Thank you, Mr. Holder.
As chair I don't normally ask questions, because I want to listen to how the questions are coming. The purpose of this meeting was for the committee to have a look at government spending, because that's your responsibility, and for you to give us the state of the nation's finance.
You are the Parliamentary Budget Officer. We can get a minister, and the minister can give us any political spiel he wants to, because that's his job. That's his raison d'être. For us to get information from you, we have to ask you these questions. I am an accountant by trade, a consultant by trade as well, and I'm listening to what you're saying. You say you look at the planning and determine the outlay, from A to Z. What is the process for tracking the money?
I'll give you a classic example. The Comptroller General came before the public accounts committee. I used to sit on public accounts. We asked him to explain how $3 billion—this was unprecedented money, not part of the budget—had been spent and whether it really stimulated the economy. The frustration of this committee is not that infrastructure money does not stimulate the economy; the frustration of this committee is that pie-in-the-sky assumptions are made. If you commit $3 billion, you are going to spend $3 billion. If you don't spend $3 billion, then the stimulus that you claimed was going to happen is not going to happen.
My question to you is, who controls the data? You said you do not receive the data. Who controls the data? Is it the Treasury Board? Finance? Where do you get the data to help you make decisions and to help us follow the money?