Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you for coming this morning. I have a variety of questions and I may actually get more than one slot to ask them.
I'm going to start with Finance first. Some of the questions are a little bit broad in nature. I have my estimates from the three years now that I've been on the committee and I have all three books. There have been some changes. I just want to give you an example. In the main estimates for fiscal equalization payments, since the first time we had it, it has gone from $11 billion or so, in that range, to a little over $16 billion, which is a 42% increase.
Here's my question to you. It's great that I get these estimates, and they are called estimates. It's basically the budget. It's the planned spending, if I understand it correctly. How come I never see any actuals? Where would a member of Parliament actually see the actuals? I'm assuming what we say we're going to pay the provinces we're paying them, so that 42% over the last three years has gone out. There may be line items we might not have, so where do I find those actuals, and why are they not presented in the budget documents?