Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Fréchette, Mr. Mahabir and Mr. Askari, I'm very happy to see you again, and you are always welcome at this committee.
What the government is proposing is completely unacceptable, to put it mildly.
We cannot attack a neutral and objective institution like the Parliamentary Budget Office by slipping a few clauses into an omnibus bill that will fundamentally change the way that institution works.
If the government is serious in wanting to refresh the mandate and the functioning of the Parliamentary Budget Office, it must set this bill aside and present a separate bill; we could see where that takes us. But on the face of it, this does not make sense.
I am basing my remarks on the qualifiers and verbs used a few minutes ago by the current parliamentary budget officer in reply to the questions put to him by my colleague from Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie.
He said that it was tortuous, convoluted and risky, that it put him in the position of a political agent, and that it is not clear.
I have never heard such comments from a neutral and objective officer with regard to a bill, or rather with regard to clauses that have been surreptitiously slipped into a bill of over 308 pages. As we said, this is an omnibus bill.
And yet during the electoral campaign, the author of this document was pleased to assert that there would be no more omnibus bills. It is unfortunate to see as prestigious and honourable a man as the member for Toronto-Centre stoop to such tactics.
That said, Mr. Fréchette, in various interviews you mentioned that having to submit your work plan to a person appointed by the Prime Minister of Canada, that is to say the Speaker of the Senate, and to the Speaker of the House of Commons, was an issue.
In your opinion, how does this jeopardize your freedom of action, since a person appointed by the Prime Minister will have the right to veto your work?