Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, to bring it back down to earth, the government is asking our permission to spend $6 billion on corporate tax cuts, and that's the reality of it. They come to us asking us to buy a $6 billion pig in a poke and they won't even do us the courtesy of showing us the financial justification, the rationale behind their proposal to buy this pig in a poke. That, Mr. Chairman, sums up our irritation, which led to the point of privilege that is rapidly going to find them in contempt of Parliament.
We don't accept that projections of corporate profits before taxes and effective corporate income tax rates are a cabinet confidence. Wouldn't we all benefit from having the same base level of information? Wouldn't it elevate the political discourse if we could actually vote on something we understood, on your reasoning and your argument?
I remember being told when I first got here that the Library of Parliament used to be the exclusive purview of cabinet ministers. It was Pierre Trudeau who said that political discourse in the country would benefit if all MPs had full access to the Library of Parliament so that we could all start with the same base level of information, and I think it did elevate the quality of debate. Does that same reasoning not apply here when you're asking our permission to spend that amount of money, and we're supposed to just take your word for it that it's a good idea?