Thank you.
I'm not certain the amendment's in order. It changes the meaning significantly. I would argue that the very point of the main motion is to table a budget before Parliament closes. That's an essential element of the main motion.
Be that as it may, I have the floor and I have some remarks to address the amendment and the main motion. If you've ruled it in order, we'll continue.
Look, this government campaigned on the urgency of our time with the multiple crises facing Canadians—many of which were 10 years in the making from the current government's tenure—and then refused to table a budget. That's why we called on it to table a budget before we rise. I will oppose the amendment and vote for the main motion.
In absence of a budget, all we have are the main estimates that the government has tabled. There's $486 billion in budgetary spending with no budget. It's almost half a trillion dollars in budgetary spending with no budget. If the budget is not tabled until, say, November, we'll be at about 20 months without a budget in a time of crisis, when the other party campaigned on an immediate budget. Past governments, including the former Conservative government, tabled budgets very quickly after elections. This is something that is ordinarily done.
In the absence of a budget, we can merely look at these estimates of $486 billion and compare them to last year's main estimates. That comparison reveals the extent to which the government is not governing in accordance with the platform and promises made during the election, because it is allowing additional bloat to the size of government, which has expanded 40% in the tenure of this government, and the main estimates indicate that it is getting even worse. The use of private contractors has also increased.
I would argue—or hope, actually—that we should defeat the amendment and pass the main motion. I call upon the Liberal members of this committee to vote in favour of the main motion. They campaigned on the platform of a plan to deal with the crises of this moment. I hope Liberal members want to put pressure on the government to do the right thing and table its budget so that Canadians know how it's going to finance and pay for this and what taxes are going to have to increase in order to fund the spending that is clearly increasing as a result of these main estimates.
Thank you, Chair.