That the Standing Committee on Finance reconstitute its program of quarterly independent fiscal forecasts employing the services of the Conference Board of Canada, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, Global Insight and Dr. Vaillancourt or other independent forecasters, as determined by the Finance Committee, with an initial appearance before the Finance Committee in November.
To speak to it very briefly, in terms of the program I'm referring to in the motion, I would refer committee members to the motion that was put before the committee on December 1, 2004, by Monte Solberg, which was adopted and began a process for the committee. It outlines the purpose and the format that we used in the whole program, so I won't go into detail on that front.
The second point I would make is that the four organizations that are named, including one individual, are only there because that's basically the list we used the last time; however, it is open for other suggestions. It's not a fixed list. In fact, the last report of the fiscal forecasting program included Ellen Russell of CCPA; Dale Orr of Global Insight; Don Drummond of TD Bank; and François Vaillancourt from the University of Montreal.
That's basically the motion. And I'm suggesting we have some initial appearance in November just because with this period of time where we're expecting the report from the minister, where we have concerns about the accuracy of fiscal forecasting and the surplus dollars that are presumably rolling up, we need to have all the facts before us.
Finally, let me say that this is an interim program that always was intended to be a temporary initiative until such time as we have a more independent bureau in place to provide us with the budget advice we need. That idea is ensconced in Bill C-2, which, once through, will hopefully be the permanent way we deal with this. This is, therefore, only a temporary and interim measure.
