Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak to the estimates, but I would also like to speak to what the minister had to say during his speech.
First, the fact that we have the lowest debt to GDP ratio is thanks to the Liberal government and the hard work it did during the 1990s and 2000. I would like to remind the minister that the increases we are seeing now in the debt to GDP ratio is actually increasing under his watch.
I would also remind him that the best banking system in the world, the most secure, is due to the fact that the Liberal government of the day made sure we had the proper regulations. The minister well realizes and recognizes that it was his party that actually wanted to deregulate the banking system, which would have caused havoc, but thankfully the Liberal government at the time did not do so.
I would remind the minister that he indeed has the highest spending government in the record of our country. The highest deficit that this country has ever seen in a budget came from the Conservative government.
Let me get back to the estimates. The estimates is a process by which Parliament approves the overall numbers and the general purpose for the funds. The actual spending of that money is up to cabinet ministers who represent the Government of Canada and taxpayers. The government has shown time and time again that waste, mismanagement and overspending is its creed.
The worst example is the money spent by the government on the G8 and G20 summits. It is simply staggering. Both the Auditor General and the Parliamentary Budget Officer have said they are going to investigate the spending, both the large amount of money being spent and how it is being spent.
The costs for this three-day summit, 72 hours, are higher than the costs of security for the entire 2010 Vancouver Olympics, at which there were hundreds upon hundreds of athletes and weeks upon weeks of events, and still for a 72-hour meeting, the government is still spending more money.
It is almost six times the approximate $190 million spent for the two-day G8 summit in Alberta in 2002. This summer Canadians are watching the World Cup in South Africa. FIFA, the organizer of the World Cup, is spending roughly the same amount of money for a month-long tournament that the government is spending and it provides significantly tourism revenue to South Africa. The same amount of money for a month is being spent for 72 hours. It is almost more than 20 times the total reported cost for the April 2009 G20 summit in London, not that long ago, which is astounding, and much higher than the security costs at any previous summit.
The Gleneagles G8 summit in Scotland in 2005, for example, was reported to have spent $110 million on security, while the estimate for the 2008 G8 gathering in Japan was $381 million. That is a long way away from the $1 billion plus, the loonie boondoggle, as The Economist magazine calls it.
In particular, when looking at specific expenditures, it seems the Minister of Industry has led the charge in the Conservative cabinet. This minister and this government spent $.25 million building a toilet 20 kilometres away from the meeting site. He built a gazebo at a cost of over $100,000, more than an hour's drive away from the meetings.
He spent nearly $400,000 refurbishing a steamboat that world leaders will not see because it will not be ready until weeks after the leaders have left. It is not just a steamboat that will not be ready. Close to $7 million of G8 projects, and counting, are not even complete.
What about the spending in the city of Toronto, site of the G20 meeting? The $1.9 million fake lake has clearly outraged Canadians and with good reason. Lake Ontario is a mere 850 metres away and the government chose to spend money recreating Muskoka in downtown Toronto rather than any number of investments.
Another example, one which really gets my blood boiling, is the money that was spent on a fake wooden lighthouse. It is part of a tree stump and it is part of the G8-G20 spending. At the same time, the current government has announced plans to sell off or scrap lighthouses across Canada, close to 1,000 in all.
The Cape Spear Lighthouse is in my riding of St. John's South—Mount Pearl. Cape Spear is a symbol of the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, a marker of the most easterly point in North America, an iconic welcoming beacon to North America. The people of St. John's South--Mount Pearl are clearly concerned that the government would threaten the Cape Spear Lighthouse. Instead of focusing on maintaining such important symbols of our country, the government has spent money building a fake version for world leaders some 40 kilometres away from the summit site.
I cannot go on without mentioning the massive inconvenience to the residents of Toronto because of summit-related disruptions. By moving the G20 into downtown Toronto, the government not only massively increased the cost to taxpayers of hosting these summits to the tune of $400 million, but also caused many businesses to have to close up shop. Bay Street has been disrupted. Productions in the theatre district have been cancelled. The Toronto Blue Jays had to leave town.
All of these disruptions will have a significant economic impact on businesses in Toronto and are added costs to the summit. Allow me to go on and elaborate on this because it is so detrimental to Toronto, not only from a life perspective but from a tourism perspective. We now learn that the government of the United States has put out a travel advisory to the city of Toronto because of the G8 and G20.
With all this money going out the door for questionable items the government's plan to tame the deficit seems to raise more questions than it does answers. To give an idea of the magnitude of the task at hand, the Conservatives have increased program spending from $175.2 billion to $237.8 billion in their first four budgets. That is a 26% increase. That is a lot of money. It is $62 billion. Imagine if they had spent it on things to help Canadians.
The government says it has a plan to fight the deficit it created. It can simply freeze departmental operating budgets and let public servants determine what services should be cut and reduced as inflation and population growth squeezes their bottom lines. Allow me to tell members about the Public Works and Government Services officials who came before the operations committee of which I am a member. They came before us and said the freeze will affect $8.7 million. That is a very small amount of the billions upon billions that Public Works and Government Services utilizes. When we look at the freeze, it is only a freeze on $8.7 million. It is not going to yield the kind of numbers that are required.
Now we have learned that there is a very complex process by which public servants can gain up to an additional $10,000 and get their suggestions reviewed by a complex process put forward by the public service to find savings. As I stated in the House, if the government needs some assistance in eliminating wasteful spending, it could just start with the fake lake. That will save it a lot of money and we can go on.
Conservatives have been spending a heck of a lot of money, for example, on management consultants. If they were to look at all the money they spent on the wasteful G8 and G20 projects, they would be well ahead. But, it is also important to highlight that the government continues to spend huge amounts of money on self-promotion and advertising. For example, in supplementary estimates A, the government has asked to spend an additional $30 million. This is in addition to the budget amount. This is another place government could save money and instead put it to good use for Canadians.
Allow me to give a run-up as to how much money the government has been spending in advertising. In 2004-05 the amount was $49.5 million. In 2005-06 it went down a little bit to $41 million. In 2006-07 it skyrocketed to $86.9 million and it continued to rise since then. Last year it spent $89 million. So let me go back and give those numbers again. In 2005-06, when the government came into power, it was $41.3 million. It has now gone up to $89 million.
All this at a time when Canadians have the highest debt on a per household basis according to the Certified General Accountants Association of Canada. The average debt load of Canadians is $41,740 each. That is the worst among the 20 advanced countries in the OECD--
