Government Operations committee  Making the distinction between the purposes of the two documents is important. The budget is a high-level policy document. I take your point about the timing. We discussed that. On the question of timing of supplementary estimates (A) and (B), I would turn that over to you, Bil

Government Operations committee  I think that sums it up, and that's the key timing issue that I keep referring to, the fact that there is a downstream process after the policy document, the budget, is tabled. There is a downstream process in terms of doing due diligence to make sure that the program is delivere

Government Operations committee  From a policy perspective, for countries or provinces that have fixed dates, there's the opportunity to use economic statements and other vehicles if developments were to occur. For example, the global recession in 2008-09 was obviously an occasion when the government did make th

Government Operations committee  Again, I will just make the distinction between main estimates and the budget. The main estimates, as you said, are department-based. It's spending for the upcoming year to help parliamentarians come up with the parliamentary authorities for that spending. The budget is perce

Government Operations committee  As I mentioned, the objective of the budget is to provide a five-year forward-looking economic and fiscal plan. In a situation like the one we are currently in or have been in for the past few years, in which the global and domestic economic situation is highly uncertain, there's

Government Operations committee  We understand that frustration, but even if you had a date in January, for example, I don't think you would achieve the objective that you're looking for. You wouldn't have more budget measures in the upcoming mains, because the timetables for the two don't correspond particularl

Government Operations committee  Coming to your first point in terms of countries, provinces have been able to do this as well. There are examples of other jurisdictions that have done it. My understanding is that in most cases, if not all, the Treasury Board function and the finance function are integrated into

Government Operations committee  It depends how you measure transparency, as you said. At the moment, the budget decisions do come out through supplementary estimates (A), (B), and (C), so the transparency is there. It's just the question of that initial timing in terms of the gap between a budget in the winter

Government Operations committee  As I think we mentioned the last time, it's something we could look at in terms of trying to improve that link between the two. It wasn't part of the official recommendations, but as I said, there's ongoing work between us to try to bring the two documents closer together so that

Government Operations committee  I take your point. It's more of a deadline for tabling the budget, and it's by February 1. As for the fixed date, that may be a bit of a misnomer. The point was about anything that makes it hard for the government to table the budget when it sees fit. If anything is going on in

Government Operations committee  I think the status quo works. You need that flexibility. The purpose of a budget is to provide a high-level policy document that presents the government's economic and fiscal plan over the upcoming five-year period. There's an advantage in having the flexibility to present it whe

Government Operations committee  Sure. As you know, the government did not support the recommendation to have a fixed date for the budget. It does support the objective that you mentioned in terms of trying to improve the understanding of the main estimates. I think that through other vehicles, such as committe

Government Operations committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think in the spirit of your request that we leave as much time as possible for questions, we'll leave it with Bill's opening remarks.

Government Operations committee  Yes, I think that's something we could look into. Again, building this crosswalk between the two sets of documents would be very helpful to people, I think, so that's something we could certainly look into.

Government Operations committee  No, I'm not aware of any either.