Madam Speaker, I value the intervention of my colleague. He gave some very good insights into the whole process of equalization renewal.
It is very curious that the legislation requires the program be renewed every five years but departmental officials work on the process for approximately two and a half years. We get that from the auditor general's report. The officials work in the back rooms. There are consultations with the provinces, also in the back rooms. However the final say is given by parliament because it is the expenditure of federal money. It is money for which we as members of parliament are responsible.
It is very curious and totally inadequate, even according to the auditor general, that parliament be given so little time. As I mentioned earlier in an intervention, we were given but three working days to study the legislation when it was introduced at first reading. We had no time to look at it in advance. We had no time to study it and look at the different convolutions.
I would like to put on the record of the House of Commons in this short question and comment period something the auditor general has said because I think it is very important:
We believe that the process needs to be opened up to facilitate wider participation in the consideration of changes to such a fundamental program.
Many interest parties, including some leading academics, have given considerable thought to this program and we believe their views could be useful. The government tried this approach once, in 1981, when it established the Parliamentary Task Force on Federal-Provincial Arrangements (Breau Committee), which focused on all fiscal transfers, including equalization. Its report, Fiscal Federalism in Canada , stands today as one of the best public assessments of Canada's fiscal situation.
Then he went on to say that he did not know whether this should be the approach but that it was an effective way of involving parliamentarians. He made the following recommendation:
The Department of Finance should ensure that parliament is consulted in a meaningful way on the periodic renewal of equalization.
My intervention is probably more a comment than a question, but certainly I would invite the member from Calgary to concur with what I just said.