Over the next few months, we will be working with our colleagues in the Library of Parliament who support standing committees. Together we will be scrutinizing the estimates to see whether we can simplify some of the information in these documents. We would like to do it in a way that would support what we consider to be best practices with respect to Parliament's role in reviewing appropriations.
We would like to make sure that parliamentarians understand the link between the fiscal projections of the Government of Canada and what's included in the estimates. If it's not included in the estimates, what are the reasons for this? When you move from a fiscal planning framework to an estimates framework, it's important to be clear on the differences between the two.
In looking at the information we provide, we will be highlighting some of the big changes taking place in departments—in absolute dollars as well as in percentage increases. Mr. Angus, I believe, raised this earlier. We also plan to consider reports on plans and priorities together with departmental performance reports, highlighting the big policy changes that departments experience. They've had new infusions of money in recent years, and you need to know how they're managing this new money. There are rough performance indicators that enable us to measure the performance of these new programs. We will also look at the lapse issue, which is historical information. Has the department been consuming all the authorities provided to it? If not, what are some of the reasons for this?
The version of these mechanisms that we have in mind will be simplified yet fairly substantial—something we could reproduce across different departments that will highlight some of these changes.