PARLIAMENTARIANS HAVE MORE INFORMATION AND ARE BETTER ABLE TO HOLD GOVERNMENT TO ACCOUNT FOR HOW IT SPENDS.

estimates, which I tabled on April 16, include 100 per cent of the measures announced in the budget for this year. Parliamentarians have more accurate, detailed information and they are better able to hold government to account for how it spends taxpayer dollars. This is a major step forward in government accountability.

To do this, we have added a new, centrally managed spending measure. Treasury Board will not have any discretion to use the funds for any other purpose.

Economists Scott Clark and Peter DeVries gave budget 2018 an “A” grade for fiscal credibility, writing that “(w)ith respect to transparency the 2018 budget provides more detailed financial analysis and information than any budget that we can remember, and we go back a long way. For critics of the budget who felt such information was lacking, they should perhaps take the time to read the Annexes.”

We are showing Parliament exactly where in the budget the funding for the new budget-implementation vote comes from and how it will be used. Parliamentarians can now literally follow the money from this new central vote to a specific line in the budget (Table A2.11) and the main estimates (Annex 1). This increased transparency is made possible by the unprecedented level of detail provided in the budget on new spending measures by department. We will also show Parliament exactly how Treasury Board is allocating funds to departments for specific budget measures through monthly online reporting and in the supplementary estimates throughout the year.

Take for example the New Women Entrepreneurship Strategy, intended to help women entrepreneurs grow their businesses and create jobs. With new monthly online reporting, Canadians can track funds committed to the strategy, broken out by federal agency. Through three previous committee appearances on estimates reform, and another later this week, I am openly and constructively engaging my fellow Parliamentarians in this reform exercise.