Mr. Speaker, I guess with accrual accounting or even cash based accounting timing is everything.
The way the fund should have been established would have been to take the money and declare it a surplus or take the money and identify it in a fund. Yes, that could have been done.
But I think the member is missing another point. The point is that this government had a surplus of approximately $3 billion. I truly believe that this government made every attempt to bury it.
The problem is, as I have described it, what are we going to do next year? If we know now that we do not have deficits to get rid of, then surely the surplus should be even more next year.
Are my colleagues in the Reform Party going to have to sit here daily investigating the books, trying to find out where this government is burying funds or promoting their friends or providing patronage pots rather than at the year end declaring a surplus? Once a surplus is declared, of course, then comes accountability time.
The public is going to want to say “We don't think you should spend it this way or reserve it. We think you should pay down the debt. We think you should start giving tax breaks”. These are the very issues that this government has a problem with. That is why the government is trying to use any kind of surplus dollars.
The answer is clear to me. The appropriate accounting method, the morally appropriate method, to deal with this would have been to have declared a surplus and then manage and spend the money.