Yes, Mr. Clarke, just in response to your question to me, the appetite comes from our commitments. I think we made 300-odd commitments during the election, and as we travel through this mandate, we find that only so many changes can be implemented at one time because there are opposition parties that want to make sure we do it in an appropriate fashion.
Particularly with the budget, because the budget cycle operates a couple of years in advance, really, in terms of the preparation, the timing, and the policy development, as we get closer to the next election from a budgetary cycle change standpoint, it's much closer than it appears. We need to get through a couple of cycles of a change in our processes to make sure that they work and they can be advanced forward. If we try to do these in the midst of an election, I would feel less comfortable about them.
That's my appetite, but it's not necessarily the appetite of Canadians. I can't speak for the appetite of Canadians on this point. It certainly wasn't something I heard about at the doors. This type of estimates reform is something that comes in this chamber. People don't talk about it to me on the street.
Mr. Weir, if we want to be involved in the process, PROC is perfectly able to make its own decisions based on a recommendation from the minister if he chooses to go before PROC to ask them to do their own study. When he was here earlier in the week, the minister asked us to do this. If we found that it would be worthwhile to make a specific recommendation about the timing that was capable of being achieved, based on the study we've done, we could make some type of an informed and specific suggestion to PROC so that they had some comfort that we weren't completely at odds with it, that we at least had some sense that this was achievable. It would ultimately achieve the long-term aims of having the alignment of the budgets in the estimates process.
Mr. McCauley and Mr. Clarke, my proposal on making sure that ministers would be held to account is that we could add a line saying that in respect of invitations to ministers before committees for review, that those rules apply to the interim supply. That way there would be no lost time on having ministers come before various committees in respect of the information that's already been received. Currently the main estimates are a pseudo interim supply bill with anything that the government might know the costing of before the budget is tabled. It's very haphazard. It's very difficult to follow. It ends up wasting parliamentarians' time in terms of the type of review they do. That's why we're engaged.
I proposed something specific that I thought would alleviate your concerns. I get the sense that it hasn't. If I'm wrong about that, I would love to hear it, in which case I'd be very happy to continue forward with a specific motion that we recommend that PROC, on some basis, choose May 1 as the date, and also at the same time make sure that ministers are available on interim supply from the current date, which I understand to be March 1.