Welcome to our witnesses.
I need to begin by saying, though, that as much as we appreciate and we benefit from the expertise around the table, and we don't question that we have the right people to answer very technical questions about the supplementary estimates, what's lacking here is the minister coming to speak to the supplementary estimates. I agree with the parliamentary secretary that it's a huge portfolio and I think he said it's very complicated, and it is. But the irony is that the only person who can actually grill the minister on this complicated portfolio is the parliamentary secretary, and he doesn't need to ask any questions of the advisers here today because he can talk to the minister any time he wants. We can't. I note the Minister of Health went before her standing committee to speak to her supplementary estimates. Minister Kenny went before human resources. Minister Rickford went before natural resources. Minister Glover went before Canadian heritage. Minister Valcourt went before the aboriginal affairs committee. Yet we don't have our minister to ask these complicated questions.
Every one of these people around the table can answer technical questions about the veracity of the documents that were delivered to us in the supplementary estimates and the departmental performance reports, but none of them can answer the questions about the big picture, about what the government is doing, why they're doing it, what they're seeking to achieve, and whether it could be done better. They aren't allowed to answer questions like that, so we're handicapped here. We're shackled. We're actually hobbled as a parliamentary committee because the minister doesn't have enough respect for our parliamentary committee to attend to ask for these hundreds of millions of dollars of spending in the supplementary estimates.
I have to voice my profound displeasure on behalf of the official opposition that our committee is being treated in this way. I say this with no disrespect to our witnesses, many of whom I know well, and I appreciate the technical expertise around the table, but it's the minister who should be here to defend his supplementary estimates. In the future, we hope that will be the case.
Perhaps because we have this bizarre situation of a parliamentary secretary leading the questioning on behalf of the Conservative members, you could convey that to the minister on our behalf, or perhaps the PMO's representative in the room could do that for us.
My question, if I have any time left, is very specific.