Mr. Speaker, what I like about the member for Charlottetown is that he gets right to the core of the issue, and the core of the issue is just that. We need to recognize that we are at a very critical time. Within weeks we are going to see a federal budget, and there is a strong likelihood that we will not have a Parliamentary Budget Officer. The valuable contributions that officer can play in terms of the billions of dollars that will be proposed to be spent are enormous. It would be highly irresponsible for the government of the day not to recognize that. The member is trying to pick up on that. The leader of the Liberal Party has been asking about this same issue in question period in recent days.
We are asking the government to recognize that fact and to provide assurances to all Canadians that we will not be without a Parliamentary Budget Officer at the time the budget itself is released and the weeks that follow. We need the government to come clean on that.