Evidence of meeting #28 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 40th Parliament, 3rd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was information.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Geoff Regan Liberal Halifax West, NS
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Page, thank you for appearing today with your colleagues.
Your assessment indicates that from this one piece of legislation, the Truth in Sentencing Act, there will be an increase of approximately $1 billion in costs to the Government of Canada, for which the government hasn't budgeted. There's no budgeting whatsoever from this one act. That's very disturbing. But as I understand it, when you were first asked to do this Mr. McTeague gave you a list of government bills related to sentencing that were brought forward, and I think all passed in 2009. I don't recall the list.
Can you remind us what that list was? I know there have been other bills this year. This was only up to December 31 last year, and there are more bills this year that would add to that cost. Can you remind us of the rest of that list, or how many other bills there were in Mr. McTeague's request? It was Mr. Holland's request, pardon me.
Parliamentary Budget Officer, Library of Parliament
Yes, it was Mr. Holland. We're just checking to see if we have the original request letter from Mr. Holland.
Liberal
Geoff Regan Liberal Halifax West, NS
If it's $1 billion from this one bill--and I realize you decided it was too much to look at all these bills at once--I shudder to think what the cost would be for all of these bills.
Go ahead.
Parliamentary Budget Officer, Library of Parliament
Yes, sir, we have a listing. I go back to the overview from our original report on sentencing, with regard to the Truth in Sentencing Act, and look at section 4, which states:
The legislation in question includes several bills from the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session (January 26, 2009 to December 30, 2009), including bills C-2, C-14, C-15, C-25, C-36, C-42 and C-43.
For Bill C-25 we did provide a fiscal impact cost. Obviously there was a number of bills. We focused on one that we thought was quite significant.
Liberal
Geoff Regan Liberal Halifax West, NS
So you listed six bills, if I recall correctly, and we know that just one of them was $1 billion.
You said you costed Bill C-25. How much was that? How much did you find was the unbudgeted cost?
Parliamentary Budget Officer, Library of Parliament
For Bill C-25--this is the report that we were referring to today--as you said, sir, it's roughly $1 billion a year in terms of fiscal impact. Roughly $600 million of that is operations and maintenance, and most of the balance of that is capital.
Liberal
Geoff Regan Liberal Halifax West, NS
All right.
One of the things that concern me deeply is your comment today that “parliamentarians should be concerned about the lack of transparency to Parliament in the costing of the Truth in Sentencing Act by the Government of Canada”.
You know, it makes me wonder if we need a “truth in budgeting” act around here. What we see is the government bringing out a budget claiming they're going to do one thing in terms of deficit--they're talking about a deficit this year of $49 billion--and, going forward, reducing that deficit. But we see that there are costs here, going forward, that they aren't even including in their process.
Obviously that's very worrisome, but it's also worrisome that you can't get the information you need.
On April 12 of this year, you came before us and in your presentation said that your office “requires committee support to obtain the required information for decision-support to members”. In other words, to assist parliamentarians in doing our job of assessing what the government is doing, you had to come here and ask the committee for its help to get the government to give it to you.
What we see is that, since then, you still haven't gotten that support in that Correctional Services Canada has basically thumbed their noses at you--and, through you, in my view, Parliament--when you've asked for information from them.
Now, tell me, did you go to the minister? When you couldn't get support, when Correctional Services Canada wouldn't meet with you, did you ask the Minister of Public Safety for his assistance in getting his department to meet with you?
Parliamentary Budget Officer, Library of Parliament
Sir, we were working with the commissioner of Correctional Services Canada.
But more generally speaking, in terms of when we were told--in response to your first point, sir, about helping this committee look at issues of fiscal risk and service-level risk--on two different occasions we dealt with the Treasury Board Secretariat. One was at the ministerial level, the final result of which was our being told that to get five-year reference levels, to get this information and to analyze it for parliamentarians, would be a cabinet confidence. That's effectively what we were hearing from Correctional Services Canada, that the cost of Bill C-25 was a cabinet confidence.
Liberal
Geoff Regan Liberal Halifax West, NS
And you heard the same thing from the ministerial office, you're saying; the minister's office told you the same thing.
Parliamentary Budget Officer, Library of Parliament
We met with the president of the Treasury Board as well. We were grateful to get that meeting, to talk about why we needed this information. We wanted to make our case face to face.
Again, we think that given the nature of our expenditures--we're talking about roughly $250 billion a year, 95 departments and agencies--to provide an effective job scrutinizing the estimate, we need reference levels, not just what is in for 2010-11 but for the planning period. The response we got back from the Treasury Board Secretariat was that it was a cabinet confidence.
Conservative
Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON
Thank you very much.
Mr. Page, it's my first opportunity to hear you testify, so I've been quite interested. But I've also been a little bit surprised at some of the things you've said, particularly in answer to Mr. Warkentin.
I quite well understand that it's not within your purview to comment on the intangible benefits of a bill like the Truth in Sentencing Act. Some of them are obvious. Whether it's safer streets, or the fact that Canadians will have more confidence in the justice system, or the fact that we are being more sensitive to the concerns of victims--those are all intangible benefits of that act, which, I understand, is not within your purview to comment on.
But did I understand you to say, sir, that you don't consider it within your purview to comment on the fiscal benefits of this legislation?
Parliamentary Budget Officer, Library of Parliament
No, sir, not the fiscal benefits; I think you'd probably be referring to the economic benefits.
Parliamentary Budget Officer, Library of Parliament
We are quite comfortable providing fiscal analysis in the context of our being legislative budget officers.
Conservative
Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON
So in terms of the reduction in costs that may occur within Correctional Services as a result of this act, are you saying that you're not capable, or it's not within your purview to consider that?
Parliamentary Budget Officer, Library of Parliament
Our understanding from legislative budget offices across the world, including the United States, South Korea, Mexico, and there are a number of fiscal councils in Europe, sir, right now, is that they tend to be very hesitant to look at the benefit-style costs I think you're referring to.
Conservative
Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON
So, for example, if in fact the pre-trial custody periods that we are now experiencing are reduced because of the Truth in Sentencing Act because people are no longer gaming the system and lengthening their time before their pleas, if those costs are reduced, you don't consider it part of your job to tell us about that?
Parliamentary Budget Officer, Library of Parliament
No, if we have evidence on those types of costs, sir, we would definitely build them into our models.
Conservative
Parliamentary Budget Officer, Library of Parliament
Did we look for that? At this point, sir, and based on the information that we were able to get from—
