Madam Speaker, I am pleased to table before this House a document on the expenditure management system of the Government of Canada, which describes the government's new decision-making process in matters of programs and expenditures.
With this overhaul, the first in 15 years, we ensure the system responds to today's economic and fiscal realities. It recognizes the way this government has been doing business since elected in October, 1993.
To reduce spending to meet our fiscal targets and to free up resources for reallocation to new priorities requires that we make tough spending and program choices. Our ultimate objective is to deliver quality programs and services within the resources that Canadians can afford.
We are demonstrating to Parliament and to all Canadians that we are fulfilling our red book commitment to fund new initiatives through reallocating expenditures, not with new money, not with adding further to the debt, but to set our priorities by reallocating for new expenditure items.
The document outlines the formal mechanisms that will foster greater fiscal responsibility and help this government to meet its targets.
I would like to bring to members' attention some of the system's major features, quite briefly. It formally eliminates central policy reserves. It integrates practically all decisions about spending into the budget planning process. The document clearly outlines the cycle that will now be followed.
We will deliver information on program performance to Parliament in better and more timely ways. Departments will produce documents on the outlook for their program priorities and expenditures over the next few years and provide them to Parliament. These documents will increase parliamentary involvement by assisting the standing committees in fulfilling their mandates to examine future year expenditures, trends and priorities. These outlook documents are new to this Parliament and expand the involvement and role of members of Parliament in the budgeting and estimates process.
We will adjust these processes over the next few years. It will take some evolutionary time as we gain experience with them.
I am confident that they will help us make the difficult decisions that are involved in providing quality services and reducing the cost of government.