Let me deal with the second point first, Mr. Speaker, which is important.
The member has asked when the forecasts are made. The last time a forecast is made in the year before a budget is presented, for instance, is the fiscal update. Then in the budget there will also be some numbers that opine on where the government will be for the current year. At that point, the government has the third quarter national accounts numbers at which it can look.
Unfortunately, we argue it has not done a very good job of this. I point to last year as a good example. In the budget the government said that the surplus would be $1.9 billion. When the numbers finally came out in August, the surplus was $9.1 billion based on the fourth quarter. The government has it within its power to call the forecasters together in April, for instance, when it has the benefit of the new national accounts numbers, to provide an updated projection of the size of the surplus.
This is exactly why the official opposition, the Bloc Québécois and the NDP have recommended that independent forecasters be hired. That is what the finance committee has done. The forecasters are before the committee today to bring forward these numbers. They are now updated numbers that give Parliament a much better idea of the actual size of the surplus.
The first issue deals with performance audits. The member is correct that we are concerned especially about performance audits, but that is vital to the proper operation of government programs. Look at the sponsorship program. Look at Davis Inlet, which is one of the most unbelievably inefficient uses of Canadian tax dollars ever; $350 million to move a community of 700 people 20 or 25 miles away to a different place in the hope that it would somehow cause them to leave the problems that gripped the community behind, problems like addictions of all kinds.
If we did a performance audit on something like it, I am sure we would determine that this was one of the most colossal wastes of money in the history of the country. In fact, it gave the people, who were in absolute dire straits, false hope. It somehow suggested that they would be helped out of the terrible situation in which they were. It was an absolute disaster and a complete waste of money. It is an example of why it is important to have performance audits for foundations as well.