Mr. Speaker, I first want to thank the hon. member for his question. I think it is an important question.
We campaigned on a commitment to have an open and transparent government. We campaigned with the commitment to listen to Canadians and to make sure we understand their views.
It was in that spirit that we took it upon ourselves to have pre-budget consultations that would be more extensive than ever before in this country. We went, as was mentioned, from coast to coast to coast. My parliamentary secretary and I started on the east coast of Canada and moved to the west coast of Canada. We made a clear objective, and we satisfied that objective of meeting with people not only from different regions across the country but from different sectors. We met with small business people. We met with farmers. We met with people from rural and urban environments. We met with chambers of commerce. We met with first nation groups. We really endeavoured to ensure that we could hear from as many people as possible.
More important, we engaged with Canadians in ways in which they wanted to be engaged; so, we had in-person consultations with people, and we also, as mentioned, had engagement over online methodology, which has not been used in the past.
An enormous outpouring of interest came. As I mentioned, 80,000 people actually listened in on our sessions online, but 150,000 people have now gone further than that and look at and clicked on them. Of importance is the number 3,400, which is the submissions from all across Canada. That is a very important number. As I mentioned, it is almost three times the amount received last year. As I said, those submissions have been from all parts of Canada, all different sectors.
We have endeavoured to make sure we have listened to Canadians and—