I have a couple of points. One, it's very clear that the Parliament of Canada Act states that the PBO is entitled “to free and timely access to any financial or economic data in the possession of the department that are required for the performance of his or her mandate”. There is a precedent for providing classified documents to the committee, and many members of the PBO have secret or top secret clearance and are positioned to work with classified documents.
There are several aspects to my motion, including the justice bills of the government, the crime bills, and also the issue around the cost of corporate tax cuts. We have heard several reports as to the actual cost of the corporate tax cuts. It would be helpful to have the PBO's study of that. We've had former deputy ministers of finance and directors of fiscal policy of finance provide contrary information, and I think we would benefit from the PBO's analysis.
In terms of the cost of the F-35s, my previous motion requested the estimated cost of the F-35 aircraft per airplane--how it fits in the fiscal framework--and the government response said it would be low- to mid-$70 million U.S. per aircraft. Frankly, it did not provide a lot of information, including issues around related costs, spare parts, weapons training, and infrastructure.
Given the anemic nature of the information provided by the Department of Finance, media reports, and the Auditor General's warning of significant cost overruns, we believe it's very important that parliamentarians receive the PBO's analysis on this.
With respect to the motion on the strategic acquisition report, again it requests information on that. This information is important. The U.S. Congress is being provided with this type of information. We, as parliamentarians in Canada, have not been provided with that kind of information.
Again, through previous motions of this committee, we did request much of this information from the Department of Finance. The Department of Finance did not provide us with detailed information. As such, we believe the PBO can help us to function more effectively, to have that information so we can do our work as a committee.
That covers the aerospace acquisitions and the justice bills. I think it's clear, based on the previous motion which, again, was a motion that was passed by this committee. It requested information from the Department of Finance, information that was not forthcoming in the detail that is satisfactory to the committee.
I believe the committee ultimately will demonstrate that the PBO's analysis would be beneficial.