Madam Speaker, I cannot think of a more qualified member to ask such a question, particularly when it comes to accountability and accounting, given his years of experience here in the House. Between the two of us, we have almost 32 years of experience in this place.
We have seen a lot come by here, but very few have involved this kind of situation where one would have these kinds of considerations, as the hon. member has suggested. The Treasury Board, the bureaucracy, and the civil servants who are having to manage this amount of money and get it out the door in a very diligent way cannot do so in a three month period. It must lead to the conclusion that the government already has money ready to spend. Those programs are ready, but because of a failure for several months in not acting when the country needed it, it is now playing catch-up. That is a very serious situation because it definitely means that accountability has been sacrificed in favour of incompetence by the government.