Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise on Bill C-245.
First, I want to congratulate the Bloc member. It is the first time this week-and I am not trying to be nasty-that a Bloc member raises an issue in an honest, fair and concise manner. I really appreciate that.
I also thank the hon. member for Fraser Valley West for his initiative. However, I would have liked to hear him discuss the bill itself. He might have been able to convince me that it has many positive aspects but, instead, he chose to make all kinds of political comments. Unfortunately, the hon. member failed to convince me. He could have done better, because I do think that the bill has some good points.
The hon. member knows that the whole issue of budget preparation, including the consultation process, is a permanent process because the budget is an extremely important exercise. Who prepares the budget? How is this exercise conducted? How extensive is the consultation process? Who is consulted? When? What do we do with the information gathered? All these are very important issues.
As I understand it, this bill includes two major points. The first one is the date the budget is tabled. In this case, there is no clear indication that what the hon. member proposes is better than the existing procedure. However, I want to discuss the second point more in detail.
The Auditor General report on the reasonableness of the estimated revenues in the preparation of the budget speech.
The Auditor General would be required to report his findings to the Speaker of the House on or before May 31 in the year to which the report relates.
The Auditor General as we all know has a particularly important job, one that must be above and beyond and not at all associated with politics. The Auditor General has probably as much credibility as some of the institutions that have most in our society today. We must as Canadians, as a society, as a Parliament be absolutely certain of the independence and the credibility of the Auditor General in this institution.
It seems to me that any action whatsoever that might be undertaken by Parliament that might draw the Auditor General into the political fray would destroy that credibility and would damage the independence of the institution, one that I have indicated and I think all colleagues would agree is of great, great importance.
Let us look closely at this provision of the bill. The bill says: "to comment on the reasonableness of the estimated revenues". It seems to me that this could bring the Auditor General perilously close to getting into policy matters, hence into political matters. I worry about that.
Perhaps my colleague does not worry about it. He seems to be smiling but I think that most Canadians would agree with my perspective. That is that the Auditor General must not be put into a position where the credibility and the independence of that institution are questioned. That is the issue here.
My colleague will know, he was indicating that he had had some experience in this field, that normally accountants or people related to that profession will make commentary and historical transactions, financial statements where there are facts to be dealt with. That is their primary focus.
When it comes to projected revenues, yes, they have been involved but they are always extremely cautious. Why is that? It is because they are made based on a number of assumptions. They are based on a number of understandings that people have of the relationships that exist.
It is not unusual for someone to use different assumptions or to do a different analysis based on certain assumptions. My colleague knows that fully. In fact, I am starting to suspect-I did not suspect that before I started-that what my colleague really wants to do here is stir the pot to get a little bit of political hay.
We could be setting up the Auditor General. We could be setting up that institution. We could be setting him up in order for him to try to use-