GRANTS AND CONTRIBUTIONS

Mr. John Williams (St. Albert, Canadian Alliance): Mr. Speaker, the information commissioner has been bullied around by the government but, fortunately, he has not bowed out. The auditor general is being swept aside as if his reports were not important, but they are. We hear from HRDC about the thousands of grant applications that have been handled incompetently with money being used questionably. We see, from the auditor general on the CIDA grants, that here a $6.3 million contract was approved contrary to the rules.

Is there nothing that this Prime Minister will not do to help his friends?

Right Hon. Jean Chrétien (Prime Minister, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I would like to say at this moment that when a person is in public administration all sorts of problems can occur.

Because the Leader of the Opposition was a senior minister from Alberta, I would like to refer to what the report of the auditor general of Alberta said specifically about human resources. It showed that human resources programs were always a challenge for any government. I am sure the Government of Alberta appreciates the report issued last week by the auditor general on the human resources and employment departments.

In looking at the departments' skills development program, the auditor found evidence of significant overpayments. He also found that the control within the departments were not adequate to ensure proper record keeping -

Comment: The Prime Minister is exactly right, "human resources programs were always a challenge for any government." That is one of the practical reasons why the Biblical model of society teaches that "human resources" should be the responsibility of the family and the church, not of the state. If people obeyed the Bible, they wouldn't have had to embark on the massive social experiment of the last half century with its horrible legacy of human tragedy. Having admitted that "human resources" are a challenge for the civil magistrate and, therefore, one at which they aren't always successful, the PM has to believe that the family and the church would do an even worse job if he is not prepared to return this jurisdiction to them. If he doesn't believe that, he has no rationale for not surrendering political responsibility over "human resources." If he does hold such a disrespectful view of the abilities of families and the church, he doesn't deserve to lead this country.