Statement made on 22 June 2009 by Senator Joseph Day
Hon. Joseph A. Day:
Honourable senators, the Deputy Chair of the Standing Senate Committee on National Finance, Senator Gerstein, has given you a good overview of the proposed expenditures that appear in the Supplementary Estimates (A).
It is important to keep in mind that these estimates are one of three supplementary estimates that go along with the Main Estimates upon which we have just voted second reading. Two others will be coming. Supplementary Estimates (A) include many, but not all, of the initiatives that appeared in the January budget. There are also budget implementation acts, one of which we have seen in Bill C-10. Another budget implementation act plus two other supplementary estimates will follow in due course.
There are two ways the government obtains parliamentary authority to spend. Honourable senators will recall when we dealt with the report last week from the Standing Senate Committee on National Finance that we expressed concern about the government advertising programs for which the government had not yet received parliamentary authority either through statutory authority or the estimates. If honourable senators look at Bill C-49, which was provided to us earlier, clause 3(2) has provisions for each item in Schedule 1 and Schedule 2 that were deemed to have been enacted by Parliament on April 1, 2009. With the approval of this bill, in effect, the government is asking for forgiveness and indicating this will be backdated to and be effective as of April 1, 2009.
Honourable senators, the $5.3 billion that we are being asked to approve in this appropriation act will come out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund. As we would have expected, there are two schedules. I have checked those two schedules against the estimates for Supplementary Estimates (A). The two schedules conform to the schedules we studied and that form the subject of our report that has already been debated here in the chamber.
The final point I want to remind honourable senators of is one that Senator Gerstein has brought to our attention. However, it is extremely important for us to keep in mind. We are voting for $5.3 billion, but there are also statutory expenditures. Main Estimates provide us with information on those statutory appropriations that have already been approved previously. Statutory expenditures are referred to in this bill and for information.
We approved $53 billion in statutory spending previously, of which $50 billion will go to CMHC to buy mortgages. This money supplements $75 billion we were already informed of. Therefore, CMHC alone is spending $125 billion to buy mortgages in the marketplace. Honourable senators, if anything ever went wrong with many of these mortgages, we would have to approve that as expenditure. We have already agreed to it statutorily. We should be aware of this risk.
Honourable senators, apart from that one point, this bill is a supply bill. The Senate is not a chamber of confidence, but we understand and appreciate the importance of supply to the government.
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