To be honest, I actually think that members of Parliament, even members of the governing party, have the same responsibility to hold their government to account. It's not just opposition members who have a responsibility to do this. All members of Parliament, even members of the governing party, whoever the governing party may be at one time or another, have a responsibility to do this.
Committees, by nature, ought to be less partisan in the work they do. I believe that Parliament itself, many times—except for one hour a day where it's pretty hard to change that—broadly should be less partisan in the work we do. But committees, I think, should be held to a higher standard in terms of the work they do and in terms of not being partisan.
The responsibility of Parliament and of parliamentary committees to hold government to account for government spending is essential. The current system is not designed to be understood. In fact, if you were to try to design a system to be difficult to understand and to be opaque, you would not be able to do a much better job than what has happened over decades. As a member of Parliament, I can tell you that there are people who have been members of Parliament for years who don't understand the budget and estimates process, and these are smart people, engaged people, and good members of Parliament, who have difficulty understanding what is a ridiculously opaque and unnecessarily complex and illogical system.
The answer is that at some point we should in fact have a system that not just members of Parliament—and all parliamentarians, as I include senators in that—but the general public can understand. That should be the objective. I view this as an evergreening process. These are changes we want to make now, but as we move forward, I want this to be something that, on an ongoing basis, we work on to strengthen accountability of government for spending to Parliament.