Mr. Speaker, I want to correct the President of the Treasury Board on one point, and that is that there are no estimates that have to do with the Naylor report in this particular main estimates discussion. Those will come in the supplementary estimates, probably later this year.
With respect to his question on infrastructure, I do not think we should confuse infrastructure press releases with actual infrastructure projects. Of the 1,200 projects out there, I understand that between 5% and 10% actually have shovels in the ground. In fact, the construction industry in the country has decreased by 16%. That is of concern, because while I think we intended to implement infrastructure spending to get the kind of economic growth we wanted, we really have not seen infrastructure projects move along as well as they could.
In terms of the transparency of the budgeting process, I absolutely support the President of the Treasury Board's comments that we need to get estimates before budgets. That makes sense and is what is done elsewhere. It would also be more transparent. The government can say what it intended to do and then what it actually spent.