I don't want to become too normative. I said in my opening remarks that some of these things about the right balance of power between the executive and the legislature are really questions that are normative and reflect a certain view of how politics should be structured. But let me nonetheless give you some food for thought, which I think is in the spirit of your question.
The first point I would make is that in Westminster-type systems, parliaments used to make changes to the budget and be more active in making decisions on public spending. Even in the U.K., for example, which nowadays is maybe the weakest parliament of the OECD countries on scrutiny of public expenditure, until about 1920 the parliaments very routinely made changes to executive spending proposals. Then somehow this practice emerged of not doing it anymore.
I don't think there's anything inherent in the constitutional model of the Westminster government that says Parliament cannot play a more active role in scrutinizing the budget and even making changes to it. Quite clearly, historically it did that for a very long time, in fact.
The second point I would make is that even within the Westminster-type setting—which I think you very appropriately characterize as being extremely biased toward executive authority and executive power in economic policy-making—we are seeing a shift. The shift is not only in one or two countries; it is taking place in several countries. You can see it, for example, in the creation of legislative budget officers in Australia, South Africa, and Canada. These are Westminster-type countries. They are strengthening legislative scrutiny. You can see new committees, for example, or the changes I mentioned earlier to amendment powers in New Zealand and South Africa, which also has a Westminster-type system.
So there's a history of more proactive parliamentary involvement in economic policy-making. There's nothing inherent in the constitutional model that would prevent this. Second, I think there's a broad international trend, and I don't see why the Canadian Parliament couldn't at least reposition itself a bit more toward legislative scrutiny of the budget and a greater role in setting the budgets.