Government Operations committee  Let me go through a table, Mr. Chairman, that highlights my frustration with the estimates. If you take a look at the estimates for 2012-13 and the estimates comparison, you'll see they indicate that the estimates are going to go up by $1.1 billion, or 0.5%. This is usually the

Government Operations committee  Well...

Government Operations committee  The information on accrual accounting should be in the department now. Departments are supposed to present or provide information on an accrual basis for all of their expenditures. They are supposed to be on an expense-based system at this point in time. I hate to use the words

Government Operations committee  But I have just one other point if I may, Mr. Chair. I don't want to take away from the member's time. But when you then compare those estimates to the budget for 2012-13, the budget is different from the estimates by $24.2 billion. The budget shows an increase in spending, wher

Government Operations committee  I would say so. Yes. There is information available on various programs and other documents, such as the public accounts, at a fairly highly aggregated basis for some parts of spending—like the operating expenses or expenditures—but the transfers are all listed there. Also, more

Government Operations committee  It all depends on what happens during the course of the year, on how much of the spending that was included in the budget was actually included in the main estimates when they were tabled. If there's a sizable amount that was not included, then you're going to have at least one e

Government Operations committee  That is an issue, an important one, in the sense that the estimates should only include those types of things that the government wants Parliament to approve, and to which appropriate—how should I say it?—oversight has been given, by the government and the Treasury Board. As I

Government Operations committee  No. I would say that the budget should be tabled in February and the estimates should be tabled shortly after and before March 1, if they are on a consistent accounting basis and if you can actually link the two. If you can't link the two, then the estimates can go at any point i

Government Operations committee  If you included more things in the main estimates to start off....

Government Operations committee  When we were looking for expenditure cuts for budgets, a lot of the information that I would look at in the Department of Finance would be part IIIs, because they would actually give me details on programs by department. Going through that you would get a good sense of the types

Government Operations committee  Yes.

Government Operations committee  Well, I think programs should go through a review type of process. I think the government's initiative on strategic reviews—other governments have done these strategic overviews—is an important thing. I think every program should be reviewed on a cyclical basis. You don't review

Government Operations committee  As I indicated earlier, up until about 2006 there was a logic, an order, whereby the budget was first, then the estimates. part IIIs used to be tabled with the estimates, and there used to actually be a lock-up for the estimates at that point in time, so that officials were avail

Government Operations committee  I think you would still have to have supps.

Government Operations committee  Well, I think you need a minimum of two. Three is maximum, which is normally the case now. One of the issues with the budget is that it could include various measures, or set-aside money, for certain types of proposals that the Treasury Board committee is still looking at but ha