Stockwell Day

[Office of public sector integrity, December 9th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, this particular position reports to Parliament and all parliamentarians. The person who was in that position has left the position. The Auditor General has done a report of the concerns that were raised. We are all troubled by the results of that report. We would hope that the acting commissioner would pursue this.

I really am surprised at the leader of the NDP. Maybe there are other numbers that are bothering him these days, but he should know very well that this person is put in place by Parliament and we would look for that to happen again soon.

[Office of public sector integrity, December 9th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I would think that all members of Parliament would be very troubled by the report that has been put out by the Auditor General. I thank her for her work. The commissioner of integrity is an independent agent of Parliament and reports to Parliament. In fact, she had done that on a couple of occasions.

I want people to know that the acting commissioner, who is in place now, I would expect would now be reviewing all of those past cases. I can assure members that we want to see another commissioner in place as soon as possible.

[Criminal Code, December 8th, 2010]

moved that Bill C-30, An Act to amend the Criminal Code, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[Points of Order, December 8th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, my comments were quite clear. I said that these numbers were in print and she should actually read them. I am glad she has made a commitment to do that because maybe tomorrow she might ask how we were able to go about the task of reducing ministerial office budgets by $11 million. That would be a good question.

[Government Spending, December 8th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I will keep repeating it, but I do not want my own colleagues here to in any way become bored with the repetition, so I will refer to some figures the Liberals brought out today.

They want us to cut professional spending in areas, and I am just reading from their own document. Which of the 1,200 nurses do they want us to cut, to not hire, in 600 communities across Canada? Which doctors should we not have hired who assisted to get us through the H1N1 crisis?

The Liberals pointed to these items in their press release today. Which nurses and doctors do they want us to cut?

[Government Spending, December 8th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, for some moments of blind courage, I will give the Liberals some credit, because they continue to bring forward areas where they hopelessly overspent, and then they allow us to reflect on how we are spending far less than they were.

Whether we are talking about travel, which we have frozen, whether we are talking about ministerial office budgets, which are going to be reduced, in every single area we are performing far better than they are. I think that is why they are upset. It is the exposure of this that is bothering them.

We are going to keep on this track of paying respect to taxpayer dollars.

[Government Spending, December 8th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I will send my hon. friend these items in writing, if that helps, because I already have that. Her people are not putting these items in front of her, obviously.

Not one minister overspent the budget allocation. As a matter of fact, ministers spent 16% less than what was available to them. With what we are putting in place this year, there will be an $11.4 million saving on ministers' office budgets alone.

I would like my hon. friend to say: Is she opposed to this reduction in ministerial office spending? I would like to know if she is opposed to that.

[Government Spending, December 8th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, one example after another shows where we continue to perform and continue to manage taxpayers' dollars in ways that are far better than the Liberals ever did.

Ministerial office budgets are being reduced by $11.4 million this year. All operational spending of government is frozen for the next three years. There are reductions in items like the use of the Challenger jet. Cabinet ministers from the Conservative government have 80% less usage than the Liberals used to.

We have things under control. We are going to keep it that way.

[Government Spending, December 7th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, as I have said, all ministers spent within their allocation.

If I were asking a question of my hon. friend, I would say these secret figures, wherever they are from, cannot be too secret if she got hold of them. That is a little bit of a mystery to me.

In every single category, without fail, when we compare ministerial spending of this government to that of the former Liberal government, we spend significantly less. We reduced in every single area.

[Government Spending, December 7th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, the story is simply not true. All ministers spent within their allocated budgets. Every minister did.

As a matter of fact, my hon. colleague knows very well that we have gone beyond just the operational freeze of all operational spending across government for three years. When it comes to the ministers' budgets, they have been reduced by $11.4 million.