Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Marleau, thank you for coming. Let me follow up on some of your suggestions. I really appreciate your bringing suggestions.
We actually had a brief discussion with some people today about maybe having one super committee that looks at estimates, which is basically what you're advocating. But I want to go back a little bit. I do understand the history of where the “deemed” issue came from, and that it was a trade-off. I understand that.
At least from my perspective, and I think John's, the concept of “deemed” was that committees aren't looking at it at all. If we were going to remove the deemed rule, there would be a requirement to at least spend an hour, two hours, one meeting, looking at it by a certain deadline. We wouldn't be giving up the one side completely. They're still going to get their 25 days. We still expect support, or whatever, then they'll pass it by a certain time.
There's another issue I wouldn't mind a comment on. We had our budget last week. We had mains. We started our fiscal year as of yesterday.
The timing of the budget is not reflected in the mains. Then we have (A)s, and (B)s are usually pretty big, and then we have (C)s. The thought was that what if we have the budget previous...or we move the fiscal year-end to three or four months from now and the mains are not presented until they have had an opportunity to incorporate at least some of what was in the budget, if not all of it.
Do you see an issue with moving the timing, whether the budget is in late fall or stays in the same timeframe as now?
My understanding is that there is no law saying there has to be a budget by a certain time, and maybe we should change that also in terms of a standing order. But we would move that date so that the mains would be more reflective of what is actually in the budget. Then in my view, the plans and priority documents, which I don't think are exactly the same at every department, may be able to reflect more of what is in the budgetary plans for the government.
Would you be able to comment on that?