I would start, Mr. Chairman, by having an in camera meeting of the members to look at your standing order mandate.
It is broad. It is wide-ranging. It covers all parts of government. You need to decide how you're going to examine government spending beyond just the estimates that are tabled at the beginning of March, which have to be voted on and confidence is attached.
You should move away from there. Don't leave it behind, but don't make it your primary focus. Consider how the estimates committee could look at government spending, loan guarantees, tax expenditures. By virtue of the fact that tax expenditures are deducted from people's income tax means there's no revenue, no expenditure, no program. There's nothing. There's nothing that comes before Parliament on tax expenditures that gives you information. Yet, they can be huge public policies—RRSP contributions being one of the major tax deductions and tax expenditures that doesn't show up anywhere.
These are the things you can look at, and then you can table a report in the House asking the government to provide evaluations of this magnitude that give you detailed managerial information on how this program is doing, and then go forward from there. This is where I think you can make the greatest impact and influence government spending down the road.
Now if you take a look at the 52 recommendations, program evaluation is a big one. Reallocation within a department of up to 5% gives you the potential tool to say, “not there, but there”, without invoking confidence that the government would agree.
That's provided you put forth reasonable rational reasons for your proposal. The government would then have to respond. It would have to accept or not accept, and provide its reasons for doing so. That allows a reasoned and intelligent debate in the House.
When you have that kind of attitude, it reduces the partisanship and makes it much more meaningful. You represent the wishes of your constituents rather than just throwing political barbs across the table, and therefore they have more confidence in the work you do.