Government Operations committee  First, the Parliamentary Budget Officer does not make recommendations. You mentioned a different approach. In Quebec, credits are approved by a parliamentary committee, immediately and very soon after the budget, and some transfers are, indeed, authorized. Based on my current und

Government Operations committee  Thank you for the question. We hope that it will improve things. A document like this is interesting for anyone involved in the areas of finance and accounting. We do hope that it will improve understanding for parliamentarians. Do not forget that we do not work for the departm

Government Operations committee  I agree in part. Ideally, the approval process should be program by program, as the government previously asked. It is easier, for example, to examine one program and the corresponding amount, then another, and so on. High-level expenditures, such as statutory spending, budgetary

Government Operations committee  I think the first year will be the acid test for that pilot project, because we will see if it's possible to have this alignment very quickly. The first year, we'll have some kind of a really good test. The point here, to go back to what I said and to what Mostafa explained very

Government Operations committee  I don't have a solution.

Government Operations committee  Jason, on Australia...?

Government Operations committee  Thank you, but I have no further comments, except to repeat that we find the approach very commendable in trying to harmonize the estimates and providing parliamentarians with clearer documents. I want to be very clear on that. In the budget process, it is your role to approve th

Government Operations committee  I would say—

Government Operations committee  My assessment is that we won't have the choice; we will see. As I said, it's clearly a pilot project. We will see next year how parliamentarians will react to that. Mostafa might want to add something to that. We have views, but I'm a very positive person. As I said, you will a

Government Operations committee  To quote the President of the Treasury Board, Australia is a model to follow. He also mentioned the Netherlands, but Australia is probably one of the best examples. Over there, both treasury and finance work really closely together. They're moving together. Their collaboration is

Government Operations committee  Thank you for the question. The answer comes in two parts. First, we all know that your time is limited. So, if the documents are clearer and easier to understand, and if the figures in the budget and the main estimates are better aligned and better organized, clearly, your exam

Government Operations committee  And with the same accounting, yes. That was a recommendation of the committee in 2012. As I explained, it is what happens in other countries. The difficulty is that I am not convinced that it can be done and I refer specifically to 2012. That is when senior officials said that t

Government Operations committee  I don't think it's a problem with the supplementary estimates; it's a problem with the main estimates. The 44% that you mentioned is interesting, because it was the following year: this year. Last year, in the main estimates, you could see 70% of the spending measures included. T

Government Operations committee  We said in our report analysis that this move from the President of the Treasury Board was laudable. We still mention that. We welcome that. We welcome that for parliamentarians. We work for parliamentarians. But we have some restrictions, or when we observe and then we make the

Government Operations committee  Yes, the last fiscal year.