Evidence of meeting #146 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 plan.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Scarborough—Agincourt, Lib.
What were the results of the pilot project to identify the gaps and improve the process in preparation of this electoral campaign costing? Do you know about the pilot project?
Senior Director, Costing and Budgetary Analysis, Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer
That was for budget 2018. We did embark on a pilot project to actually run through the entire budget, all 155 measures, and identify those we thought would require a costing, or could be subject to a PBO costing. Of those, we identified 19. Of those 19, we were able to do 11 within a relatively short period of time. This was good for the office. Historically, it's taken between four to six weeks on average to actually turn around a report for something that's fairly straightforward, so we definitely reduced our turnaround times.
That being said, it did become evident there were capacity gaps in the office. In particular, you're looking at corporate income tax as well as the area of employment insurance. These were areas where we actually dedicated additional resources to build additional capacity to ensure that, hopefully, for the upcoming fall economic statement as well as budget 2019, as opposed to batting 50%, we were actually batting closer to 100% or so.
Conservative
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Mr. Chair, I want to do a bit of committee business. I have a notice of motion I want to introduce. It's from September 28.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Tom Lukiwski
This is Mr. McCauley's motion of Friday, September 28, 2018. It is in order.
Are you planning on moving it now?
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Tom Lukiwski
Paul will distribute copies of it, so that everyone knows what you're moving.
Mr. McCauley.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Colleagues, seeing as we have committed to do a study on public service hiring, I'd like to add this in. Basically, it's to add two full days to review the hiring of veterans. It's been in the news recently. There was a rather uncomplimentary article by Murray Brewster the other day. The headline reads, “Critics blast Ottawa's post-military jobs program for sidelining medical discharges”.
A National Post headline refers to concerns that federal jobs for injured military personnel are going to senior staff and not the military themselves. A Globe and Mail headline refers to disabled veterans waiting on a priority list for public service jobs. Also, the Globe and Mail refers to disabled veterans are finding doors shut to jobs in the federal civil service.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Can we pile it in at the same time as we're doing the broader public service one?
Liberal
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Tom Lukiwski
Yes, I was going to say, seeing as I have no one on the speakers list, we'll just go to a vote on Mr. McCauley's motion.
(Motion agreed to)
Conservative
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Tom Lukiwski
Mr. McCauley, I didn't even dock your time for that motion.
You have five minutes with the PBO.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
That's wonderful of you.
We talked about a fixed election date. This is one of the recommendations from the OGGO report on the estimates. Could you, and maybe Mr. Jacques as well, just walk us through how you think it would work if we went to fixed budget dates? We've brought it up before and the comment from certain officials was that it would be merely busy work and not really help the process along.
I've seen how Australia, even without a fixed budget date for 99 of the last 100 years, including during two serious wars, managed to get a budget in the same period year after year.
Just walk us through how you would see this working for us, timing-wise, working with Treasury Board and Finance, etc.
Parliamentary Budget Officer, Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer
I would see it being probably a February budget. Having seen a couple of budget cycles in my life, I would say that it could be in January, but February would probably be the latest you could realistically have a budget and have funding or initiatives in the budget reflected in the mains.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
So February, with the mains introduced at the same time?
Parliamentary Budget Officer, Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer
Probably a bit later, if you leave enough time for TBS officials to include budget initiatives to be included in the budget, so that when the budget gets debated in the House shortly thereafter, probably sometime in early April, you have main estimates that fully reflect budget proposals.
In the meantime, you have interim supply to keep the government going, but in April, committees and Parliament debate the mains, and the mains fully reflect budget initiatives. That's how, in a nutshell, I would see that.
That would require close collaboration between Finance and the Treasury Board Secretariat before the budget. Finance could not work in isolation on developing budget proposals, but my understanding is that Finance and TBS already have improved working relationships in the pre-budget period. They would probably need to bring that one step further.
Conservative
Parliamentary Budget Officer, Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer
Yes, there's one important drawback. It removes the government's flexibility to move the budget cycle to respond to unforeseen events. For example, if there is uncertainty in the world markets or if there is a financial crisis that has just developed.
Conservative
Parliamentary Budget Officer, Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer
Yes, there is always—
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
If we just introduced a budget a couple of months ago, and a financial disaster happened today, we wouldn't say let's wait until next February.
Parliamentary Budget Officer, Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer
No, the government always—
Conservative
