Thanks, Mr. Chair.
I am reluctant to continue this debate, but having heard your introductory remarks, I'm now in a position where I have no choice.
I'm deeply troubled by what's gone on here. I'm deeply troubled by the agenda before us here today.
And I apologize to the minister that he has to sit through this. I welcome him this morning.
I'm troubled, Mr. Chair, and I know that other members of the committee are as well. Let's try to clear things up, because you have opened this up from the get-go.
Not once, but twice, this committee voted by majority decision to study the fiscal performance of the government for 2006-07. Not once, but twice, the agenda, including for today's meeting, read this instead: “Main Estimates 2007-2008”.
All of us—all of us—believe in accountability, Mr. Chair, but you know that we can't hold the government accountable for what hasn't happened yet. We have until May, as you rightly suggest, to study next year's estimates. My colleagues and I do not want to hear from the minister on that today. This has been brought to your attention several times, and I think now it's only fair that a request be made to you to withdraw the main estimates for 2007-08 from the orders of the day.
I'll take a moment just to recall, for example, the chronology that led to the invitation for the minister to appear in front of this committee today. Before the break, on Thursday, March 1, I put forward a motion in committee that read as follows: “That with regard to a Committee study of the Supplementary Estimates (B) for the fiscal year 2006-2007, the Minister of the Environment be invited to appear.”
During that meeting, the parliamentary secretary, Mr. Warawa, suggested a friendly amendment—I'm sure he recalls doing so—to include the main estimates in the motion, which then would have read as follows: “That with regard to a Committee study of the Supplementary Estimates and Main Estimates for the fiscal year 2006-2007, the Minister of the Environment be invited to appear.”
I refused at that time to allow this amendment. He recalls that. I explained to the committee very clearly at that time that we could and should invite the minister to come a second time to properly address the main estimates.
I said, and I quote, “My thinking was, let us at least have the minister come, in the first instance, before March 26 to talk about supplementary estimates (B).”