Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to thank our guests for coming today.
I was looking forward to the report from the budget officer. As you know, I've been active in the file on estimates since basically I got here.
I do know why they called you, in this magazine Power and Influence, a media star, because most of your previous comments were comments, and I was looking for suggestions in terms of what we could do better.
Now, I know that your office put together a system that's available to all members of Parliament in terms of looking at actual spending. Part of my issue here is that we have mains and budgets coming at the same time. A year goes by, and at the end of the fiscal year, six months later, you get the actuals to do the actual comparison.
So the approach that you've developed for members of Parliament to use is that we can look at actuals as they go, as they're reported. What I'm looking for today are what suggestions you have for improvements. Have you looked at anything specific? One item is the tool you've added for members of Parliament to better scrutinize the actual spending that will happen.
You talked about “deemed”. Do you recommend that we get rid of deemed, and how do you recommend doing it? Do you think each committee should do it? Should there be a special committee on estimates only, as we have here, just to look at everybody's estimates?
You allude to what's happening in other states—for example, Australia. You brought it to my attention that they have more of a programmed approach. Do you have actual solutions that you're recommending to this committee to look at? That's why we're having this study. We're having experts like you, who have looked at these issues, to give us suggestions to make improvements.
I do agree with you that it's important for Parliament to be able to scrutinize these things, the actual spending of the $259 billion, in a more appropriate way. I may not agree with some of the things you've said about what the role of the government is, or the opposition, but this is for us to have a better understanding, when we stand up and vote for it, of what we're voting for.
Based on that, do you have any suggestions for us?