Government Operations committee  That's correct, right until the end of the fiscal year.

Government Operations committee  Right, thank you, Mr. McCauley.

Government Operations committee  It's a valid point and we struggled with the best way of achieving that alignment to the budget. At the end of the day, the estimates provide “up-to” amounts. The money need not be allocated or spent. Our goal is simply to provide information to Parliament as early as possible in

Government Operations committee  I would clarify the points he is trying to make. With respect to departmental plans, as we have seen in years past, we bring forward in supplementary estimates (A), (B), and (C) budget initiatives that are also not part of departmental plans when they are tabled, so there is no d

Government Operations committee  I have two answers to your question, Mr. McCauley. The first is that we did a demonstration a couple of weeks ago on TBS InfoBase and our commitment to parliamentarians is that as initiatives are approved they will be added to TBS InfoBase with the results to be achieved.

Government Operations committee  Marcia's team just led the update of those tables so she'll respond.

Government Operations committee  I believe we have done a very good job this year in providing information that enhances transparency, but this is not our idea of an end state. It is a step along the way to continue, and it's a never-ending quest to improve that alignment and transparency. As the president has

Government Operations committee  In fact, it is. What we saw in the document tabled on April 16 are allocations proposed by Treasury Board for items that, in fact, have already been—

Government Operations committee  The president has cited other jurisdictions, Australia and Ontario in particular—

Government Operations committee  Not to my knowledge. There was a conference call and a subsequent email, to which I believe you've requested access under an access to information request—

Government Operations committee  If I'm not mistaken, it was the day after the budget.

Government Operations committee  We explain in a fair bit of detail how the central vote would work, what it would look like, and how departments would access funding for the budget initiatives if the item was included in the central vote. For the items that had already been approved, no further action was requ

Government Operations committee  Correct. In the former process, Parliament would have seen the results of those approvals in subsequent supplementary estimates—

Government Operations committee  Respectfully, I would argue to the contrary that what we're seeing now in the main estimates is a complete list of all of the items, and right now we have in the vote—

Government Operations committee  For the benefit of the committee, I'll remind you of the president's agenda related to estimates reform. He wanted to fix the timing of the processes so that we properly sequenced the documents—a budget and then the estimates. That would also support a reconciliation between the