Thank you.
I mentioned that over the last 10 years budgets have been presented as early as the end of January or as late as the 21st of April. There are good and valid reasons for that.
In 2009, the global economic crisis, it was very important for the government to send signals to Canadians and the Canadian marketplace about its ability to invest and support employment and the functioning of credit markets. That is an example of the government's acting early.
More recently, in 2015, with the dramatic drop in the energy market there was some confusion as to whether this was a temporary dip and was going to rebound quickly or if it was a more permanent feature that would impact underlying economic environment, capital investment, employment levels, etc. In that year the government actually delayed the budget, looking for the best information possible before presenting its plans.
Those two extremes, if you will, point to the benefits of some flexibility in the tabling of budgets. Our proposal of May 1 would accommodate either scenario and would present the main estimates after the budget, which would render the documents more coherent and reconcilable.