I just want to get back to the estimates process. I want to give you a quote from the PBO. He states that the secretariat is moving further away from its goal in 2017-18, rather than closer to it, raising significant questions of whether the government's proposal to delay the main estimates would result in meaningful alignment with the budget. He says, “Unless the Government is able to present a clear plan to reform its internal management processes,...[it's] unlikely that delaying the release of the main estimates by eight weeks will provide full alignment with the budget.”
We've also seen, from the PBO and TBS officials, that it's taking six to seven months to get the money through treasury, and sometimes as long as 18 months. Concerning that, how are we going to get to alignment? What specific reforms are you going to be undertaking to shrink that huge gap? It seems we're putting the cart before the horse and wanting to change the Standing Orders and the dates that the estimates are tabled, when we're still waiting six, seven, 18 months to get out the door. What is the plan to get that shrunk before we start changing the Standing Orders? Can we get a commitment that we're not going to change the Standing Orders without unanimous consent of all parties, before we actually have that plan and that progress being made?