Mr. Speaker, I am glad the member mentioned the Parliamentary Budget Officer. If the member will check the record of the finance committee, he will see that no one has appeared before our committee more often, certainly since I have been on that committee in the last two years, than that very Parliamentary Budget Officer.
In fact, in the last supplementary estimates the member will know that the funding was increased for the Parliamentary Budget Officer. The member will also know that reporting is all done online. Canadians, parliamentarians or whoever can fact-check that out for themselves.
In fact, voices that have at times been critical of this government and appointments that have been made by this government are very welcome to come to committee. There has never been a refusal by any Conservative member on the finance committee whenever a request from the opposition was made for the Parliamentary Budget Officer to come forward.
The image that the member is portraying is so fundamentally wrong. What I like to tell Canadians back home, and I like to use hockey analogies, is that the reality is that as a minority government we are basically short-handed for 60 minutes and every once in a while we like to get a breakaway and hopefully score a goal.
The reality is that it is hard to get anything done in committee because, as the member knows, the opposition always outweighs the government on any single vote. We have to cross the aisle to get anything done--