Jason Jacques is the senior director of costing. You will hear a lot about costing in the future. He is also the PBO's CFO. He's wearing many hats, so that's one of them. Sloane Mask is deputy CFO.
Those are my two frugal CFOs. I have to be careful when I speak about money.
Thank you, Mr. Chair, for the invitation. I also want to thank the vice-chair, as well as the members.
We are happy to present the Supplementary Estimates (C) 2017-18, and the Main Estimates, 2018-19—at least the interim parts—of the Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer.
As you know, amendments to the Parliament of Canada Act last year resulted in the position of Parliamentary Budget Officer being recognized as an independent officer of Parliament. The order in council of September 21, 2017, established its status as such and confirmed that its legislative mandate would be expanded to include the costing of party election platforms.
September 21 was also the date that marked the separation of the PBO and the Library of Parliament, which meant that the PBO had to quickly establish its own administrative processes and internal controls.
As you are aware, the order in council also added your committee to the list of the already three standing committees mentioned in the legislation. Therefore, this committee is now in good company with the FINA committee, the public accounts, and the national finance in the Senate.
Every separation involves a certain level of risk and uncertainty that can affect ongoing operations. Given that new requirements were also introduced at the same time to produce analyses as part of its services to parliamentary committees, senators, and MPs, and that the new requirements included additional administrative responsibilities resulting from the new legislation, such as annual reports on activities, work plans, submitting reports to both Speakers when we produce our own self-initiated reports, it was strategically imperative to act quickly and decisively to maintain services to parliamentarians without interruption throughout the transition.
Given the situation, a decision was made to negotiate with the Library of Parliament administration to have it provide administrative services in the short and medium term. This decision was based on the following criteria. Services at competitive costs compared with other organizations; the political neutrality of the Library of Parliament; and the experience it has acquired since 2005 in providing similar administrative services to another independent officer of Parliament, the office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner, and its predecessor.
The added benefit of having a team of Library managers already familiar with the needs of the office of the PBO ensured that all PBO analysts and managers could continue their analysis activities during the transition. The flexibility to revisit the administrative agreements with the Library after the 2019 election was also an important criteria.
And personally, for me it was very important to maintain the option to remain a part of the House of Commons IT environment for protection of data, not only while Parliament is sitting, but also during election periods when political parties may decide to submit their campaign proposals on a confidential basis to have their financial costs evaluated.
To ensure a smooth transition, an amount of $731,000 was submitted to, and was approved by, the speakers of the Senate and the House of Commons as part of the supplementary estimates (C). A business case explaining the basis for the budget requests was provided to the speakers, and also to members of the committee.
In the table you were given, the amount of $731,000 was broken down as follows: $39,600 is set aside for additional analytical capacity; $432,213 for goods and services expenditures associated with the new independence requirements, such as licenses and contracts for IT, financial and compensation services; $218,839 will go to transition staff; finally, $40,575 will go to changes to the employee benefit plan.
I would like now to ask my colleague, Jason, just to walk you through the interim budget, and after that we will be open for questions.