In 1998, Canadians sent $144 billion dollars to Ottawa in the way of taxes to be used to run the affairs of this country. Unfortunately, a lot of this money was mismanaged and wasted. A prime example of this mismanagement was revealed by an internal audit of Human Resources Development Canada (HRDC). One billion dollars in funding was unchecked, and basically, unaccounted for.

The internal audit was investigating how the government hands out job-creation grants. The auditors discovered gross mismanagement by HRDC bureaucrats. One billion dollars was spent on job creation programs but was not carefully monitored.

Among other things, the audit found 97% of the job creation files reviewed showed no evidence anyone had checked to see if recipients already owed money to HRDC. There was no sign of financial monitoring on 80% of the files, and 87% showed no evidence of supervision. 25% of the files had no description of the activities to be supported, 11% had no budget proposal or description of expected results, and more incredibly, 15% did not even have an application on file.

So what happened here? How can one billion taxpayers’ dollars be so horribly mismanaged? The problem is that currently, there is a lack of accountability at the federal level of government. Our big government tells us, "Send us your money. Don't worry we'll look after it." Unfortunately, when that money arrives in Ottawa, the source (your pocket) is forgotten. The bureaucracy and politicians forget that Canadians have worked hard, taken risks and sacrificed a great deal to send this billion dollars to Ottawa. When government loses sight of whose money is being spent, we see exactly what happened at the HRDC office--distribution of taxpayers dollars with no concern for how it is being used.

Another problem has become evident with the audit of the HRDC job creation fund. This fund has been, and can be, manipulated in the way of political patronage, porkbarrelling and misuse of taxpayers’ money. This transitional jobs fund has in the past been used by politicians to funnel money into their constituency. For example, the Minister for HRDC, the Hon. Jane Stewart, brought $19 million in job creation money to her riding in the last two years. Some may say this is the right thing to do--try and get as big of a piece of the pie as possible for your constituency. But don't Canadians expect fairness and equality in the way funds are spent? When MPs and Ministers make the decision to funnel money towards a certain group or agency, are they not buying votes with taxpayers dollars?

You may ask the question: "How can I denounce the awarding of money through these job funds while at the same time be asking the government to come to the financial aid of our struggling agriculture producers? Our farmers are in a state of crisis. Whenever there is a crisis in this country, be it an ice storm, flooding or other natural disaster, the government comes to the aid of people in need. Our farmers are in a crisis here and it's time the government came to their aid. Another aspect is that the agriculture sector has been badly mismanaged by government over the last 30 years--it is only fair that the damage they have done be corrected.

When the government hands out money, there must be accountability and there must be transparency. If you were to trade places with me for a month or two, I believe you would come to the same conclusions as I do: "Let’s keep our money and decide how it should be spent."

The mismanagement of funds by the HRDC office is just one example of government inefficiency. We must seriously look at all of our government programs and initiatives. Government is terrible at managing money and should not be determining who does and who does not deserve financial support. The cry from farmers, business and labour will become louder when they see their hard-earned money mismanaged. A smaller, less intrusive government combined with substantial tax relief would do more to help the people of this country than any billion-dollar handout from the government.

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