Mr. Speaker, these subjects are not necessarily sexy, but we will try to make them simple and understandable. What we have before us is something that, although dry, is very important to democracy in this country, and I hope that the average Canadian watching at home will be able to better understand the issue and see where this report will take us.
First, what do we want to do with it? When we started the study, it was simple; most of all, we wanted the estimates—those famous documents we get three or four times a year—to be understandable for the members of Parliament who must adopt them. What is important is that in a British-style Parliament, the House authorizes the government to spend. That is a basic principle.
Then, at the beginning of the study, we all received a letter from the President of the Treasury Board encouraging us to continue with the study. He asked us some questions. We tried to respond to his questions with some recommendations. But the very essence of the task was for each member of Parliament on each committee to be able—for the department on behalf of which they were looking at the estimates—to understand the figure on the third line on the right. What does it mean? What does it refer to? Why is it there and is it appropriate?
It is very difficult to do that today. I would like to quote Kevin Page, the Parliamentary Budget Officer. When he testified before our committee he said the following:
The House must be able to satisfy itself, as the confidence chamber, that all spending and taxation is consistent with legislation, Parliament's intentions, and the principles of parliamentary control. When this is accomplished, Parliament is serving Canadians.
That is the importance of the process. Unfortunately, even after this report, I do not think that we will have that kind of understanding.
Naturally, as we prepared the report, we heard a number of witnesses, including some who had worked on the two previous reports, in 1998 and 2003. They were very pessimistic and did not believe we would succeed where they had failed. Of course, we did not want to become pessimistic as well, and we wanted to work together with the government in order to make the necessary amendments. We wanted the outcome to be that all members of Parliament in all committees could really understand the figures they had in front of them, and that the public, like the people watching at home, could understand the general outlines. That is the foundation. A budget must be passed. It is one of the fundamental tasks of the House and we have trouble doing it.
Some witnesses told us that all Westminster-type parliaments, like ours, have had trouble making the budget process really dynamic. Perhaps it is tradition. We did not get very far on that point. Perhaps we could look at it again one day.
Nevertheless, we have a more than $260 billion budget, of which nearly $100 billion is in budget votes—a substantial proportion. The budget cycle, the supply cycle, is important and it is long.
The supply cycle takes at least 18 months from the time the estimates are presented to the time the public accounts are tabled. Thus, when we examine the estimates from year to year, at 12-month intervals, we have not even seen the public accounts report. Because we cannot see the complete supply cycle from the previous year, it is difficult to compare apples to apples, because we do not know the final numbers. It is quite unfortunate.
We were asked to look at the accounting procedures, which I will leave to the experts. That is not the most important thing in this debate. We were also asked to look at the presentation, whether this is a capital or a program budget, and so on. I will also leave that aside, because I think it is a field for experts. What is important to us is that when the work is complete, the figures will be understandable to the people who must vote on the budget. That is the essence.
I said that the supply cycle is quite long. I will provide some details so people have an idea what we are talking about. It always begins with producing the estimates. Then there is a budget, which is a somewhat more political statement. A little later, there is the report on plans and priorities from departments like Public Works, for the current year. That report is supposed to help us understand how the money is spent on the department’s various programs. Ideally, there should be a close connection between the estimates and this tool.
One of our recommendations was intended to have these documents published closer together, eventually synchronizing them so that there would be discussions of the estimates in the report on plans and priorities. That is the goal. It is necessary to make connections between things, and at present, there are no such connections. One almost needs to be a master of the dark arts to find the connections. I do not know how many people in the government are able to do it. I might not need all 10 fingers to count them, because it is so complex.
The structure is quite old. The figures and the budgets are bigger and there are many more programs, yet we have kept on using pretty much the same old methods. Therefore, we have to bring these methods up to date, and this is the challenge we face.
Then there are supplementary estimates. In the current budgetary cycle, in addition to budget estimates and the budget itself, there are three supplementary estimates that come in during the year. In order to have a good idea of your budget, it is necessary to add up what is shown in the main estimates and in the supplementary estimates A, B and C. After that, they go to the public accounts committee, but as I said, we study the estimates before we have seen the results and before we have seen what was really done.
This makes no sense. The cycle should be shortened so we can understand more clearly and more specifically and see connections from one year to the next. We made recommendations in this regard, primarily about the reports on plans and priorities. We wanted to be able to see a number of years in advance and go back a few years so we could track things. Right now, the hardest part is understanding where all this is heading. This brings me of course to the role of the House.
Normally, I myself would wait until everyone in this House—unanimously— really wanted to have financial statements and budget estimates that were more precise and easier to understant, but I am sensing some resistance.
Apparently, the government likes to talk about transparency and clarity, but when it is time to apply those principles, things do not move very quickly. If we say that it might be necessary to start afresh, we hear how difficult and complicated it all is.
Do we want to fulfill our role or not? That is the main question. Do we just want to surrender control over spending to the government or do we want to remain a Parliament? It was Parliament that, in the beginning, authorized the King's expenditures. That is how it all started, and this has always been the case. In a Westminster-style Parliament, it is Parliament that gives its authorization, but Parliament must still understand what it is authorizing. That is the point.
Otherwise, if we do not do this, if we do not try to improve the situation, between you and me, Mr. Speaker, it is pointless. We will not get very far. We have to wonder what we are doing here.
That is why, among other things, it is important to remain focused on our goals here. I will give an example. The budget estimates are sent to committee for consideration. That is all well and good, but there are some committees that do not have the time or do not take the time to study them, or perhaps they do not understand what they contain and they send them on really quickly, even though seeing how the department for which they are responsible spends its money should be one of their main activities.
There is a standing order that says if the estimates have not been studied within a few weeks, according to the calendar, they are deemed approved, but have we done our job? Why are we here if not to study the estimates? Of course, there are the statutes, the legislative part, but, between you and me, the estimates are quite a significant part of the annual parliamentary cycle. If our purpose is not to consider all that, what are we doing here? I ask you, Mr. Speaker.
This is why we were really trying to go a little bit further and bring the estimates analysis into the 21st century, because now our procedures are really closer to those of the 19th century than the 21st century. It is all still pretty mysterious.
I want us to examine this in a clear manner. I want the people whose job it is to look at, study and vote on the budget to do so very conscientiously. The partisanship can come later; whether we are for or against it is another matter. Properly understanding how this works is a fundamental prerequisite.
Here is a fairly straightforward example of what we could do. I mentioned this earlier. We could group government documents pertaining to the estimates. We would have to shorten the cycle. The estimates, the Minister of Finance's budget, and the report on plans and priorities are all tabled at specific times. All this would have to be done in a much shorter time frame so that each of the documents would be as pertinent as possible. In that way we could truly draw a connection between the various documents, between the programs, the expenditures and the announcements, and we would not have to wait until the public accounts are released to say that that is what the government wanted to say, that is where it wanted to spend the money, and that is what that meant.
We are behind by 18 months if we are forced to say things like that. It makes no sense. Except for the people who ensure that the accounts are right, very few people do this exercise. Therefore, we are not moving towards our objective, which is to have a good understanding of how our public funds are spent.
We talked about a specific period for tabling the budget. Obviously, the government thought that it was a fixed date, whereas we were thinking of a period that ends on a specific date. That would allow the machinery of government to have a schedule and to produce all these documents within a shorter time frame in order to have the greatest possible impact. That is not complicated.
It is important to remember that Canada is a federation. The provinces, therefore, are also interested in knowing what the federal budget contains. That, too, is important to consider. The provinces rely, to a certain extent, on what is in the budget. Our vision also helps the provinces to tailor their own budgets. Everybody benefits when the budget is presented at a specific time of the year. The precise moment is open for discussion; that is not a problem. The basic idea is to always have timely publications and announcements to avoid—as we are currently seeing—having a budget prepared in February followed by a report on plans and priorities tabled in May or June, at a time when information and things in general have changed; in other words, when things no longer add up. That is very important.
Here is another thing to consider: it is important in this debate to get out of our comfort zones and think outside the box, to be willing to look at things differently, and not just see them from an accounting perspective. It is true that old habits die hard.
Let me provide an example. We had witnesses appear before us to discuss the government's response and at some point, I asked a question. It is clear that once you start tinkering with the budget—with the way that it is set out and in the terms of the documents put forward—it translates into a huge amount of work for the public service. That means there will be major transformations in terms of financial management. That much we know, and we know that it can be a lengthy process. However, it is worth doing even if it takes a long time. I would not like to see a desire for change quashed solely because change takes time. That is what we are here for, and that is what is required.
So I asked the following question: if we were to use the Parliamentary Budget Officer and his resources to enhance our understanding, would that lessen the load on the public service? Do you know the answer that I got? I was told that was not something that had even been considered.
In closing, I remind members that the objective is to make things clearer and more concise. What the machine thinks is not really important; what is important is that the House and members be given figures that they understand, and that they know what they are voting on.
