Yes.
Evidence of meeting #121 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was pco.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #121 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was pco.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:30 p.m.
Parliamentary Budget Officer, Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer
It's probably because they have less research capacity. A good example is that we are contributing a lot on infrastructure for the Senate side right now—
12:35 p.m.
Parliamentary Budget Officer, Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer
—for the other side. The reason is that the national finance Senate committee decided to monitor the infrastructure closely. We do a lot of work. We monitor the infrastructure. We have appeared very regularly. We are invited on a regular basis to help them control...because they have difficulties in understanding where the money goes and flows, in terms of the infrastructure.
It's the same thing with the budget. Jason, my colleague, was there yesterday on supplementary estimates (C) to explain the report that we published on Monday, because the senators had many questions about DND and infrastructure precisely.
For now, the senators are getting more organized. They are getting more interested in some of these businesses. They're really digging deep in terms of some of these issues, so they are becoming important clients.
12:35 p.m.
Liberal
Kyle Peterson Liberal Newmarket—Aurora, ON
I take it that any of them is allowed to reach out to you with requests for whatever they see fit?
12:35 p.m.
Parliamentary Budget Officer, Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer
All members of Parliament, from the House of Commons or the Senate, individually can ask us questions about the costing or the estimates. Basically those are the questions they have. The four committees that I mentioned initially, including yours now, in addition to costing a proposal and estimates, can ask any question on the national economy and finance.
12:35 p.m.
Liberal
Kyle Peterson Liberal Newmarket—Aurora, ON
Okay, thank you for that.
The business case that's referred to here. When was this business case developed? Recently, I gather.
12:35 p.m.
Chief Financial Officer and Senior Director, Costing and Budgetary Analysis, Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer
It was. The business case was developed over the course of the summer once C-44 had received royal assent. We finalized it at that point.
12:35 p.m.
Liberal
Kyle Peterson Liberal Newmarket—Aurora, ON
Okay.
These figures are also current, and you would have made any adjustments if they were necessary by now.
12:35 p.m.
Chief Financial Officer and Senior Director, Costing and Budgetary Analysis, Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer
Yes, very much so.
12:35 p.m.
Liberal
Kyle Peterson Liberal Newmarket—Aurora, ON
Thank you for that.
You would basically see the jump from $3.7 million in 2017-18 to $7 million in 2018-19 stay steady at sort of the $7 million in 2019-20 and then drops to $6.5 million.
The inference I'm drawing from this, and correct me if I'm wrong, is that there's basically a five...half a million dollars. Will that be the cost of the election platform analysis that might be done? Is that why there's that little drop after the election year?
12:35 p.m.
Parliamentary Budget Officer, Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer
We have $500,000 for the election platforms in terms of support and analysis, and also in terms of what we will need. It's going to be very intense. People already know that. There will be no vacation during summer 2019.
12:35 p.m.
Liberal
12:35 p.m.
Parliamentary Budget Officer, Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer
We won't be at barbeques.
12:35 p.m.
Parliamentary Budget Officer, Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer
We have a reserve of $500,000 that we plan. Again, this is something new for everybody so we don't know if we will need it. But it's a one shot deal in 2019-20 and the speakers agreed and understood. The two speakers, because we submitted our request to the two speakers, said yes. Nobody really knows if it will be high or low.
12:35 p.m.
Liberal
Kyle Peterson Liberal Newmarket—Aurora, ON
Right. You have no benchmark to use it against. This is the first time.
On to a more general question on that. Do you think the platform costing is an appropriate role for a parliamentary officer to undertake?
12:35 p.m.
Parliamentary Budget Officer, Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer
Mostafa? Let's start with the optimist and then go to the realistic views on this. We have different views, but Mostafa will talk about it.
March 1st, 2018 / 12:35 p.m.
Mostafa Askari Deputy Parliamentary Budget Officer, Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer
From the beginning, when this idea came up, we had some concerns. The main concern is really the independence and the impartiality of the office that we are a bit worried about because we are being involved in an election process.
There are people who think that having independent costing of the election platform is a good idea. Whether it should be with the PBO or another organization, that's a different question. It's part of our mandate now, so we have to deal with it.
We are getting ready for it. We're trying all kinds of things. We're actually doing a pilot right now trying to do all the independent costing of all the budget measures that were announced this past Tuesday over a short period of time, just to test and see how we can do this, see the gaps, and based on those we can actually improve our processes and how we do things.
12:35 p.m.
Liberal
Kyle Peterson Liberal Newmarket—Aurora, ON
It would be fraught with challenges I think, as Mr. Drouin mentioned. Some party might come out with a platform item every day or every week for the campaign. Will the analysis be done as they came out? I mean, you would want to look at some of them at the macro level and wait for all the announcements to get a full analysis of it, wouldn't you? Or would you have to do each one as they become requested to be studied?
12:40 p.m.
Deputy Parliamentary Budget Officer, Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer
Well, that's one of the reasons we provided that guideline for parties to look at, and requested they give us some comments on it. Certainly there are limits on what we can do, and how fast we can do those things during the election period. There will be cases where we have to refuse to do it, and the legislation gives us that option but we have to provide a reason for that.
12:40 p.m.
Deputy Parliamentary Budget Officer, Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer
For example, if a party comes the last day before the election, we obviously won't be able to do it.
12:40 p.m.
Deputy Parliamentary Budget Officer, Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer
Not only do we have to have the time to do the analysis, we have to get it translated, and have the option to have the time to release it publicly. So, you can't really do it within two or three days before the election.
