Mr. Speaker, one of the important aspects of accountability is the challenge function. That is true for Parliament. Part of our job in opposition is to challenge the government on its planned spending.
One of the problems with Treasury Board vote 40 is that when departmental officials are called before committees to answer questions about what they plan to do with the money, in a number of cases they tell us flat out that they have not planned what to do with the money. They have a basic idea, high level, but as to how they will deliver on that high level, the work will not be done until the money is approved.
That makes it hard for Parliament to do its job of holding the government to account when the government itself says that it does not have any plans for which we can hold it to account. Is that a model of accountability that the President of the Treasury Board would accept?
If department officials went to Treasury Board, asked for funds, told officials not to worry because they would post online monthly reports with respect to what they did with the funds, and they could be held to account after the fact, does the minister think that is an acceptable model for accountability in Treasury Board?