Government Operations committee  October 21? I've just shortened the campaign by two days inadvertently. Sorry.

Government Operations committee  The legislation clearly states that I can do that for recognized parties and then for independent members. Members that are part of a political party will have to go through their political parties. Independent members will be able to place individual requests.

Government Operations committee  It will become public once the political party or the independent member makes that political campaign commitment public. Until such time as the commitment is public, it has to remain confidential. When it's made public, then I will make the costing and the methodology public at

Government Operations committee  It depends on the specific proposal, and on the number of demands placed on my office. If it's something very simple that seeks to amend a tax rate, for example, without any other changes to any other tax parameter, it's fairly simple. If it's an entirely new program that has n

Government Operations committee  I would see it being probably a February budget. Having seen a couple of budget cycles in my life, I would say that it could be in January, but February would probably be the latest you could realistically have a budget and have funding or initiatives in the budget reflected in t

Government Operations committee  Probably a bit later, if you leave enough time for TBS officials to include budget initiatives to be included in the budget, so that when the budget gets debated in the House shortly thereafter, probably sometime in early April, you have main estimates that fully reflect budget p

Government Operations committee  Yes, there's one important drawback. It removes the government's flexibility to move the budget cycle to respond to unforeseen events. For example, if there is uncertainty in the world markets or if there is a financial crisis that has just developed.

Government Operations committee  Yes, there is always—

Government Operations committee  No, the government always—

Government Operations committee  Yes. The government could still introduce ad hoc measures to respond to an emerging crisis. It's happened in the past. For example, in 2001 there was a December budget to respond to the crisis of September 11. It's possible to have budget documents or updates on steroids, so to s

Government Operations committee  I think it would certainly make your job easier to understand what's in the mains and how that reconciles with the government's priorities expressed through a budget. Right now, I think having the mains reflect only part of the government's priorities is not very helpful, becaus

Government Operations committee  The second part, sadly, is not part of my mandate. I'm not the tax collector.

Government Operations committee  That's up to CRA. They have some very aggressive and efficient people at CRA. Some of our citizens experience that the hard way.

Government Operations committee  On the first part of your question, on how will I get information from the CRA, knowing how to ask the question and what to ask for is often key. CRA is by its very nature a risk averse institution. They have the privacy of Canadians' tax information at the top of their concerns.

Government Operations committee  That's a very hypothetical question. It would be quite hazardous for me to try to answer because it depends on what would have been, what assumptions we make as to what the level of transfers would have been in the absence of past policy actions. For sure, if the health transfers