It certainly is an issue, I think, because the costing information isn't aligned to the same time period; as I said, it's very easy to miss the big picture for that reason.
First of all, the financial cycle, the time, is mandated through the standing orders, but because of budget secrecy, it wasn't possible for the government to put out the contents of the budget and have that information available at the same time.
I think it's also safe to say that the budget is also a much more political document than the estimates. The estimates are the nuts and bolts of the A-base funding of government, whereas the budget usually announces programs and funding that are much more aligned with the platform of the party.
If you did it in the fall, you could reconcile it and put those numbers in the main estimates, as opposed to what we do now, which is supplementary estimates (A) or supplementary estimates (B), depending on the time. I guess it would be up to the government of the day to decide whether the potential pain is worth the gain for that particular shift. Keep in mind that this has been going on this way for a very long time.
Again, estimates aren't as exciting as they sound, and I congratulate the committee for focusing on this, because nobody ever says in their householder that they're working on the budget. Nobody ever ran on this as part of their platform. However, it is a fundamental piece of how the system is supposed to work. As parliamentarians, regardless of the political party, when you get up in the morning, what do you do? This oversight function is a legislated bit, and I think everybody wants to make sure that the job is done in the best way possible, so I think you need to consider aligning the information so that people get a clearer picture. That's one of the problems: they don't know the full extent of what spending authorities are being sought.