Evidence of meeting #28 for Finance in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was families.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Parliamentary Budget Officer, Library of Parliament
I don't know if there's an appeal. It's a matter of negotiation. We—
Conservative
Lisa Raitt Conservative Milton, ON
I think it's a breach of personal privilege of a member, as I read the Parliament of Canada Act, so I would like very much to have an answer to the question.
Parliamentary Budget Officer, Library of Parliament
The question is, as you said.... You've quoted the act exactly, so it is what it is. On the negotiations, we don't often say no, but we will say, for example, “Listen, for this project we are overwhelmed right now; we're swamped with other requests; we follow the order of priorities, and therefore we have to postpone.” Sometimes the member herself or himself will say that he or she doesn't need it and we'll refer it to the Library of Parliament research service. That has happened.
Right now what is happening is that, more than before, we're really facing a very high flow of requests, probably because this government has said that they will cost everything in all the legislation, so of course we're going to be facing this situation where we won't have.... We already don't have all the resources to do all these projects in a timely fashion.
Conservative
Lisa Raitt Conservative Milton, ON
I know you haven't read it, but I would be very interested to know if the PBO has intentions to take a look at the FSR from the Bank of Canada and comment on it.
Assistant Parliamentary Budget Officer, Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer, Library of Parliament
We normally do not actually make comments on Bank of Canada reports. They have done their reports and they're out there. If there is anything that is related to the work that we do, then obviously we take that into account, but we do not necessarily go out and release a report commenting on the Bank of Canada.
Conservative
Lisa Raitt Conservative Milton, ON
Yes. It just seems to me.... Given that both you and the Bank of Canada have identified high household indebtedness as a risk that we're facing in this country, and given that the Bank of Canada says today that the biggest threat to the financial system—because it's their financial system review—is that homeowners could run into trouble in the event of a severe recession, or a sharp increase in unemployment, it seems that both entities, from different points of view, are telling us that high levels of debt are bad in this country when it comes to Canadian households, and that there is a significant risk.
Assistant Parliamentary Budget Officer, Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer, Library of Parliament
Certainly, that's an issue. As Chris mentioned earlier, they look at the households in detail, at the micro level, and that's their conclusion. What we have looked at has been at more of an aggregate level, but for a similar conclusion.
Conservative
NDP
The Vice-Chair NDP Guy Caron
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I would like to continue along the same lines, given that the matter interests me greatly.
Mr. Fréchette, how many employees do you have at the moment?
Parliamentary Budget Officer, Library of Parliament
We have 16 analysts and two administrative assistants.
Guy Caron NDP Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC
These are the people who have to do all the work you are asked to do. That includes government bills and any analysis that you consider appropriate to do when submitted by members of Parliament, no matter what party they represent. Eventually, you may have to take on a new responsibility, that of analyzing all the financial programs of political parties during elections.
I just did some quick research on the Congressional Budget Office in the United States. They have 250 economists and various other employees.
I have a harder question for you but I am going to ask it anyway. What should be the ideal staff make-up of the Parliamentary Budget Office in order for it to be able to fulfill its present and potential responsibilities?
Parliamentary Budget Officer, Library of Parliament
That is an excellent question. It is part of our exploratory discussions.
Let me give you an example. When considering an independent organization like the Parliamentary Budget Office, the International Monetary Fund says that, in a Parliament of the size of Canada’s, just to analyze expenses, you need 20 or so people. That does not even include the complete financial and economic analysis of government activities. The IMF identified the analysis of expenses as one of the areas where the need is greater. That is very resource-intensive.
As for election platforms, Ms. Raitt raised an interesting question. At the moment, it is our duty to answer the questions that parliamentarians ask. However, you can imagine what receiving questions during an election campaign means for us. Clearly, we need a change in the act because, technically, when the election writ is dropped, we can no longer do anything.
Given that the PBO in Australia has to do it very quickly—they do not have election campaigns that last 11 weeks each time – their staff, normally about 30 people, doubles. They go and look for people in government departments to help with the work that has to be done over an extremely short period.
NDP
Guy Caron NDP Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC
Could you give us an example? I am not asking you to give me the name of a member of Parliament who may have submitted a request, but rather of the studies that you have been asked for and that you have had to turn down because of a lack of resources.
It is a confidential matter because, when the request is made to you, you do not publish the name of the member. You only do so at the end. However, you said that you sometimes have refused to do some studies.
Parliamentary Budget Officer, Library of Parliament
We might refuse to do some studies because they are not part of our mandate. For example, we had requests that were more to do with provincial economic matters. As we do not cover provincial economic matters as such—that is not one of the federal government's activities—we therefore refused.
Have we refused because of a lack of resources when it was perhaps a legitimate question? Yes, in cases when the question dealt with amounts under $50 million. We would refused then because the financial impact was not significant enough.
NDP
Guy Caron NDP Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC
I would like to ask a hypothetical question, but it is still relevant for the committee's work, because we have done a lot of work on the KPMG file and on aggressive tax avoidance mechanisms.
With your current staff, would you be in a position to conduct a study that could include the taxes lost to Canada and the impact of aggressive tax avoidance, as well as any other possibly debatable mechanism in the tax aspects of Canadian finances?
Would you currently have sufficient staff to undertake such a study?
Parliamentary Budget Officer, Library of Parliament
We worked for three years on a request from a parliamentarian—a senator to be precise—about the tax gap. It covered all aspects of the tax gap, not just tax havens. It focused on everything that the Canada Revenue Agency does not receive and should receive as revenue. Because of a lack of data—we had discussions with the department that were not always productive—we gave up on the idea as soon as the senator dropped his question.
At the moment, we are still doing an analysis of the tax gap in terms of the GST. However, we could not conduct an analysis of KPMG, as journalists have been able to do. In fact, we could probably not conduct one with the number of people that we have at the moment without dropping other projects of a higher priority.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
Thank you, both.
Guy, you mentioned there are 250 people with the U.S. Congressional Budget Office who are at committees. I know the chair of the agriculture committee has 61 staff. You'd love that, wouldn't you?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
The vice-chair has somewhere around 40 staff. It's a different system by far.
Mr. MacKinnon, you have a couple of questions.
Is there anyone else?
Liberal
Steven MacKinnon Liberal Gatineau, QC
The CRA's Commissioner of Revenue came to meet with us after our evaluation of the KPMG affair. He told us about the agency's efforts and initiatives to better define and quantify the tax gap. If I am not mistaken, he has launched a consultation process.
Have you had access to those consultations, formally or informally? Are you aware of the process and do you approve of it?
Parliamentary Budget Officer, Library of Parliament
We have had discussions about it with the Canada Revenue Agency.
Parliamentary Budget Officer, Library of Parliament
I cannot say whether we support the process or not. The CRA officials presented their methodology to us. We worked in close cooperation at one stage because a request had been received and we had encouraged the agency to work with us. The person who asked the question, a senator, encouraged the agency to work with us.
Discussions of that kind are ongoing.
Liberal