I wouldn't disagree with you at all. Democracy functions best when parliamentarians are the voice of the people.
I want to know about the costing of political parties' platforms. It's a great tool to give Canadians an independent verification of what a party is campaigning on. A party can't just say, we're going to give everybody $100 a day and also balance the books. I think it's extremely important. Other countries, Australia and the Netherlands, already have this in place.
You mentioned, Mr. Page, when the question was asked by my colleague, that it would be very labour-intensive. In what way do you see the PBO as being able to carry out this function? There has to be a certain framework, such as that the platform is submitted to the PBO x number of days before a writ period, to ensure that they all come out on the same day. It wouldn't be that party A submitted theirs and it was released, and then party B's was submitted, and party C's was released two days before the campaign. The costing, in my humble opinion, would have to be done before the writ period so that it doesn't impact the decisions or isn't like the October surprise in a Canadian election.