Mr. Speaker, we thank the parliamentary budget officer for his analysis of the provisions of Bill C-44. We look forward to working with him and others to improve the bill to ensure we accomplish the objective of having an effective and independent parliamentary budget officer.
Our government is committed to providing greater independence to the parliamentary budget officer, and this is the overriding intent of the legislation recently introduced in the House of Commons. We believe that it should be an officer who reports to Parliament, unlike the previous government, which felt that he should report to the Library of Parliament.