Okay.
I like your suggestion about using the interim supply period's additional time and then maybe later in the spring or early summer having the mains reflect maybe what was in the budget. That's one concept we haven't heard yet in terms of making a change.
I guess most of us haven't really looked at the RPPs or the DPRs. In actual fact, one of the things we're talking about is the deemed approved issue. Really, by having the DPR at committee and forcing the committee to look at the DPR, even though it's in the past, you'd at least be able to say, “Here's what you asked for, here's what you spent, and here's what it was spent on”. The DPR should be comparable to the RPP, then. We know that in the estimates, as you showed us, the numbers don't match up, because things can change in the interim through a cabinet decision or whatever, and money gets spent.
Based on your experience, would we be better off as members of Parliament if, as the estimates go through, each committee says that it wants to look at a particular program, what you're spending, and what your outcomes are? We'd give notice to the department—four weeks or whatever the number is—that on this day you'll come to see us and explain to us what we're doing on that, what it's costing, what it cost in the past, what we expect to spend in the future, and all those kinds of things.
In terms of our having better input, or at least understanding, is it possible that we change the process a little bit? The estimates might stay deemed, but there'd be a process whereby the committee could ask about a specific program, or would maybe even be required to ask for one every year, so that the members of the committee would be on top of at least one thing that was going on in the department. Is that possible?