I wonder how you would feel about proceeding directly to the study of anti-diabetes strategies on the assumption that we all know that diabetes costs society a lot of money—too much—and that we should be looking for ways to reduce it.
I'm wondering how helpful it will be to us to know that it's x billion dollars as opposed to y billion dollars. I know that with these kinds of things there's also a fair bit of guesstimation. It depends on how wide we go with this. If we count direct costs or indirect costs, it can be very difficult to estimate. I'm wondering if that's information that you really want to have, because it will slow down the study and add work for the PBO.
I also believe that the Canadian Diabetes Association probably has information like that. I'm wondering if you would consider an amendment to delete the reference to the parliamentary budget officer, and just to study anti-diabetes strategies in Canada and other jurisdictions, and report the findings to the House, or if you are very committed to involving the PBO.