Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
Once again, thank you, everyone, for being here.
Thank you for spending some time with us this afternoon.
One of our most important responsibilities as parliamentarians is in fact the oversight of government spending, and this here involves a great deal of government spending. Unfortunately, despite repeated requests....
Minister Baird, you appeared before this committee many months ago in the spring, and at that time I was already asking you for answers identifying projects and how much money had been spent. I had a real concern about announcements and announcements, but announcements don't create jobs, and we asked for details.
We have continued to ask for details. We have had very little response. To do our jobs, to fulfill our responsibility to Canadians, we then asked the Parliamentary Budget Officer to assist us by providing us with that information.
The Parliamentary Budget Officer appeared before this committee two days ago, and his answer to our questions about the details on government spending was that he had not been given adequate information to be able to answer us. So I will repeat: for us to be able to do our jobs, to fulfill our responsibility to Canadians, we need this information.
When I asked the Parliamentary Budget Officer why he was not being provided that information, he replied, “I think you'll have an opportunity later this week to have the Minister of Transport and Infrastructure and perhaps the deputy minister as well”, suggesting that because he couldn't give us that information, we had to ask you for it.
At this point, I would very much like to ask you, because I recognize your enthusiasm to be able to speak in front of a committee, Minister, and I acknowledge your unique abilities in that regard, but we do have specific questions and I would really appreciate succinct answers.
The first question is, why has the Parliamentary Budget Officer not been given adequate information so that we can do our jobs for Canadians?