Mr. Speaker, the member for Pickering—Scarborough East referred to this “big book”. As most members in the House have done, the government is calling it a budget, but it is not a budget.
There is no statement anywhere in this document that gives us a complete statement of revenues against expenses. There is no bottom line. There is no statement of what the total budget will be for any government department. There are random announcements of spending, but no rationalization of whether that spending is new money or old money, or whether, for instance, the $319 million Parks Canada would get in new money to repair the roads that are crumbling because of previous budget cuts would mean the budget would go up or down.
This has attracted the interest, of all things, of The Economist magazine, which has made note that Canada has departed from our time-worn tradition of ensuring that Parliament controls the public purse. I ask my hon. colleague if, in good conscience, he can call this a budget.