Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to our witnesses.
I want to get down to the crux of the whole process we're working through here. I've heard the estimates being referred to by some of my colleagues as a budget. I'm also seeing a lot of comparisons that are being directly drawn between estimates from 2012 to the estimates we're looking at today. We really run into a problem when we do that. As I understand it, and maybe one of the department officials could correct me if I have this wrong, at a provincial level you have a budget that comes out at the same time as the main estimates of the expenditures and the main estimates in revenues. Those three elements definitely closely correlate to each other, and they have a great correlation for the next year, when you can look at main estimates of revenue, compare it to main estimates of revenue again, and expenditures, in the same fashion.
But federally, by law, we do have some unique situations. We have main estimates that have to be tabled before March 1—by law. What we end up having is main estimates of expenditures that are actually brought forward before the new budget comes out, and these expenditures can only reflect ongoing statutory expenditures or those done through a vote at appropriations. They cannot reflect any spending that's coming in a new budget. Not only may they not, but they cannot, by law, reflect anything that may be anticipated in an upcoming budget—if I have that correct.
They also reflect sunsetting programs that will have run their course and run their term. Any savings identified in Budget 2012 will not have been reflected in the estimates that were tabled last year, on March 1, so any of those savings are also again correlated back into the estimates that we have going forward. We cannot look at what was in estimates for 2012 compared to estimates 2013 because there's a differentiation there, because the budget came out in between, which made changes to that, especially through the draft program.
I guess what I'm getting at is this. I feel any attempt to use these estimates to say that this will be the government's spending over the course of the next year really is fundamentally flawed. We don't know what's going to happen as of Thursday. A lot of what we're looking at today may change in a fairly drastic fashion. It's not like anybody's playing games, or being underhanded, or trying to change things. Simply, by law, these estimates cannot reflect anything that may be in Budget 2013, which will be tabled on Thursday in the House.
I feel it's like trying to compare an apple and an orange, even almost to go from estimates to estimates, never mind trying to compare the estimates that we're looking at today and saying, well, this is what's going to be in the budget for the upcoming year.
Would any of you like to comment on that or say that I'm wrong, or is that correct?