Government Operations committee  The problem with changing the estimates is its multiple functions. It's a control document. The structure of the votes in it, and to a lesser extent the allotments, is a control over departments by Parliament and by the Treasury Board. The issue that faces Parliament and the Trea

Government Operations committee  I think it's a very good idea, but I find every proposal for reforming committees, with some exceptions, in the Canadian House of Commons foundering on the reefs and rocks of partisanship. The one exception I can think of was the decision of the public accounts committee to go ag

Government Operations committee  It's not for me to answer why you can't. I think if you as a committee believe in it, make the proposal. Recommend it. Then make sure that your report is debated in the House. I believe you could bring up that one single thing as a private member's motion. Do it. I'd love to see

Government Operations committee  Yes. I'll deal with the one I've looked at most closely, which was the border defence or whatever becoming gazebos—unarmed gazebos, we must remember—in Muskoka. That was a product of the structure of the votes in the department, which was Public Safety, I believe. The vote divide

Government Operations committee  I think you need a rebellion in the caucus to do that, though I can offer some moderately serious things. I don't think there should be the number of associate members of committees that there are. Now this is one of the best committees in Parliament, and most of you come to mo

Government Operations committee  I think it's a crisis that has existed since 1867.

Government Operations committee  We do have a problem. You might look at this as a criticism of yourselves, and I don't really mean it, but a big part of the problem of the weakness of Parliament vis-à-vis the executive is the dominance of parties over almost every aspect of an MP's existence. That's not the pr

Government Operations committee  The issue of program budgeting depends on the size of the unit or program that you want to have a budget for identified by Parliament, and compared with what used to exist in the United States, and I suspect still does, where much of the budgeting—perhaps I could be corrected her

Government Operations committee  I couldn't get this working, and my French is not perfect, but I'll try to answer your question. The one that interests me is the one on the information available to Parliament on the budget and how Parliament can criticize the budget. I would offer a couple of thoughts on tha

Government Operations committee  The thing that interests me about the timing is that the expenditure budgets are usually set, I believe—and you should check this with the Treasury Board—by about the end of January at the latest. I don't know if that information was given to you by the Treasury Board, but I'd be

Government Operations committee  Yes; thank you.

Government Operations committee  I prepared a submission. I suspect it was too late to get translated, but—

Government Operations committee  That's wonderful. This question is of great interest to me. I cut my eye teeth—if that's the right expression—on parliamentary finance and government finance in working for the Budget Bureau of the Government of Saskatchewan. One of the things I worked on there was the form of t

Government Operations committee  No, I'm guilty. It stated: One of the witnesses, Dr. Franks, expressed doubts that changes to the committee system or to the techniques used by committees to examine the Estimates would result in any improvement. So I expressed my doubts, and the committee went on to say:

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I'm going to give you an Irish answer to that, this being the day after St. Patrick's Day.