Mr. Speaker, I listened attentively to the speech by the hon. member for Bruce-Grey, but I think he did not spend enough time on a number of important aspects of votes, which are basically unnecessary expenditures.
Last week we read in the newspapers about the pay system at the Department of National Defence, which is after all pretty fundamental and basic and which should work properly. It seems that some $40 million were wasted because of a lack of modernization in a department that has certainly not lacked for funding during the past 20 years. It has always received enough money, in generous and significant amounts. During the last few years there were cutbacks and bases were closed in the regions, but as far as the bureaucracy is concerned, are we not seeing a situation where, when we look at the votes, there is a tendency to slowly but surely starve the regional branches of a department, while those at the decision-making level, in the bureaucracy, at the deputy minister level whom we see around here in Ottawa, have been able to survive quite easily?
I have another question for the hon. member regarding the Senate votes. Does it seem reasonable and normal to you that a non-elected House, after the Standing Committee on Government Operations, whose meetings you attend regularly, adopted a resolution, should say: "Sorry, we will not come and defend our budget, we do not have to, we are above that sort of thing"? Does this position on the part of the senators seem normal to you? Excuse me, I ask this question through you, Mr. Speaker.