Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the official opposition choosing today to have a special debate on the current economic situation and the absence of an economic update.
Going to first principles in this debate, I would put it to my friend that fundamental to our form of democracy is that Parliament controls the public purse. The first parliamentary budgetary officer, Kevin Page, has made it clear that is no longer true. Since I entered this place, none of us, as members of Parliament, have received sufficient information to vote on any budget. In the last number of years, the budgets have been missing something. They are generally referred to as “budgets”, but there have been no total statements of revenues, no total statements of expenses, and no bottom lines. In other words, I think the so-called spring budget should be called the “annual thick brochure”. It contains a lot of political promises, but none of the information that the finance minister claims he needs to present a budget.