Senator Lankin: I would like to thank you and Senator Gagné. The subject matter is difficult to make real and bring to life for people, particularly in speeches in the format we have in the Senate, but both of you do an excellent job. I, for one, am appreciative of that.

Senator Marshall, in particular to you, I think of you as our collective critic on these things. There may be someone else with those skills, but I don’t hear from them; I hear from you, and it helps me tremendously in my work. I want to thank you personally.

I have two questions. You talked again about a number of line items where there are large amounts of money but no particular detail. In some other cases, there is detail about line items but no particular source of the funding is identified. I would say that is something I experienced in the Ontario government when I was in cabinet and when I was in opposition. I’ve seen it in Ottawa under the Trudeau government, under the Harper government and under the Martin, Chrétien and Mulroney governments. I can’t go back further than that.

Has the Finance Committee done any kind of analysis to draw a trend line of these challenges and what they mean to parliamentarians and Canadians that they represent in terms of having in-depth knowledge and being able to refute or understand where your interests lay and are recognized in there? If that hasn’t been done, is that something that would be a worthwhile project for the Finance Committee to do?

Hon. Frances Lankin: Will the senator take a question?

Senator Lankin: You led into my supplementary question. I particularly appreciate the fact-based approach that you bring to your analysis and the professional skill base. There is not a lot of that to be shared in the chamber.

I have asked you this directly, but now I’m putting it on the record: Do you think we could set up a training or briefing program for other senators and their staff who would like to understand the download analysis that you do and how you approach it, just to give us a better idea and help us to be more confident?

If you were to decide to go back to Newfoundland and not return here, it would be a great loss to this chamber in terms of the kind of work you do on all of our behalf.