Finance Committee on May 29th, 2017

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

I have one last little point.

The caretaker provision is applied to a government that does exist. It does not dissolve with Parliament. There is still a need, in case there is a war or a national emergency, to have certain powers available to deal with extrageneous or natural disasters as they come. However, the parliamentary budget office is under Parliament. If Parliament itself is dissolved, I just can't see why we would want to have one element of Parliament that is not like the rest of it. To me, that's not a great choice.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Seeing no further discussion, we'll vote on PV-12.

(Amendment negatived)

Amendment BQ-5 was withdrawn.

We'll go to amendment NDP-12.

As a technical matter, if NDP-12 is adopted, the question cannot be put on PV-13 due to line conflicts.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Mr. Chair, this is a significant amendment to the bill under the mandate in a general election.

As you know, a number of people have talked about the parliamentary budget officer's new power to assess election election platform costing or proposals made by election candidates during a campaign. That part of the bill is very problematic in many respects. Without listing all the problems, we can mention a few related to the fact that departments could refuse to take steps to assess election platform costing. It is said that departments must cooperate with the parliamentary budget officer, so that he can carry out an assessment of platform costing. Therefore, a form of confidentiality would be lost for political parties, since departments would obtain that information because they would be asked to work with the parliamentary budget officer on cost assessment.

We should also point out that that, given the bill's wording, the parliamentary budget officer may be inundated with requests from across the country on hundreds of issues and would very likely not have the time to respond to all of them, especially during an election campaign. Everyone agrees on the fact that, normally, a campaign does not last 78 days, but from 35 to 40 days. Although the bill proposes that the parliamentary budget officer be given a certain amount of time before the election to do the work, I feel that the time period is very limited, if we take into consideration the number of requests he may receive.

It is for those reasons that, instead of simply voting against the parliamentary budget officer's mandate during elections, I am proposing an amendment whose goal is to considerably change the work he will be asked to do during that period. Simply put, two changes would be made.

Paragraph (a) of my proposal suggests to make “a five-year economic and fiscal projection that may be used by the public to assess the economic and fiscal impacts of a party's election platform”. My amendment talks about 120 days before the date for an election, which is technically fixed under the Canada Elections Act. Therefore, 120 days before the election, the parliamentary budget officer could publish economic and fiscal projections for the next five years. That way, once the political parties present their financial plan, financial framework and platform, the public could compare them to the the parliamentary budget officer's projections for the next five years.

Paragraph (b) seeks to establish a system resembling the current system used by the parliamentary budget officer. If you go to www.readyreckoner.ca, you will see that he has set up an interactive tool to assess the financial impacts of certain changes, such as changes to tax rates or increases in tax credits, and all sorts of data that can be changed and adapted to get results. So the parliamentary budget officer could, under paragraph (b), do exactly that kind of work to help Canadians, the public or the media use this tool to compare political parties' proposals to his own findings. Those who wish to do so could check whether political parties are on target and whether the numbers provided in platforms are accurate or valid, whether they have a value according to economists—in this case, the parliamentary budget officer. The public could compare the data and make its own assessment without the parliamentary budget officer being involved in the political process as a player in federal politics during an election campaign, a role in which he would be asked to provide and explain figures, assess platforms and publish reports. How many reports would there be during a campaign? There could very well be 50 of them; I don't know. The parliamentary budget officer would become a political actor.

This amendment would help him remain completely outside of political debates. However, the public, Canadians and the media could at least use this interactive tool to compare the parties' proposals to the available economic outlook and determine whether the parties are telling the truth. It would be something of a truth test the political parties would undergo. Canadians could compare platform costing to the results provided by the assessment tool.

In a few words, those are the motives behind my amendment. I hope that we will be able to come to a compromise or find common ground. Perhaps we could meet somewhere in the middle and agree on a common solution that will make sense to me.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

I don't know. Did you see any heads nodding up and down? I hope it was for the right reason, given the time of the night.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

I saw yours.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Who wants in on this discussion?

Mr. Albas.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

I do, Mr. Chair, but if a Liberal member wants to speak to it...because it is your legislation.

[Ron Liepert, Conservative, Calgary Signal Hill, AB]

They're just here to put their hands up.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Gee, I'm really disappointed to hear that.

Mr. Chair, thank you to the member for submitting this.

First, I have a number of concerns with the whole process that's been brought forward. Let's put it out there. When a political party puts forward its platform, most Canadians would just hope that the process has been done and that good regard and some thought have been put into it. We see now more and more that economists from universities and from different think tanks will weigh in, sometimes at no cost. Sometimes political parties will actually hire someone to have it costed, and that system seems to serve Canadians well. But as positive as the current system is—and I'm sure I may not get some heads nodding on this comment—you could still have planned and costed out the commitment to run $10 billion modest deficits. The PBO could have put out a report, and you would still have elected officials for whatever reason.... I don't think we've been given a proper explanation, but the government came in and it's now running double that or in some cases triple that, depending on the time of year. I don't think having the PBO, a non-partisan office that is supposed to be helping parliamentarians understand government spending, suddenly launched into the private sphere.... Political parties do have some national component, I agree, and they're under somewhat national legislation, but mostly they're private not-for-profits that are there for democratic reasons. I don't see why we'd want to put the PBO into an area where it probably does not want to be.

Second, I talked earlier about small political parties. Now, I'm sure the NDP has a lot of sympathy for the Marxist-Leninist Party, but will those smaller parties be able to meet a certain deadline so they can have what the NDP is envisioning here? Chances are, they will not. To me, this basically puts the Liberals, the Conservatives, and the NDP—the larger parties that are used to putting together fairly broad documents that attract enough attention or that we hire people, like economists with credentials, to examine so we can put those out to the public and then have public scrutiny on them and be accountable for them....

I just fundamentally oppose the idea that we want to take a parliamentary creation, something meant to help parliamentarians understand spending by government, and now apply it to something outside of that, where it has little expertise, to do something it probably does not want to do and for which it is not going to be accountable to anyone, because—guess what—once Parliament is dissolved, are we going to be going back to the PBO to fact-check its facts? I don't think it's going to want to answer. I don't think on any amendments we've done here, even if Ms. May's amendment had been carried, that the PBO would want to be stuck in the middle of a fight over whether its costing is correct.

I just want to take this one last opportunity, Mr. Chair, to say to the government members that this should not be part of the PBO's mandate. This will cause all sorts of headaches.

For example, we were talking earlier about distributive effects. If someone puts a policy forward to, let's say, open up interprovincial trade, I've seen numbers from $5 billion to $10 billion to $150 billion a year as to what it would cost the Canadian economy. Now we're supposed to ask the PBO to somehow present to the Canadian public...and to do politicians' work and do political parties' work, especially since most small parties won't be able to do it, and then somehow it's supposed to give us the fig leaf to carry so we can say, “Look, the PBO costed it for us.”

One last time, Mr. Chair, I will appeal to the government members to please not make the PBO something it was not created to be. Help it help parliamentarians to understand the government's finances, and to understand the nation's economy and the long-term demographics we face. Whether it is through this NDP amendment or the amendments the government has proposed, I would suggest it is the wrong thing for this institution.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

You two are good. You both were within your five minutes.

Is there any further discussion?

[Robert-Falcon Ouellette, Liberal, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

I have a quick question.

Has Pierre-Luc Dusseault ever been sympathetic to or a member of the Marxist-Leninist Party of Canada?

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

No.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

I really don't know what that has to do with the budget.

(Amendment negatived [See Minutes of Proceedings])

Amendment PV-13 is defeated already, because it's consequential to PV-4.

The next one we get to of yours, Elizabeth, will be PV-14.

We're on amendment NDP-13.

Mr. Dusseault.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

I want to withdraw it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

We're on amendment LIB-8.

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

I will speak to it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

The floor is yours.

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

Mr. Chairman, as some may know re the refusal to provide information, an amendment would require that a deputy head of a department or a parent crown corporation provide the parliamentary budget officer, the PBO, with a justification in writing should he or she decline to provide input to a request for information.

Regarding the power to notify, an amendment would explicitly provide for the parliamentary budget officer to notify the Speaker of the House of Commons as well as the Speaker of the Senate and/or a relevant parliamentary committee if the PBO is of the opinion that a government institution has failed to comply with a request for information.

The proposed legislation is intended to significantly increase the amount of information that is to be provided to the PBO. Departments and parent crown corporations will be required to provide free and timely access to any information under the control of the department or the parent crown corporation as required in the performance of his or her mandate. This wider access to information is balanced by certain exceptions, including non-disclosure of personal and private information restricted under the Access to Information Act, information protected by the solicitor-client privilege, and cabinet confidences

There have been disagreements in the past between departments and the PBO over the disclosure of information and the proposed legislative attempts to address this. However, requiring written justification will create greater transparency in the relationship between the PBO and government institutions.

In addition, the PBO currently has the ability to engage the Speakers and relevant parliamentary committees should he or she feel that they are not being given access to appropriate information by any and all departments. Committees and/or other areas of interest can then, if they feel it's appropriate, request the information themselves.

This ability to engage parliamentarians is important as it provides the PBO with an appropriate parliamentary recourse mechanism and avoids having to engage the courts. The PBO's ability to engage the Speakers and committees as needed is not explicitly addressed in the proposed legislation. Therefore, in conclusion, the provision to notify provides explicit clarification that this avenue of recourse is open to the PBO.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Mr. Dusseault.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank my colleague for his statement.

Like my colleague Mr. Fergus, I would say that the intention is good. However, the amendment I plan to propose after this one—amendment NDP-14—goes much further to resolve this problem. Amendment NDP-14 actually talks about a much more strict way to manage cases where departments refuse to cooperate with the parliamentary budget officer. My amendment, which we will discuss later—unless the Liberals' amendment is adopted and I cannot put it forward it—also provides for legal recourse. During our discussions, I was given confirmation that legal recourse would be possible if a department refused to cooperate or obstructed the parliamentary budget officer's work. My amendment mentions that. It is directly in the legislation.

So I will oppose amendment LIB-8, although the intention is good. I would like to impress upon my colleagues that amendment NDP-14 is better. I invite them to support it when we discuss it later.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

We're into better and best.

We'll vote on amendment LIB-8.

(Amendment agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

We now have amendment NDP-14 on the floor.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I will be brief, since I just talked about it at length.

The amendment's purpose is to establish a requirement whereby, when financial institutions do not cooperate with the parliamentary budget officer, they would be required to inform the officer of the exception provided under paragraph (2) justifying their decision, as well as of the reason why the information in question is not covered by the exceptions provided under the Access to Information Act.

In addition, the parliamentary budget officer could inform a committee of a situation where, in his opinion, a federal institution is filibustering.

Finally, amendment NDP-14 gives the parliamentary budget officer the power to refer the case to the Federal Court under subsection 18.3(1) of the Federal Courts Act as though it were a federal board.

The goal is to clarify the parliamentary budget officer's powers, although I have been told that he could certainly seek recourse. The purpose of the amendment is to include that power in the legislation so as to guarantee that legal recourse would be possible if a federal institution were filibustering. This way, the parliamentary budget officer could take the matter before the court to obtain an order so that the documents he needs to do his work would be given to him.

I hope that my colleagues will support the amendment.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Thank you, Pierre. It's on the floor.

Is there any further discussion?

(Amendment negatived [See Minutes of Proceedings])

Next, we have amendment PV-14. Go ahead, Elizabeth May.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Chair, this amendment deals with the removal of some of the restrictions that were found regarding the determination of information that is required for the performance of his or her mandate. This is the root of many of the disputes that have happened between the PBO and federal departments. The PBO views this as reducing effectiveness.

What I've done in this amendment is to simply delete those words following “corporation”, at the top of page 87, “that is required for the performance of his or her mandate” to allow a more reasonable scope for the PBO's work.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Go ahead, Mr. Albas.