Bill C-476 (Historical)

Parliamentary Budget Officer Act

An Act to amend the Parliament of Canada Act (Parliamentary Budget Officer)

This enactment provides for the appointment of the Parliamentary Budget Officer as an officer of Parliament.

[Murray Rankin, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Yes, I hope you do.

Very briefly, Mr. Mulcair, the leader of the opposition, introduced Bill C-476 that would create a status like that of the Auditor General for the PBO. Do you agree that strengthening the mandate in that way would be beneficial for your work?

The House resumed from June 10 consideration of the motion that Bill C-476, An Act to amend the Parliament of Canada Act (Parliamentary Budget Officer), be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Conservatives promised more transparency and more accountability.

When I was in Washington recently, I had occasion to visit the Congressional Budget Office, which was essentially the model that inspired the creation of our own parliamentary budget office. The idea is simply to say that government finances are complex and the government controls the whole ministry.

Contrary to the case with the Americans, which has a pure separation from the executive, the legislative and the judiciary, we separate the elected functions from the judiciary, but our executive sits in the front row. We do not have the same airtight separation, so it is even more important when we have a partisan person controlling it, whether it is treasury or whether it is finance, to be able to give real information in real time to the public so that they can rely on it and know what is happening with their money.

Of all the things we do here, I dare say that deciding how taxpayers' money is spent and how it is accounted for are among the most important.

This group is headed up by the former head of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, Canadian citizens this, Canadian that. The Conservatives lost track of $3.1 billion in the past few months. So much for giving lessons to other people. That is why it is important that we look at the track record of the Conservatives.

One of the other things the Conservatives promised was a public appointments commission. Do hon. members remember that? I do. They offered only one person who could possibly head that up, a man named Gwyn Morgan. Where does that name reappear? We might notice his name reappearing regularly in everything to do with SNC-Lavalin. Why? He is the chairman of the board.

Fast forward to Arthur Porter: come on down. Talk about public appointments. That is what we would have had with the Conservatives, a lot more Arthur Porters.

In their 2006 platform, Conservatives promised to strengthen the Access to Information Act. Let us look at the facts. This one is worthwhile.

A decade ago, in 1999-2000, the federal access to information system disclosed all the requested information over 40% of the time. By the time the Liberals had finished messing with the system, it was down to 28%. However, members should listen to this: it has plummetted by almost half again. In 2009-2010, the last full reporting year—and it has become even worse since then—in only 15% of cases were citizens were getting the information they are asking for.

That is the Conservative government that preached transparency and preached accountability.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

This is the same Prime Minister who promised Canadians that he would “never appoint senators”. That is a promise he has broken exactly 59 times, a record in terms of appointments to the Senate, and we see what sort of quality we have. When they get caught defrauding taxpayers to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars, it is the Prime Minister's Office, backed up by a million-dollar slush fund, that starts cutting cheques to shut them up. That is quite a lesson in transparency and accountability.

They promised that an ethics commissioner would be responsible for both sides of the House. Obviously, they never followed through.

What could be easier and more important than to show respect for the Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer?

As several speakers have clearly shown, since this happened—as they will ignore anything that does not come directly from the elves in the Prime Minister's Office—they will withhold funding and refuse to comply with the parliamentary budget officer.

Bill C-476 is intended to revitalize and protect this institution for one single purpose: to protect the public interest and the public's right to know.

Parliamentary Budget Officer Act

[Hélène Laverdière, NDP, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to rise today to express my support for Bill C-476, the excellent private member’s bill introduced by the member for Outremont and leader of the official opposition.

When the Conservatives were first elected, they made a great deal of noise about transparency and accountability. They were going to clean house in Ottawa. That was the background to their establishment of the position of parliamentary budget officer. It was, indeed, a very good idea. Many countries have institutions, agencies or offices like that. However, there was a small glitch. The manner in which they established the position was far from perfect. Was this deliberate—a lot of talk, but only a little action? Was their doing things too quickly and ineptly just a sign of their incompetence? It is difficult to say. The future and historians may perhaps be able to tell us one day.

Now, however, they appear to be regretting the very existence of the parliamentary budget officer. Indeed, the former parliamentary budget officer did his job highly professionally and found some very disturbing things. To be sure, he examined the federal budget. He produced his annual report on financial viability and also considered some very specific matters. For example, he revealed the true cost of the F-35s when the government was attempting to pull wool over our eyes. He is one of many experts who said that it was not necessary to raise the retirement age to 67. He revealed the cost of the Safe Streets and Communities Act. Not only that, but as my colleague from Ottawa Centre mentioned earlier, he gave us details about the costs of our mission in Afghanistan.

The interesting thing is how the Conservatives reacted to all of this. Did they say that they would work with the parliamentary budget officer in the interests of the country? After all, it is in the interest of the country and all Canadians for things to run as efficiently as possible. No, because that would have quickly damaged their electoral and partisan interests. They therefore began to do everything possible—absolutely everything—to prevent the parliamentary budget officer from doing his job.

The Conservatives are prepared to spy on Canadians, but they do not seem to like the idea of having a legitimate agency look at what they themselves are doing. What did they do? They denied the PBO access to the information he needed. When his mandate came to an end, they simply did not renew it and have not permanently filled the position. That is how they treat just about anyone who dares say anything against their policies.

Nevertheless, the PBO does very important work. We need an institution that is able to provide an independent opinion on budgetary issues. The Americans have understood that. I had the opportunity to visit the Congressional Budget Office in Washington. It is rather impressive. It has 235 employees and a budget of nearly $50 million. However, they manage to save much more. Is it 10, 20, 30 or 100 times more? We will see. Most importantly, this agency is respected because it is independent. People have told us that they do not always like the agency's findings, but they respect it nevertheless because they know it is an independent agency. This is not the kind of thing the Conservatives like to hear because they try to politicize everything, including the public service, the colour of airplanes, and I could go on. There is a long list.

An independent PBO is essential because our world is becoming increasingly complex, as are our financial and budgetary operations. This does not explain how the Conservatives managed to misplace $3 billion. However, aside from that, we need an independent opinion.

This bill proposes that the parliamentary budget officer be given a clear, specific mandate, free from political influence, so that the individual can carry out his or her duties for parliamentarians and all Canadians.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to rise to speak to the bill of the leader of the official opposition, the member for Outremont.

The purpose of this excellent bill is to create a separate and independent Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer—who will be a full officer of Parliament—that will not just be part of the office of the Library of Parliament, as is currently the case.

First, it would be pertinent to ask why this bill is needed now. It is needed because something is broken in the system. The Conservatives broke their promise of transparency and their commitment to an open government that listens to the people. They have given us one disappointment after another.

The Conservatives are willing to undermine the credibility of those who say things they do not like, who dare to stand up, tell the truth and remember the facts. They attack those who work as our system's watchdogs and any others who dare criticize them, such as environmentalists, scientists and unions, whom they often, and very publicly, treat with contempt.

First of all, the Conservatives promised to establish the position of parliamentary budget officer, and they did. However, they then did everything they could to undermine his credibility. It was a good idea at the outset, and then it all fell apart. When they realized that the officer they had appointed could stand on his own two feet, challenge their figures and even point out scandals, such as the cost of the F-35s, which was much higher than they were telling people, they began to say that people should not listen to the parliamentary budget officer, that he did not know what he was talking about and that what he was saying was untrue.

We heard Conservative members make light of the work done by the Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer, even though this work was essential and could shed light on what was going on in terms of the Conservative government’s real expenditures. As the truth can be shocking and upsetting, they did everything they could to sideline and muzzle the parliamentary budget officer and publicly cast doubt on his credibility, when in fact he was doing good work.

That is why the member for Outremont introduced a private member’s bill that would strengthen and protect the parliamentary budget officer position and make it truly independent. We need this external audit and this oversight from competent people who are sheltered from political attack and manipulation by the Conservative government.

When we hear people from the Prime Minister's Office tell us that what they need is a new parliamentary budget officer who is capable of co-operating with them, it is worrisome. It means that they do not want their little lapdog to bark too loudly, upset things too much, undermine them and reveal information that might cause a public scandal, such as the famous scandal around the exploding cost of the F-35s.

As my colleague from Alberta just mentioned, when I entered Parliament, the late Jack Layton honoured me by appointing the official opposition critic for the Treasury Board. My experience was similar to what my colleague from Edmonton—Strathcona found. The budget process is so complex, intricate and lengthy that it is extremely difficult to check the government's estimates against the actual expenditures made afterwards.

As the main estimates are about to be tabled, followed by two supplementary estimates—supplementary estimates (A), (B) and sometimes (C)—it is very difficult to know what the government’s real intentions are with respect to its program spending. The main estimates are also unrelated to the budget tabled by the Minister of Finance, and two years may go by before Public Works and Government Services Canada can to tell us how the money was actually spent. No wonder it is all so confusing.

This lengthy, complex and highly intricate process makes it very difficult for parliamentarians to know how the money is being spent. Yet one of the main roles of the legislature as opposed to the executive is to monitor government spending.

Without a parliamentary budget officer who is completely independent and provided with the means to do his job, parliamentarians are deaf, blind and unable to verify whether promises have been kept or planned cost reductions implemented and if so, what consequences such cuts have had.

In that respect, I want to remind the House that the Leader of the Opposition called on the former parliamentary budget officer to assess the impact of the Conservative government's cutbacks.

It is all well and good for them to say they are going to cut $4 billion from the envelope set aside for public services, that they are going to eliminate 19,600 positions that provide services to the public, and in the same breath have the nerve to say this will have no impact on services to Canadians. Everyone knows this is nothing but smoke and mirrors. We need to be able to determine the real impact.

The leader of the NDP asked the parliamentary budget officer to contact every department to determine the real, specific consequences of the Conservatives' ideological cuts. The parliamentary budget officer quickly found himself in the midst of a fight, because the ministers stood in his way, refused to give him access to the information he needed and prevented him from doing his job. The parliamentary budget officer, a position that was created by the Conservatives, was forced to take the matter to the Federal Court to fight the government to get that information. This is an absolute disgrace, which is why Bill C-476 is so essential.

The Conservatives promised transparency and integrity. I do not want to get into what is happening in the Prime Minister's Office regarding its relationship to senators who apparently cheated the expense claims system. Once again, there is no transparency and we are being left completely in the dark. Yet, the Conservatives promised Canadians integrity and an honest, open and transparent government. They promised one thing and are doing the exact opposite. They have broken their promise over and over again.

It is no wonder the hon. member for Edmonton—St. Albert left the caucus. He left specifically because as soon as the Conservatives came to power, they became everything they despised about the Liberals when they were in power before them. The Conservatives wanted to change Ottawa, but instead, Ottawa changed the Conservative Party. The PMO must maintain absolute control at all times. One lie after the other is being told to try to convince people that the Conservatives are doing what they promised, when really, quite the opposite is true.

The member for Edmonton—St. Albert was thoroughly fed up. When they intervened to amend his private member's bill to disclose only the salaries of senior officials earning $444,000 or more, he said that that was enough and that he had not come to Ottawa to play that game or to continue keeping little secrets or to appoint friends to various organizations, as they are doing. He had had enough and decided to sit as an independent. I understand him.

Canadians will also understand that we cannot trust the Conservatives and that their promises of transparency are mere smoke and mirrors. We see how they acted with the former parliamentary budget officer. It was truly shameful. Bill C-476 will solve that problem and ensure that, regardless of the party in power in future, we will have an independent officer of Parliament who can do his job and tell the public what is actually being done with their taxes. We need that.

They will no longer be able to play games, as they are currently doing. For example, the parliamentary budget officer's term comes to an end and they leave the position vacant, promising ultimately to fill it, and pass the buck to the Parliamentary Librarian. That is simply not her job. She has neither the means nor the expertise to devote herself fully to that task, which actually amounts to a full-time job.

The bill provides that the leader of every recognized party in the House will have to be consulted and that the appointment must be made six months before the previous term expires. That will allow for a genuine transition. The person who takes up the position of parliamentary budget officer will be able to prepare. That will prevent the kind of vacancy that we are currently seeing. We do not really have anyone in the position on a full-time basis, even though that is important because this is the time of year when the Minister of Finance tables his budget. The Conservatives have made sure that we do not have a real parliamentary budget officer.

It is also important to realize, when we compare ourselves to our American colleagues, that we must allocate significant human and financial resources to the parliamentary budget office. For a budget of tens of billions of dollars, only 12 people work in the Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer, whereas the American equivalent has 200 employees.

I understand that there are many more Americans than Canadians, but we should at least double the resources allocated to the parliamentary budget officer so that Canadians can finally see what happens to their money, how it is spent and what the impact of the Conservatives' cuts is and so that, one day, they can finally have a transparent government in Ottawa.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is my privilege to rise to speak in support of Bill C-476, tabled by the member for Outremont and leader of the official opposition.

Bill C-476, once enacted, would create an independent Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer, separating it from the Library of Parliament where it is now; broaden the PBO's mandate and access to relevant information; require annual reports to the House of Commons and Senate; create a streamlined non-partisan process for appointment; and finally, ensure that the PBO is capable of understanding and working in both official languages.

Why are these proposed changes to the legislated mandate for the PBO so critical? The government created the PBO to support its once widely touted new transparent, accountable and open government. In fact, the Conservatives' 2006 electoral platform committed to create an independent parliamentary budget office authority to provide objective analysis directly to Parliament about the state of the nation's finances and trends in the national economy. As stated by the finance minister in 2006:

Canadians deserve to know the true state of their economy and to live within a budget which is based on accurate, open and honest figures. We must put an end once and for all to the previous government's habit of getting it wrong. Governments cannot be held to account if Parliament and Canadians do not know the real state of public finances.

The Prime Minister, in speaking of the PBO in 2006, stated, “Such a body would ensure that the government is genuinely accountable for taxpayers’ dollars and that we maintain fiscal discipline at the federal level.”

Now flash forward to 2013, where the selfsame Minister of Finance has had quite a change of heart now that the rigorous analysis that he once so enthusiastically supported has now exposed many problems. The finance minister made an accusatory comment about the PBO to the effect that he was wandering off from his mandate of reporting to Parliament on “how the government is doing in its budgeting”.

We note, as my colleague said, the comments by the member for Edmonton—St. Albert, that he is deeply chagrined and in fact has left the Conservative Party because it has strayed from its principles of openness and transparency and the members have morphed into what they formerly criticized.

Indeed, despite these early endorsements for open government and a strong role for the PBO, seven years later we witness case after case where the government has refused PBO requests for information necessary to delivery his statutory mandate including: estimated costs for the Afghan war, estimated costs for the F-35 fighter jets, the estimated deficit, sustainability of the OAS program and estimated impacts of cuts to the federal service on continued delivery of front-line services.

The mandate and services of the PBO have been found invaluable to the ability of MPs to do their job scrutinizing government estimates and spending. The PBO mandate appears to be quite clear to most, with the apparent exception of the very government that created the office. What is the mandate? The PBO was created in 2006 with the enactment of the Financial Accountability Act. This mandate is clearly prescribed in law “to provide objective analysis to the Senate and House of Commons about the estimates of the government, the state of the nation’s finances and trends in the national economy”. The PBO is also mandated to undertake research and assist committees in their review and analysis of estimates. Clearly, to deliver this mandate, the PBO must have ready and open access to financial and economic data.

Accessibility to all information has regrettably become a matter of ongoing contention for the former PBO. He was ultimately forced to seek a court ruling due to access denials. The court referral related to requests from the leader of the official opposition seeking the PBO's analysis of the effect of cuts to the federal public service on front-line services. Here is what the court ruled vis-à-vis the mandate of the PBO:

The Parliament of Canada has, by statute, mandated its budget officer to, among other things, “estimate the financial cost of any proposal that relates to a matter over which Parliament has jurisdiction” when requested to do so by any member of the House of Commons or any Senator.... In order to give effect to that mandate, subject to certain exceptions, section 79.3... the Parliamentary Budget Officer by request to the deputy head of a department, or delegate, is entitled to “…free and timely access to any financial or economic data in the possession of the department that are required for the performance of his or her mandate.”

In the course of my role on the government operations committee, we undertook, as well, a review of how members of Parliament could begin to do a more effective job of review of estimates and spending. In doing so, we heard from a number of experts.

One of the worldwide experts that has stated support for a strong Parliamentary Budget Officer is the OECD. Our report noted that the OECD found that the best practices for budget transparency required that parliamentarians had the opportunity and the resources to effectively examine any fiscal report they deem necessary.

Our community heard from, among others, Dr. Joachim Wehner. Dr. Wehner is associate professor of public policy at the London School of Economic and Political Science. He testified that in order to improve scrutiny of estimates and supply:

The first...is to protect and enhance the role of the Parliamentary Budget Officer.... Internationally, the Parliamentary Budget Officer of Canada is very highly regarded, and it's certainly a major change...in the degree the parliament in Canada has access to an independent, highly professional research capacity.

He added, though, that based upon his experience with similar officers in other jurisdictions, the role of the PBO could have been further strengthened if made a full officer of Parliament, with total access to all relevant information.

Also, Canadian expert Dr. David Good, professor of the School of Public Administration, University of Victoria, testified to our committee:

First, I would make the Parliamentary Budget Officer a full agent of Parliament to assist parliamentarians and committees. I think the role and mandate of the Parliamentary Budget Officer needs to be clarified and strengthened by making the office legislatively separate and independent of the Library of Parliament, thereby operating as a full agent of Parliament.

Accessibility to all information, regrettably, became a matter of ongoing contention for the current PBO. He was ultimately, as I mentioned, forced to seek a court ruling. That court ruling was related to a request from the leader of the official opposition.

I can personally attest to the value of the reporting and analysis provided by the Parliamentary Budget Officer. My participation in the parliamentary study on scrutiny of estimates and supply, and subsequent examination of government priorities and spending, has opened my eyes to the disconnect between the information the government is willing to reveal and the information parliamentarians actually require to make informed decisions on spending taxpayers' hard-earned dollars.

As elected members of Parliament, we are meant to be stewards of the public purse. We can choose to make informed decisions. A strengthened mandate for the Parliamentary Budget Officer, as provided in Bill C-476, could offer that window.

I encourage all members of this House to vote in support of the member for Outremont's bill, Bill C-476, create an independent Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer, broaden his mandate, require annual reports and create streamlined, non-partisan processes for appointments.

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

Mr. Speaker, this is a big day today. I just exchanged pleasantries with the Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages, and it is his birthday. We are expecting to maybe put forward legislation identifying today as a national holiday.

I am happy to put in my two cents' worth on this important bill. This is a significant and important piece of legislation, and certainly my colleague from Saint-Laurent—Cartierville, during first reading of the bill, identified the fact that our party will indeed be supporting it because we believe in the spirit of the bill and that, in essence, it would be an important step forward. I also recognize the fact that my colleague, the member for Markham—Unionville, had tabled the first motion before Parliament in February 2009, calling for the parliamentary budget officer to be made an independent officer of Parliament. That is worth noting as we begin to discuss this particular bill today.

Although this bill is about the Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer, it is hard to talk about it without talking about the first Parliamentary Budget Officer, Kevin Page. For obvious reasons, the two will be inextricably linked. My thoughts on this bill will therefore be very respectful of the experience Mr. Page had over his five years as PBO, and his comments on the office, including the challenges that he faced and the worries he had about its future if not strengthened and protected.

One of Mr. Page's comments sums up the issue around transparency and accountability under the current government. He summed it up well when he said, “Our institutions of accountability are in trouble. Parliament does not get the information and analysis it needs to hold the executive...to account.” Of course, “the executive” refers to the Prime Minister and cabinet. Later in his comments he said, “In a culture where secrecy is far too common and analytical dissonance is not welcome, the future of my office, the legislative budget office is in doubt.”

This is a debate that has taken place here in the chamber, but also right across this country in the court of public opinion. I believe it was one that Mr. Page put forward. Canadians understand the significance around this issue and certainly are respectful of the courage, the vision and the passion he had for this position, and as well of his ability. It has been proven time and again, issue by issue, that the Parliamentary Budget Officer was very often closer to reality than what we were hearing from the government benches and the spin around the various issues or crises of the day.

Mr. Page is a man who dedicated five years of his life to the service of Parliament and to Canadians to provide and promote financial transparency and accountability. Seven years ago, the current government promised a new standard of accountability. We know the Conservative government rode in on the white horse called “accountability”, promising a different era, certainly a more open Parliament and a more open government.

We have not seen that. That horse has been dead for quite some time, as much as the government might want to beat it. In the eyes of most Canadians, whether the horse ever arrived in Ottawa or not, it is certainly gone now. The government had a golden halo of transparency that was very much touted and highly talked about, but that halo is considerably tarnished now.

That is what happens when the standard method of operation is “do as I say, not as I do”. It is very significant, in the wake of what transpired this past week, when we saw the former Conservative member for Edmonton—St. Albert comment, “I barely recognize ourselves and worse I feel that we have morphed into what we once mocked.”

I certainly do not agree with everything the member has said or with his views on many issues. However, I think it was eloquent, poignant and truthful. Many Conservatives across this country, certainly Conservatives in my riding with whom I have great friendship and for whom I have great respect even though we may have different political views, are very concerned about how the government has taken those principles of transparency, openness and accountability, and just sort of put them in the back of the bus.

The departure of the member for Edmonton—St. Albert brings that to a very poignant point in the life of the government.

Bill C-476 stands for principles, including the principle that the parliamentary budget officer should be an independent watchdog and provide independent analysis to Parliament, not cheerleading for the government.

The purpose of the office itself is to help with forecasts on economic and fiscal planning, help with costing new programs, and help with the scrutiny of departmental apportionments and appropriations. We have seen the debacle with the F-35s. The numbers continue to change. I think it was my colleague, the member for Westmount—Ville-Marie, who first brought the issue around the F-35s to the House two and a half years ago.

We were given a snow job then. We were given numbers that certainly dismissed any concerns around the procurement of the F-35s. It was with a clear vision, clear thinking and a commitment to get to the truth that the Parliamentary Budget Officer pursued what was real within the tendering process. Through those numbers, the Parliamentary Budget Officer was able to bring it around to what many other nations across the world that were involved in the procurement of this particular aircraft knew all along.

I want to commend my colleague, the member for Westmount—Ville-Marie. I want to again echo support for this bill on behalf of our party. We think the parliamentary budget officer should be independent from the executive. The role of the PBO is essential in providing this House with the important information that it needs, so that it can base its decisions on truth, not spin; on fact, not fiction; and on hard numbers.

It is for those reasons that we will stand and support this piece of legislation.

The House resumed from April 29 consideration of the motion that Bill C-476, An Act to amend the Parliament of Canada Act (Parliamentary Budget Officer), be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[Murray Rankin, NDP, Victoria, BC]

They would be available and you're aware of that.

Yesterday the House of Commons debated a private member's bill, Bill C-476, to establish the Parliamentary Budget Officer as an independent officer of Parliament, like the Auditor General, the Privacy Commissioner, and the like.

Many experts and pundits have spoken out in support of the PBO becoming an independent officer of Parliament.

Do you agree that strengthening the mandate of the PBO in that way would be beneficial for your work and ultimately for government accountability?

[Laurin Liu, NDP, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to speak today to Bill C-476 introduced by the Leader of the Opposition. This bill would make the Parliamentary Budget Officer an officer of Parliament separate from and independent of the government, just like the Auditor General, the Chief Electoral Officer and the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner.

The first Parliamentary Budget Officer took office in 2008. His mandate is to provide Parliament with independent analysis of the state of the nation's finances, the government estimates and trends in the national economy and, at the request of any parliamentary committee or parliamentarian, to estimate the cost of any proposal that relates to a matter over which Parliament has jurisdiction.

In fact, the Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer is replete with economists, tax experts, accountants and other experts in public accounting and economic forecasting. Their mandate is to provide neutral and professional advice to parliamentarians who can thus properly analyze the government's expenditures. The Globe and Mail hit the nail on the head when it described the usefulness of the Parliamentary Budget Officer in the following terms:

With better information to scrutinize the financial decisions of the government the PBO enhances the ability of Parliamentarians to hold the government to account. Moreover, the PBO provides a source of credible cost estimates for new initiatives proposed by Parliamentarians, allowing them to contribute more to policy debates. The government has the vast and deep resources of the Ministry of Finance for these tasks; the PBO helps Parliament keep pace.

Since this position was created, the Parliamentary Budget Officer has done extraordinary work and has called into question the Conservatives' budget projections, in spite of the fact that he was not given all the tools he needed to do his job properly.

Let us not forget that, during the 2008 election campaign, at the height of the war in Afghanistan, the government refused to provide the real cost of the military mission and the Parliamentary Budget Officer revealed that the cost of this war was much higher than we had thought. Kevin Page, the Parliamentary Budget Officer, determined that the war in Afghanistan was going to cost Canadians $18 billion. This clearly shows how important the Parliamentary Budget Officer is to the strength of our democracy. Without the information provided by Kevin Page on the cost of the war in Afghanistan, voters would have had to vote for a government without knowing all the facts about a fundamental public policy.

Let us also remember that Kevin Page released a very important report in March 2011, in which he concluded that the Conservative government was deliberately underestimating the cost of the F-35 fighter jets. While the Minister of National Defence claimed that the 65 F-35s would cost only $14.7 billion, the Parliamentary Budget Officer estimated that the bill would come to over $29 billion. That important report forced the Conservative government to go back to the drawing board.

We could also mention the report that Kevin Page released in February 2012 on old age security. While the Conservatives claimed that they had to raise the retirement age from 65 to 67 to deal with the retirement of the baby boomers, the Parliamentary Budget Officer found that the federal government had exaggerated the expected financial crisis and that the old age security program was actually completely sustainable.

The Conservatives were very upset about these three reports on Afghanistan, the F-35s and the sustainability of the old age security program. They even went after the former Parliamentary Budget Officer because he repeatedly pointed out their poor fiscal management.

I hope that I have shown just how important it is to have an independent Parliamentary Budget Officer who can force the government to be accountable to MPs and the Canadians it represents.

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, as we all heard just moments ago, I think I touched a nerve with the leader of the official opposition, the member of Parliament for Outremont, when I suggested that this private member's bill did not have a cost to it. When I suggested that the NDP, in fact, also has a history and a record of doing these kinds of things without any regard to cost to Canadians, the official opposition leader suggested that I was not being honest about their propositions for budget 2013. The leader of the official opposition is either embarrassed by the launch the NDP did for budget 2013, or he has selective memory, for whatever reason. We would leave it to him to explain that.

However, let me read from the transcript of the official launch of the party's, that is the NDP's, new campaign around budget 2013 held at the National Press Theatre, March 18, 2013. Here is a question from a journalist:

I'm just wondering if you could kind of, you know, focus on specifics in terms of the price tag. How much does the NDP want to spend on the various aspects...? Can you kind of provide some more fiscal details in terms of how much money you'd spend?

The member who just spoke, who is the finance critic for the NDP, the member for Parkdale—High Park, responded to that question from the journalist at the news conference, saying:

I'm not going to pull out one piece and say here's the price tag because I think it's a shift in approach.

Then the question from the journalist was as follows:

But in this campaign, has the NDP..., does it lay out how much an NDP government would spend on the investments in the infrastructure or on pensions or on the small businesses?

Of course, the finance critic for the NDP said:

No, as we get closer to an election, we usually cost these things out specifically.... We're making recommendations to the government for their budget on Thursday.

Again, it speaks to the misleading comments made by the NDP opposition leader. He obviously has something to hide, because he does not cost his own private member's bill, again, because it is going to cost substantial money not only for Canadians but for a number of other organizations that bear the brunt of decisions made by government.

I appreciate this opportunity to express our concerns regarding Bill C-476, an act that would make the Parliamentary Budget Officer an officer of Parliament.

As everyone knows, accountability and transparency in Canada's public and democratic institutions are characteristic of this government. It was our government that promised to scrutinize public expenditures more closely. The first thing we did was implement one of the most comprehensive and complex pieces of legislation on accountability ever passed in this country.

Through the Federal Accountability Act and the accompanying action plan, we brought in a series of accountability reforms. Among these reforms were the designation of deputy ministers and deputy heads as accounting officers, the five-year review of the relevance and effectiveness of departmental grant and contribution programs, the new mandate for the Auditor General to follow the money to grant and contribution recipients, the law requiring departments to send results of public opinion research to Library and Archives Canada within six months, and the removal of the entitlement of political staff to priority appointments in the public service.

These reforms were followed up with others. They included new electoral finance rules and restrictions on gifts to political candidates; the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act; the new Conflict of Interest Act; tougher penalties and sanctions for people who commit fraud involving taxpayers' money; the clarification and simplification of the rules governing grants and contributions; the extension of the Access to Information Act to cover agents of Parliament, five foundations and the Canadian Wheat Board; and of course, a strengthened Lobbying Act to ensure that lobbying is done fairly and openly.

In all, our Federal Accountability Act and action plan made substantive changes to 45 federal statutes and amended over 100 others, touching virtually every part of government.

Furthermore, we took steps to ensure that Parliament and Canadians are better informed about public spending. Among other things, this meant improving financial reporting. For instance, since April 2011, the government has been preparing quarterly financial reports on spending for departments, agencies and crown corporations. In that regard, we have adopted a private sector practice, whereby publicly traded companies have been required to publish quarterly financial reports for years.

This is but one example of the government's leadership in supporting the work of parliamentarians, and there are many others. I would add that our leadership in supporting the work of Parliament is evident in the fact that the Public Accounts of Canada, one of the most important accountability documents prepared by the government, has consistently received a clean opinion by the Auditor General of Canada. As the record shows, our government is as committed as ever to providing more timely and relevant information on its many and varied activities to parliamentarians and Canadians.

Creating the Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer is another way we strengthened Parliament's authority to closely examine how taxpayers' money is spent. Our government established this office in 2006 in order for it to provide Parliament with independent analyses and research on economic and budget issues and thus to increase Parliaments's ability to hold the government to account.

As we know, the first Parliamentary Budget Officer did just that. Under the Library of Parliament, the Parliamentary Budget Officer has the mandate, resources and the necessary independence from the government to do his job.

However, with Bill C-476, An Act to amend the Parliament of Canada Act, the hon. member opposite wants to change all of this. The bill would separate the Parliamentary Budget Officer from the Library of Parliament and make the Parliamentary Budget Officer an officer of Parliament with his or her own department.

The changes proposed in the bill would have several serious impacts. The role of the PBO would change significantly, becoming less responsive to the research and analytical needs of parliamentarians while at the same time creating confusion about the respective roles of the PBO and the Auditor General. We could expect to see some duplication of functions between the Parliamentary Budget Officer and the Library of Parliament. We would very likely see an increase in cost associated with the office.

If the bill is passed, the office would become a separate department in its own right, with its own staffing and administrative support requirements. This means that more of the PBO's funding would be diverted to bureaucracy, particularly for services such as corporate administrative support for information technology, which is currently shared with the Library of Parliament, rather than to providing services to parliamentarians.

We support a non-partisan and independent Parliamentary Budget Officer. Our commitment to this office is stronger than ever. Furthermore, the Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer, as we know it today, is a responsible and affordable component of our accountability and transparency framework.

It has the mandate. It has the resources and the independence needed to perform its role and to hold the government to account. It is doing its job of providing independent fiscal and economic analysis, and it is serving parliamentarians and Canadians very well. We will continue to ensure that it has the independence necessary to do so. That is why we will not support the bill.

In closing, having witnessed the personal attack by the leader of the official opposition just moments ago, l must say that these accusations and allegations he throws out are, frankly, not true. They are misleading, and in my opinion, will actually damage his reputation as someone who wants to become prime minister of Canada. When he accuses other members across the way of untrue situations, he ought to look at himself in the mirror. He was, in fact, a Liberal cabinet minister. He is now leader of the federal NDP. I would ask him to perhaps take into consideration his own record, which is lengthy, of flip-flops over decades of political experience. I on this side will continue to do my job with the utmost truthfulness and dedication to my constituents.

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to speak once again about the position of the Parliamentary Budget Officer. I will just remind my colleagues and Canadians that this is a position created by the Conservative government. It was created in the wake of the Liberal sponsorship scandal, at a time when Canadians were incensed by the misappropriation of their tax dollars.

People feel squeezed; their incomes have not been rising. Canadians want to know that the government treats every dollar they send to Ottawa with respect, and they want to see what is happening with their tax dollars.

Therefore, the Federal Accountability Act was something championed by the Conservatives. They rode into Ottawa on their enthusiasm for accountability. They promised fixed election dates so that elections could not be fixed around a time when a particular party had the best advantage. They wanted public appointments to be more transparent, not just a political reward for friends, and they wanted transparency in budgeting.

We have seen what a failure all aspects of this Federal Accountability Act have been under the leadership of the Conservatives. Their fixed election dates have had some flexibility, shall we say, in recent history. The head of public appointments was a position that was announced, never created and subsequently abandoned, and we know why. It is because, of course, appointments have remained in the sphere of pure partisanship under the Conservative government. Lastly, the transparency promised through the Parliamentary Budget Officer, which we supported, has in fact given way to opacity and less transparency in budgeting, probably less transparency than we have ever seen before, and the position of the Parliamentary Budget Officer has been undermined and significantly reduced in scope from what the Conservatives had promised.

However, let us take a look at what the Parliamentary Budget Officer shone a light on in his time in existence. He was the first to begin to analyze the real long-term costs of Canada's involvement in the war in Afghanistan, and that significantly influenced the public debate here in this country.

He began to analyze, and shone a light on, the cost of the Conservatives' crime legislation and what that would mean not only for the federal government but for provincial governments across this country, the real cost of that crime legislation.

Regarding the F-35s, it was the Parliamentary Budget Officer who really added some hard numbers to the true cost of the F-35 procurement and showed that the numbers the government was putting forward were truly in the realm of fantasy, in that the true cost of the F-35s would be many times more than what the government was publicly announcing.

The PBO also highlighted that the changes to OAS announced by the current government would mean that Canadians would have to keep working two more years before accessing their old age security. The Prime Minister, with all the courage he could muster from his perch with billionaires surrounding him in Davos, announced and then implemented the changes through one of his obscure budget implementation acts, to the detriment of hard-working Canadians who will have to work two years longer to access their pension benefits for old age security. However, the Parliamentary Budget Officer showed that OAS was indeed tenable, that it was indeed sustainable and that these changes were completely unnecessary, which showed that Canada just felt it needed to be with other governments around the world that were delaying old age security benefits.

The Parliamentary Budget Officer also showed the terrible impact of the government's austerity measures, how the impact would be in fact a drag on our gross domestic product, how these measures were undermining growth, increasing unemployment, and damaging the services and programs Canadians relied on.

What was fascinating was that he was unable to even get the information necessary to do his analysis. As someone who was in a position created to guarantee transparency and budgeting for Canadians, even the Parliamentary Budget Officer was unable to get the data, the information he needed to do his analysis.

He provided incredible information to Canadians, nonetheless, for which he was personally attacked by the government, and his work was undermined. Frankly, it was embarrassing that the government would undermine a public position in this way, especially a position it had fought for and created.

I want to just take a moment and pay tribute to the past PBO, Kevin Page. I do believe Canadians recognized his courage and the importance of the work he has done for Canadians. He stood up to the government; he spoke truth to power. I believe he brings forward the best of the public service and the credibility of independent advice that the position must maintain. We thank him for it.

This position is not just about an individual. Of course it is about the bigger question of transparency and democratic accountability in our finances. What is fascinating is that the hand-picked interim PBO, who is now occupying this position on a part-time business, has just released a report in which she has reaffirmed many of the numbers and the analysis that the previous PBO had drawn Canadians' attention to.

She, once again, shows how the government's reckless cuts are not only undermining programs and services that Canadians need, but that these cuts are in fact the wrong medicine for our weak and struggling economy. They are undermining our employment. They are cutting thousands of jobs out of the Canadian economy. They are creating slack in our GDP and slowing our growth.

There is no stimulus in the budget to increase our exports or to spark private sector investment. In fact, budget 2013 is hinged on a wing and a prayer that consumers will somehow increase their debt even more to drag the economy along into growth, which is not what we need because Canadians are already more indebted than ever in our history.

Nevertheless, the economy is growing, although somewhat sluggishly. What the PBO also shows is that the government, just through growth in our economy, will get the books back to balance by 2015-16 without the austerity measures from these cuts.

The question we must ask is why would the government undermine programs and services Canadians need if it is unnecessary.

We are proposing in Bill C-476 that the Parliamentary Budget Officer be a separate and independent officer of Parliament, a position that can maintain its jurisdiction and not serve at the whim of the government and not be subservient to the Library of Parliament.

We believe that this position ought to be fully independent, like other similar positions, such as the Senate Ethics Officer, the Auditor General and the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner. These are positions that are established by an act of law that guarantees the independence and the resources to these positions so that they can fully carry out their work without the interference of any government, no matter which government is in power.

That is true democratic accountability. When we are talking about the finances of the country, surely there is no more important work that a government does and has the trust of Canadians to do, which is collecting their tax dollar, overseeing it wisely and spending it well.

I encourage all members of this House to support this important bill and make this a reality.

[Stéphane Dion, Liberal, Saint-Laurent—Cartierville, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the leader of the official opposition has introduced a bill that the Liberal caucus will have no trouble supporting, because it is something we have been calling for for a long time.

Indeed, the first motion calling for the PBO to be made an independent officer of Parliament, tabled in the House of Commons on February 3, 2009, was sponsored by our Liberal colleague, the member for Markham—Unionville. His motion also called on the government to “co-operate fully with the Parliamentary Budget Officer on all matters with respect to which he is called upon to report”.

If that motion from February 3, 2009, had been implemented, we would all be better off. The Parliamentary Budget Officer would have been better able to do his job independently.

Better late than never, which is why the Liberal Party supports Bill C-476 and why it is urging the government to support it as well, so that it can be examined in committee. We want this bill to be examined in committee because we think it is in the best interests of the public.

The Parliamentary Budget Officer needs to have more independence and a more meaningful role. The Parliamentary Budget Officer must report directly to Parliament, without having to go through the Library of Parliament.

That said, I doubt that these changes—although they are welcome and necessary—will eliminate the hostility the Conservative government has shown for anyone who refuses to blindly sing their praises or cover up their mistakes.

What is the role of the Parliamentary Budget Officer? This person's role is to provide objective and independent analysis that may, on occasion, call into question the validity of the government's views and initiatives.

The Prime Minister cannot stand that. It has become clear that this government reacts very poorly and very aggressively to criticism and to independent thinking, whether from officers of Parliament, government scientists, foreign observers, the media or even government backbenchers.

The government would be better off keeping an open mind to these independent analyses. It might learn something that would help it fix past mistakes and avoid making new ones.

No one can deny that the Parliamentary Budget Officer produced some excellent analyses. Instead of shooting the messenger, the government should have listened to and respected what he had to say.

Here are some valuable PBO contributions: he analyzed the long-term cost of the Afghanistan mission; he showed how much the provincial penitentiary systems will have to pay in order to comply with the Conservatives' flawed crime agenda legislation; he produced a thorough report on the true cost of the F-35, generally considered accurate; and he proved that the old age security program was fiscally sustainable with the 65-year qualifying age, which was an assessment also echoed by the OECD.

The government responded to these obviously credible analyses with contempt, denial and attacks, dismissing them out of hand. Of course, the government was not obliged to accept the Parliamentary Budget Officer's analyses and conclusions. The government had every right to contest them.

However, the government should then have provided its own costed, detailed analyses before taking a stand on such important issues. Before imposing its decisions on the people, a competent government would have agreed, even demanded, to have these issues studied in detail.

Does the age of eligibility for old age security need to increase from 65 to 67? That is a fundamental question. Canada is the only modern, democratic country where the government has made that type of decision without providing any serious research to back it up and without having Parliament debate it thoroughly.

Instead of profiting from such a great Parliamentary Budget Officer—whose term just ended—and instead of engaging in productive dialogue with him, the government did nothing but viciously attack him as an individual.

In 2009, the government tried to cut the PBO funding by $1.3 million, one-third of the total budget. Public pressure eventually forced the government to find that money through the estimates.

In March of 2010, the PBO published a report showing the government would not balance the budget in 2014-15. The finance minister dismissed the PBO as wrong, but was unable or unwilling to provide any analysis to substantiate this rejection of the PBO's projections. Today, we all know that it is the finance minister who proved himself wrong.

When the PBO published a document showing the old age security program was sustainable in February of 2012, the Minister of Finance called Kevin Page unbelievable, unreliable and incredible.

Conservative senators moved to find Kevin Page in contempt for using the courts to access government spending data. The government refused to give Kevin Page information to which he is legally entitled under the Parliament of Canada Act. The government changed the PBO job vacancy notice in order to find someone ready to make compromises. Compromises?

Should someone compromise the truth? Should someone compromise in an effort to please the government and help cover up its mistakes? Should someone compromise on what should be disclosed to or hidden from the public, from taxpayers? It is not the Parliamentary Budget Officer's job to fiddle with the numbers or mask reality. His role is to produce precise, rigorous, uncompromising analyses.

What can we expect from a government that will not stop undermining the Parliamentary Budget Officer along with every other aspect of parliamentary democracy?

The government and the Prime Minister have never ceased to abuse the Parliament of Canadians. In 2008, they broke their own law on fixed election dates. They prorogued Parliament twice in order to circumvent the Commons, and they refused to hand over the F-35 documents despite a House order. They used time allocation or closure 32 times since the 2011 election. They forced committees to meet in camera, hidden from the public, for important debates and witness selection. They made improper use of omnibus budget bills to alter acts of Parliament that had little to do with the budget. They attacked the Veterans Ombudsman. Then we had Bev Oda misleading Parliament on the serious question of who altered a federal document.

Faced with a government that openly displays such contempt for parliamentary democracy, that refuses to hear any criticism, that is so suspicious of independent thought and is so afraid of the truth, any measures to help strengthen our Canadian parliamentary institutions deserve our attention.

That is why Bill C-476 should be examined, supported in principle and thoroughly scrutinized in committee. In addition to being very useful for the future of the parliamentary budget office, which is a new institution, the debate on this bill and all the questions it raises could—or so we hope—incite the government to really think about the true meaning of parliamentary democracy.

[Andrew Saxton, Conservative, North Vancouver, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in response to the motion from the hon. member on Bill C-476, an act that would make the Parliamentary Budget Officer an officer of Parliament.

With this act, my hon. colleague opposite wants to completely change the structure and mandate of the Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer.

If this bill were to succeed, it would take the Parliamentary Budget Officer out of the Library of Parliament and establish the position instead as a separate officer of Parliament, with its own departmental organization and spending authorizations. My question is simply this: why do we need to change the mandate and governance structure of the Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer when they are serving their intended purpose?

I would like to remind the members of this House that it was this government that established this office in the first place, and making it part of the Library of Parliament was a key element of our Federal Accountability Act.

As part of the Library of Parliament, this office operates independently of the government and answers to Parliament, and it is Parliament, not the government, that approves its funding level.

As you know, Mr. Speaker, strengthening accountability and increasing transparency in Canada's public institutions has been a top priority of our government. Through amendments to the Lobbying Act, the Access to Information Act and other measures, the Federal Accountability Act and its accompanying action plan have made the Prime Minister, cabinet ministers, parliamentarians and public service employees more accountable than ever before in Canadian history.

We did not stop there. We recognized that parliamentarians and parliamentary committees needed access to independent, objective analysis and advice on economic and fiscal issues to better hold the government to account for its decisions. That is why we established, in part 2 of the Federal Accountability Act, the position of the Parliamentary Budget Officer within the Library of Parliament.

Its mandate is to provide independent analysis to the Senate and the House of Commons on the state of the nation's finances, the estimates of the government and trends in the national economy; to undertake research into the nation's finances and economy, and the estimates of the government when requested to do so by certain parliamentary committees; and, when requested to do so by a member or committee, to estimate the financial cost of any proposal that relates to a matter over which Parliament has jurisdiction.

The job of the Parliamentary Budget Officer is to give parliamentarians the information and independent analysis they need to conduct a more rigorous and informed discussion of fundamental financial and economic issues.

This, in turn, helps parliamentarians hold the government to account, and that is exactly what this officer has been mandated and resourced to do.

We may not always agree with his conclusions, but the Parliamentary Budget Officer has sparked debate and enriched the political dialogue in Canada. Regardless of whether the PBO's conclusions sometimes differ from those of the government, what is important is that Parliament now has its own objective source of analysis and research on fiscal and economic matters that is prepared independently from the government. This is a sign of the strength and maturity of our Canadian democracy.

However, the changes proposed in Bill C-476 from the hon. member opposite would have several serious impacts on this office. For example, because of the vague, broadly worded and proactive mandate proposed for the PBO, the position will become less responsive to the research and analytical needs of parliamentarians. At the same time, it will create confusion between the respective roles of the PBO and the Auditor General. We could also expect to see some duplication of functions between the Parliamentary Budget Officer and the Library of Parliament and a lack of alignment between the services provided to parliamentarians. We would also very likely see an increase in the costs associated with the PBO and increased draws on the fiscal framework and government appropriations.

If this bill is passed, the office will become a separate department in its own right, with its own staffing and administrative support requirements. This means more of the PBO's funding would be devoted to bureaucracy—particularly for services such as corporate administrative support for information technology, which are currently shared with the Library of Parliament—rather than to providing services to parliamentarians.

The government understands the importance of accountability and transparency. That is why, when we established this office, we made it fully independent of the government in its operations and funding. I am confident that, under its current governance structure, this office will continue to play a vital role in strengthening accountability in Canada’s public institutions.

There is an old adage that says, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

Let us put this matter into perspective. Why tinker with the government's structure of the Parliamentary Budget Officer when we have economic priorities to achieve?

More than 900,000 net new jobs have been created in Canada since July 2009. Our priority is creating more jobs, more economic growth and more long-term prosperity for Canadians.

We are on the right track. Canadians and parliamentarians are well served by the office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer. The Library of Parliament has launched the necessary process to find the next Parliamentary Budget Officer, and the government has appointed the current parliamentary librarian to the position on an interim basis. She will capably guide the office until the appointment of the next Parliamentary Budget Officer.

Our intention is not to remove this position from the Library of Parliament, where it has the mandate, independence and resources it needs to fulfill its mandate. Our intention is to leave well enough alone and continue focusing on creating jobs, growth and long-term prosperity for Canadian families.

[Andrew Saxton, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board and for Western Economic Diversification]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in response to the motion from the hon. member opposite on Bill C-476.

First, I see he is leaving the House at this time. He is afraid to hear what I will say.