Mr. Speaker, I cannot speak on behalf of the opposition parties. I do not know why they failed to create this position.
However, I can tell members why we created the position. We created the position because during 13 years of Liberal governments, we saw unprecedented scandals. We saw the sponsorship scandal where hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars went into the pockets of the Liberals' friends. That corruption we simply cannot tolerate. That is why our Conservative government is determined to bring in accountability.
We brought in the Federal Accountability Act, the most sweeping anti-corruption legislation in Canadian history. The position of the Parliamentary Budget Officer was part of the Federal Accountability Act. That is why, after having seen these scandals and mismanagement by previous governments, we think it is so important to have someone there to ensure that this does not happen again.