposing austerity measures that will stifle economic growth. Furthermore, the Conservatives' omnibus budget flouts Canadian democracy. It is an underhanded attack on this country's workers.

Bill C-60 makes changes that allow the government to direct a crown corporation to have its negotiating mandate approved by the Treasury Board in order to enter into a collective agreement with a union. These amendments affect 49 crown corporations and hundreds of employees. Under the provisions of Bill C-60, if the government directs a crown corporation to have its negotiating mandate approved by the Treasury Board, then the Treasury Board can impose whatever it wants in terms of the crown corporation's employees' working conditions. Furthermore, no crown corporation receiving such a government order will be able to reach a collective agreement without Treasury Board approval.

This government and its ministers, in an effort to rid themselves of any responsibility, have repeated over and over that crown corporations operate at arm's length from the government. However, the changes in Bill C-60 violate the fundamental principle of the operational independence of crown corporations.

The changes proposed in Bill C-60 constitute an attack on the right to free collective bargaining in Canada.

We must oppose this budget, and as official opposition Treasury Board critic, that is what I am doing. That is my duty.

[Economic Action Plan 2013 Act, No. 1, May 7th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to seek unanimous consent to move the following motion: That notwithstanding any Standing Order or usual practice of the House, clauses 228 to 232 related to the Financial Administration Act and collective bargaining between crown corporations and their employees, be removed from Bill C-60, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 21, 2013 and other measures, and do compose Bill C-62; that Bill C-62 be deemed read a first time and be printed; that the order for second reading of the said bill provide for the referral to the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates; that Bill C-60 retain the status on the order paper that it had prior to the adoption of this order; that Bill C-60 be reprinted as amended; and that the law clerk and parliamentary counsel be authorized to make any technical changes or corrections as may be necessary to give effect to this motion.

We are proposing this motion because we believe that this section of the omnibus Bill C-60 is extremely important and complex and that it must be studied carefully as a separate bill.

[Government Advertising, May 6th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, since they clearly have no idea where that $3.1 billion went, let us talk about the money they have wasted on their propaganda.

When it comes to government advertising, the Conservatives are like little pigs: they always want more. Calls for tender show that the government has decided to continue its budget propaganda until 2016.

The more time goes by, the less effective their advertising is. I did not make this up: this is from an internal government poll.

Why are the Conservatives wasting millions of dollars of taxpayers' money?