Thank you, Mr. Chair.
And thank you, Mr. Williams, for coming in.
I think you and Mr. Marleau have today maybe injected a different way of looking at the problem. We've been very focused the last couple of weeks on this question of a reconciliation between the budget and the estimates, looking at things like the timing of the budget or looking at the fiscal calendar, for example, and making that the focus—and some of the witnesses came in and talked about how they do it in other countries.
I suppose you could say there was this anomalous situation that the budget for the Canadian government isn't approved until about June and the fiscal year has already started, but as you pointed out and Mr. Marleau pointed out, the budget itself is actually more a longer-term policy document. Some of the changes won't even take place until 2013 or 2014, for example. So the need for reconciliation with the main estimates perhaps isn't there.
What you're suggesting is that we should really look at a different focus for a committee like this one, because ultimately, what's more important than that accounting exercise is the ability of Parliament to scrutinize government spending, and as you point out, hold government to account. What I'm hearing from you is, rather than have this broad but shallow look at the estimates that we tend to use right now, let's take a more narrow and deep look at the estimates and focus on a narrower program, for example, looking at the plans and priorities documents and the departmental performance reports.
Has that ever happened with this committee, where there was a decision to do some deeper, narrower dives, in your experience?