As Canada’s top spending watchdog, the Auditor General is a cornerstone of our parliamentary democracy. Shamefully, the Liberal government has flagrantly disregarded this fact over the past five years. Ten years ago, the Auditor General’s Office was conducting 27 performance audits a year. At its current funding levels, the Auditor General can only complete 14 performance audits a year.

In order to underscore the necessity of funding the Auditor General, Conservative MP Pierre Poilievre will move the following motion at the Standing Committee of Finance this evening: 

That the Standing Committee on Finance call on the Auditor General of Canada to audit all federal programs associated with Canada’s COVID-19 response and to complete all previously-scheduled audits and all audits requested by the House; and call on the government to provide the Office of the Auditor General all the funding it needs to carry out these audits and any other work it deems appropriate.

“Over the last ten years the size of government has doubled, and the number of audits has gone down by half. Massive Liberal spending programs lack basic accountability and transparency, such as their $180 billion infrastructure program. The government has spent billions on projects to date, yet they cannot produce a full list of projects that have received money. In fact, there are roughly 20,000 projects that are not accounted for. This complete disregard of taxpayer money is troubling. It’s time to bring in the auditors,” said MP Pierre Poilievre.

“The Liberals have announced hundreds of billions of dollars in new spending during the pandemic but are refusing to provide an economic update or to be transparent with Canadians,” said MP Tim Uppal. “In a crisis, oversight is more important than ever. But the Auditor General doesn’t have enough funding to conduct audits of government programs. Taxpayers deserve to know how the government is spending their money.”