Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to the member for Louis-Hébert, who is obviously quite steeped in this information. However, I want to offer something from my own experience, having sat for 16 years in another Parliament. Each year we would have a budget presented, and along with the budget the estimates were presented. The estimates said here is what we said we were going to spend last year; here is what we actually spent last year; and here is what we are proposing to spend this year. All members of the assembly could look at this and could ask questions about it and ask why it was increasing or decreasing, or new expenditures would show up. The public accounts would come out later and we could look at those as well in terms of more detail.
Is that what we are looking for here: something that we can understand what is going on? I have been here since 2008, and I was here a long time ago, and it seems to me what we have is a recipe for obfuscation by the government, where members can delay answering questions, where they can say “read the budget, read the budget”, but the budget does not tell us what is going on, because what is really going on is in the estimates. What you say is that we do not get the estimates for 18 months.
Why do you think the government is not responding favourably to this report and recommendation?