Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I do need to correct something that the members opposite have said. “With a view to” often means to consider as an option. This is a study to reflect on the potential need to replace or make changes to, and that means “with a view to”. It doesn't categorically mean “this will happen”. You can't situate the estimate, meaning “predetermine an outcome”, before we arrive at that.
Additionally, my friends opposite are not transparent. As my friend from the Liberal Party pointed out, they refuse to be transparent, and in fact, Mr. Julian only has the most basic of first-year expenses from this Parliament on his website. To me, this doesn't appear particularly transparent, open, or accountable for anybody who potentially wants to lead this country. We'd end up going from having what we built as the greatest economy in the G-7 to having the NDP GPS drive us off the cliff. That's something I find very disturbing.
Madam, I'm having some concerns because I think what you're proposing, in many respects, is layers and layers of additional, burdensome administration. There is a lot going on in the House already. There is a lot of accountability. We are the government that put in the Federal Accountability Act in the first place to be able to accommodate this. Our side and the Liberal Party have both agreed to proactively disclose, and you have to give credit to parliamentarians for willingly wanting to disclose the details of our expenses.
In fact, when you do look at something to replace or to change, Mr. Sills from IPSA said himself that you really have to determine if there's a problem big enough to prompt a change. That is something we're also determining, and I'm not sure I see a problem big enough to do that.
Having said that, we've also had two former Speakers and the Clerk here and all said that the Board of Internal Economy is working well and has the appropriate level of disclosure and that things are announced and produced in the House for disclosure to the public, and all of these experts, these former Speakers, all of these people who have spent decades doing this and working intimately with the Board of Internal Economy have said this to us over the last couple of weeks.
Why are they wrong and you right?