If the amendment is seeking to address the resource issue, I think all members of the committee would want to do that, because we don't want to increase the mandate of an agency that is already starved of resources. In keeping with Ms. Glover's assertion that committees and members of Parliament have a responsibility to do what is right, we are constitutionally obligated as members of Parliament, regardless of party, government or opposition, to scrutinize the cost of all legislation and to ensure that the resources are there to achieve it. That does not simply mean private members' legislation; it includes government legislation. That is paramount to our jobs as members of Parliament. That is why the Speaker ruled in the last House that the government was in contempt of Parliament.
Ms. Glover referred to the government's having appointed the Parliamentary Budget Officer. She didn't report that the government then refused to provide the Parliamentary Budget Officer with the information and the resources to do his job. What the government is doing now is simply using this committee as a branch plant of government, not of individual members of Parliament but as a branch plant of the government's partisan agenda to quash any dissension from any public servant or any agency within the public service. This committee is being manipulated and is part of the government's ongoing attack on the independent advice of the public service.