Thank you.
Mr. Kroeger, in our party, we had actually proposed before the election some concerns that we had about what was going on. Ethics and accountability, and putting those two together, were pretty apparent in this town and across the country. We put forward a kind of mission statement, if you will, that Canadians were demanding changes in ethics and accountability. We wanted a strong Canada that had institutions, if you will, based on sound, ethical, and accountable mores and ideas. Having honesty, fairness, and transparency were critical.
My predecessor, Mr. Broadbent, put forward a seven-point plan. Part of it had to do with Parliament and the government, and part of it had to do with the democratic system itself. We were concerned and still remain concerned. This says a lot about the accountability of government and Parliament, but there's one component missing, and that's the accountability to the public. We've talked about some other concerns we have about proportional representation and concerns about other institutions, like the Senate.
That's background from our perspective as a party
But when we got into this bill—and we think we share some of your sense of the bill—there were some really good things and there were some things that we think can be improved upon. Access to information is an obvious one, and we'll put forward proposals and amendments on that. But there are some institutions that are unchartered waters, and I would like your comments.
I'd turn your attention to the parliamentary budget officer. There's an interesting component to the parliamentary budget officers. They would have the ability to cost private members' bills but not to really do a costing or evaluation of the government bills, as I read it. I find that interesting.
I don't know if you've looked into that part of the bill at all or if you can look at other jurisdictions as to what that kind of office would provide and what the need would be. I understand the need, and we certainly wanted to have that. It was mostly to do with concerns around the Department of Finance: how the surpluses would be out of whack with what everyone else was saying, therefore the money that was available to government and Canadians wasn't there, and alas, every year the government would say, oh, look, the surplus was a lot larger than we had anticipated. We wanted some transparency there, and that's why we thought an oversight was important.
I'd like to mention a couple of other points, if I have time.
On that one particular component of the bill, it's curious to me that you would cost private members' bills, in which traditionally you can't spend money, and then have the government bills not costed. What do you think the intent is? What could this do?