Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I am glad to clarify that the references to champagne and caviar didn't come out of nowhere. I'm talking about a particular way that one might choose to consult Canadians. One way that has sometimes happened is that the government embarks on an invitation-only consultation. Now I am repeating myself, but only for the benefit of Mr. Massé, who I think didn't appreciate initially how these remarks tied to the motion. I'm concerned to do that for him. If you'll give me some leeway to be somewhat repetitive, it's only for the benefit of Mr. Massé.
Of course, that is one way that you can consult. It's invitation only. Then the question is, what is the set-up for this invitation-only thing? If you had a government that was concerned to hobnob with the rich and powerful, you can imagine that if they were given free rein over a budget of $750,000 and had little scruple, they might do something like order caviar and champagne to that hotel room for that particular consultation in order to make an impression that had very little to do with the substance of the matter, which is a new process for federal election leaders debates. That would be something that parliamentarians of all stripes around this table would be concerned about. It's certainly something that they ought to be concerned about. That is how the reference to champagne and caviar relates directly to this particular motion, and has to do with the potential uses of this budget, and how you consult.
Another way to do consultation for government.... I mean, there's no magic to government consultation. It's about getting out and talking to people. Of course, the government of the day is supported by a political party. In fact, this government, as all majority governments are, is supported in the House by a political party with the most number of current MPs. Another form that consultation could take, which wouldn't cost any money and therefore would not require a budget—certainly not $750,000—would be for those MPs to go out and to door-knock in their communities. They could talk to Canadians on their doorsteps about what they think worked or didn't work about the last federal election leaders debate. They could try to get some good ideas from them, in terms of how that process should be improved, and then pass that information back up to the appropriate minister, or to cabinet, or whatever process they design to get that feedback. That would be another low-cost form of consultation.
The point of the amendment is to highlight the fact that we don't actually have good information on what the government intends to do with this money, and that there are many different ways the government could be sufficiently faithful to the high-level goal. They might be able to say, “We're honouring what we said we'd do with this money,” but actually end up with a result that's very far removed from what anyone would have expected they would actually do with that money. Of course, that's why we have a process where we call departmental officials to committee and we get to ask those questions, so that we can get a sense....
Earlier, I used the analogy of the Canada Border Services Agency. It's all well and good to say that we're going to dedicate money to supporting the CBSA and making Canada's border secure, but it's really not enough information to be able to approve that funding, because it matters whether you're simply hiring more staff, buying tanks, or building a wall. Those are all different ways of honouring that high-level commitment. They're not all equal. They're certainly not equal, not from a cost perspective, not from a moral perspective, and not from a political perspective, but they are all options.
It matters to discern beneath the general high-level goal what the main-line ways of using that funding are in order to accomplish that goal. When we had the Privy Council Office here before us, they were very clear that they had not yet made that determination. We left with as much information as we had when we came in the door and we were told not to expect any more information.
I have outlined how I think it is that if you were to just conceive of this at this moment—because we're in the year before the election—as a consultative budget to go out and talk to Canadians, you could have a number of different options with a number of different cost implications. Beyond consultation, when we move to action, it's not clear whether this line item is intended for consultation or intended for action, or intended for some mix of both.
There are allusions in the budget to more money next year for this same initiative, so we don't know if this is the consultation year and next year is the action year. It would certainly be strange if this year were the action year and next year were the consultation year, but I've come to learn from this government that one should not set the bar too high in terms of expectations and that anything can happen.