Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Good day to both of you. First off, I would like to thank Mr. Mulcair for bringing one very important fact to light, namely that we tend to think that there is no money to be found within our administrations. In my opinion, there is money to be found without having to request supplementary estimates simply by doing better than we are usually do. But you are asking for supplementary estimates today and we will address your request.
I would also like to thank my colleague, Mr. Carrier, for pointing out that, on a policy level, there are millions of dollars to be had simply by getting those who don't pay taxes to start paying. We're talking about millions of dollars. I know that this isn't your responsibility, that it comes down to the policies likely ordered by the Department of Finance and applied by Revenue Canada or by the people in your organization that formulate policy. In my opinion, it has a lot to do with being “penny wise and pound foolish”. We focus a great deal on the small sum of $10 million that is needed, but not a lot on the hundreds of millions that go uncollected.
That said, I have two very specific questions for you concerning your rationale for requesting $10 million, less the amount that you will be transferring. You maintain that financial systems need to be improved. For the benefit of the people tuning in at this time, I would like you to give us a few examples of improvements to financial systems. You want to support the financial decision-making process. I thought that the Department of Finance has primary decision-making authority, rather than Revenue Canada. Could you explain to us exactly why that is and why you added the word “post-horizontal“? What's that all about?