Mr. Speaker, something Canadians are just beginning to understand is that this budget implementation act goes far beyond anything that was in the budget announced by the Minister of Finance. One of the things that I find quite surprising for a government that has been struggling with its lack of transparency around the F-35 fiasco and missing, somehow, $10 billion in procurement costs is that in this bill, one of the single largest moves to restrict accountability is a broad reduction in the oversight powers of the Auditor General. This bill would eliminate mandatory Auditor General oversight of financial reporting in about a dozen agencies under the government.
I would like to ask the hon. member this: why would you want less transparency and less accountability, when in fact you used to campaign on just the opposite? What happened?