I do think it is deeply regrettable.
We've already talked about the international comparison. Let me point out that here, within Canada, the provinces and territories have produced budgets, and municipalities have produced budgets. They all faced important uncertainties about what was going to happen. In some cases, those uncertainties would have been exacerbated by the fact that the federal government didn't produce a budget. The federal government's activities matter a great deal to the provinces, the territories and the municipalities.
One thing that I think is important to note is that budgets have traditionally been extraordinarily complete in the numbers they lay out and in their expression of the fiscal plan. I do not think the fall economic statement was an adequate substitute for a budget.
I will point out just one thing that really troubled me about the fall economic statement, and that was that we had between 70 and 100 billion dollars' worth of additional stimulus spending pencilled in, with different kinds of potential profiles over the three years, and yet even though this contemplated additional borrowing, there was no adjustment for the interest costs that would be involved in that additional borrowing. That looked to me a little bit as though it was pencilled in without the fiscal planning that you would normally expect around something as significant as that.
I do look forward to a budget. I think it's highly regrettable that we missed one, and I think it's high time that we got one that was appropriately complete when it comes to helping Canadians and parliamentarians understand the fiscal plan.