Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his chairmanship on the finance committee. We have had a very busy agenda this fall. Our pre-budget consultations are very important because we are still dealing with the after-effects of the most severe economic downturn since the Great Depression. We have heard from many Canadians who expect us to work together to make life more affordable, to help them in their retirement and create good middle-class jobs.
The majority report contains important summaries of the testimonies from many excellent witnesses. However, it fails to present comprehensive solutions to the important issues raised in the hearings. We need solutions like good middle-class jobs that have continued to disappear under the government. We need concrete measures to help people save for their retirement years. We also heard concerns about the process of this consultation, that the restrictions placed on consultations were too narrow and restrictive. We heard that from witnesses.
We also heard concerns about the lack of transparency and accountability for the budget process as a whole. We have called on the federal government to introduce more transparency in the budget process, as recommended by the Parliamentary Budget Officer.
In our supplementary report, we have submitted a number of proposals about the creation of good jobs, investments in infrastructure, the need to save and invest in retirement security for Canadians. Sadly, the government just voted against making improvements to CPP and QPP yesterday. We also made recommendations about making life more affordable for Canadians, how to address the issue of household debt and about improving the programs and services that Canadians rely on.
We believe these concrete measures should have been included in the main body of the report and that did not meet the approval of the government. While the other opposition party was supportive in defining the problem again, we found a lack of concrete solutions in many cases. We believe our supplementary report presents a fuller picture and concrete recommendations that we hope will help the Minister of Finance in his deliberations for the budget of 2014.