Right. I agree. Let's talk about that, then.
I want to thank the chair for reaching out to the Auditor General. I have to say that there was some confusion about why the Auditor General did not appear when invited earlier on.
That said, this committee obviously can't approve billions more in spending without reviewing the Auditor General's inquiries into earlier and similar spending. If the government really has confidence in the way the dollars were spent, it should have no concern about having the Auditor General appear here to testify on that spending.
The members across the way tell me that she is coming to this committee, but they are not prepared to put that in writing. This welcomes the question, “Why not?” Are we expecting a last-minute cancellation? If so, why wouldn't we just specify in the motion a little bit of flexibility so that rescheduling could occur?
We have already, as Conservatives, indicated that we would even welcome another senior official from the Auditor General's office. It's rather unusual to allow that, because the Auditor General is a servant of Parliament and normally parliamentary officers show up here in a heartbeat when they are invited by committees. I don't understand why, frankly, the AG hasn't already arrived and testified, having been invited. That is very peculiar. Actually, I've never seen it in my 17 years here, including several years on the public accounts committee, that being the committee to which the AG reports.
I also note that one of the conditions for Parliament granting the expeditious passage of the COVID emergency spending was that the Auditor General would audit all of that spending. We're now coming on two years since that condition applied. By the way, this committee was responsible for overseeing all of that, and we still haven't had the Auditor General come here to tell us her findings. Putting aside that this government is now asking us to pass another $7 billion of spending, which in and of itself has been rushed, it would have been normal business for the AG to come to testify regardless.
We're saying that you don't even have to do that. Bring a senior representative in her place if she's not available but, for God's sake, surely this committee can't approve yet $7 billion more without at least hearing from the auditor who is responsible for telling us how the previous $100 billion was spent. It's a very small request, actually, and I'm confused as to why this is even controversial. I'm not expecting that the government is going to agree with my fiscal policy. Obviously we have very different points of view. If the—