I know that as a sort of operating technique a great way to kill private members' bills is to simply get the government to say that the whole thing is way too expensive and we can't possibly do it, and then you arrive at some dream-type numbers....and $11 billion certainly seems to be at the upper end of the dream number.
That said, it's also disconcerting that this range is so extreme as to not give you any comfort or any appeal. You are the Parliamentary Budget Officer. You are here for all members of Parliament. You do have a heck of a lot of courage in the face of a lot of criticism, particularly on the part of the members on the other side. I'm inclined to think you've given us about the best advice you can under the range of assumptions that you've given us.
What makes me mildly concerned is your last sentence on page 3, just before “Next Steps”, which is that “...the assumptions underpinning the Bloc Québécois estimates may underestimate the costs of proposals given the potentially greater number of distressed RPPs”. The words “may underestimate” may be the understatement of all time.
I'm not quite sure how to square this circle. I suppose I circle back to the notion that unless there is an agreement between the government and the Bloc as to what the bill means, your job becomes virtually impossible. You've come here and said that under this set of assumptions, it's this, and under that set of assumptions, it's that. I don't know that we're a heck of a lot further ahead. That's the problem.
Then we're being asked to go to clause-by-clause study and vote up or vote down based upon an absurd range.
I know you're not legislators, but what is it in the bill itself that would take out the discrepancy between the government's underlying assumptions and the Bloc's underlying assumptions?