Yes, but I just don't see how we can be asked to approve funding when even the broad lines, in some cases, aren't already established. Don't you think it's an odd control? Parliament is supposed to be about spending control. We're supposed to challenge government on whether or not the way it's proceeding with a particular policy objective actually makes sense. Since this government came in and these estimates were formed, the tendency has been to ask Parliament to approve more funding with less information about how the money will actually be spent.
The only thing I've heard that approaches a justification for that is that we want to be able to spend the money as soon as we have the program design so that there's no time-lapse between when the program design is complete and the authority is granted by Parliament. I don't find it a compelling argument. You talked about the end of the supply cycle and that there are only so many supplementary estimates. In fact, the government's own estimates reform has caused there to be fewer ordinary supplementary estimates and therefore fewer opportunities to come for spending authorities after program design has been complete.
There's no restriction in the Standing Orders on how many supplementary estimates the government can bring forward or when it can bring them forward. In fact, the government can adopt supplementary estimates as an order of the day, as a government order in the House, and cause votes to happen outside the ordinary supply cycle. I mean, there is a supply cycle that's set up. That's helpful, obviously. It's routine. But it seems like the habit of government, of having only three supplementary estimate cycles and now two, has become canonized in a way that's not true of the....
I guess what I'm really driving at is that I have been objecting to the way government has reformed the estimates process in this Parliament. That's not a secret to anybody sitting at this table. I don't think it's a secret to almost anybody who's been paying attention to this. My principal objection has been that government is coming to Parliament with less information about how it actually plans to spend money. It has the blurb from the budget; that's nice. Mr. McCauley cited a document that I cited at the last meeting that actively encourages departments to respond to detailed spending questions with the high-level blurb from the budget. I mean, that doesn't help parliamentarians do their job.
What is the justification for moving to a system that makes it impossible in principle for parliamentarians to ask questions about how the money will actually be spent? Why are we doing this? It's undermining parliamentarians' ability to do their job. I want to know what the win is. I can speculate as to what it is. People familiar with politics would say that this creates opportunities for government to play fast and loose with other people's money. That's what happens. And that's true of not just government. In any organization where you don't have executives who are prepared to answer detailed questions about what they plan to do with money, you run into trouble.