Mr. Speaker, my colleague from the Bloc had a lot to say.
We as parliamentarians and Canadians in general would like some understanding of the framework of the fiscal situation of the Government of Canada.
In Bill C-2, the accountability act, there was the commitment to have what I call truth in advertising. It was in the bill but it has not been brought into force to have a budgetary officer of Parliament to tell Canadians and parliamentarians what the surplus will be.
When the Conservatives were in opposition, the then leader of the official opposition who is now the Prime Minister was very clear that he wanted to have an understanding of what the surpluses would be so we could have a debate in this place and Canadians could have a debate in the country as to where the money should be spent.
Sadly, the government is doing what the previous government was doing, which is to treat the nice big fat surplus as if it were the government's, when in fact we know it is Canadians' surplus. The Conservatives just spirit money over to the debt and bring forth a fiscal update which we cannot debate to the extent that we debate a budget. We cannot invest the surplus in our communities to deal with the crumbling infrastructure, housing, et cetera.
I would like the hon. member's take on why the government has not brought into force the budgetary officer of Parliament. Why does he think the government is hypocritical on the issue of debating the surplus and not having a real debate in this country about the country's finances?