Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
In your brief, Mr. Sinclair, you talk of limiting to 3% the growth of program expenditures.
I find interesting this idea of controlling government spending, not necessarily relating to the money to be given to people or to the benefits provided by the government but in relation to the bureaucratic apparatus of the federal machinery.
A few years ago, the Bloc québecois did a study indicating that federal expenditures were completely out of control. This fact was hidden by the enormous surpluses of the government which allowed it to spend huge sums for polls and for other activities providing very little value to Canadians.
Let me give you an example. From fiscal year 1997-98 to fiscal year 2006-07, federal operating expenditures have increased by 74.3%, which is considerably higher than inflation, whereas in Quebec, my province, provincial operating expenditures have increased by 49.2%. There is a huge difference.
Under the Liberal government of the time, we wanted to see how much could be saved without cutting jobs or cutting benefits but only through better control of our operating expenditures. Since then, we have updated our study. At the time, nobody made any comments or challenged our conclusions. Today, after updating, we have shown that 42 billion dollars could be saved over five years, which would give the government lots of leeway.
Do you believe there is a problem here? Do you think that nobody bothers with expenditures control anymore because we have those huge surpluses?