Evidence of meeting #95 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 see.
A video is available from Parliament.
Financial Analyst, Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer, Library of Parliament
Well, they see the information in the finance department's budget, so they make their planning based on that. They are not waiting on Parliament to approve it. They see it when the finance department presents their budget.
NDP
Erin Weir NDP Regina—Lewvan, SK
Okay.
In terms of the question about reducing the amount of time for parliamentarians to scrutinize the estimates, I think one of your answers, Mr. Askari, was that, to the extent that spending might be delayed until estimates prevent it in November, there really wouldn't be a missed opportunity to review it because there wouldn't be any proposal to review. But let's imagine that the government succeeded in including 100% of budget measures in the main estimates. I think the question is, would that period of time between the middle of April and then early June be enough for parliamentarians to review it all?
Assistant Parliamentary Budget Officer, Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer, Library of Parliament
You would have about eight weeks, I believe, to review and approve, if that was the case. I think that's just slightly more than what you have right now.... No, it's not. I'm sorry; I was wrong there.
The problem is that right now you have more time, but the main estimates don't include anything from the budget, so there isn't really much to discuss. You have to wait for the supplementary estimates to come out to really do your scrutiny and the due diligence. The supplementary estimates (A) come in May, so you have about six weeks for that; whereas, under the current system, if everything is included in the mains, then you will have about eight weeks to discuss and approve.
NDP
Erin Weir NDP Regina—Lewvan, SK
Yes, it just sounds like, if the government's proposal works as advertised, we'll have less time to review quite a bit more spending.
Assistant Parliamentary Budget Officer, Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer, Library of Parliament
Exactly.
NDP
Erin Weir NDP Regina—Lewvan, SK
I think we've all been assuming that probably the government won't succeed in including everything in the main estimates, but if it did, that would be quite a lot for parliamentarians to go through.
Assistant Parliamentary Budget Officer, Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer, Library of Parliament
One of the issues that I think was raised in 2012 was the idea that fixing the budget date before the main estimates and at the end of February would give parliamentarians more time to evaluate the different estimates and different measures. That is obviously not part of the plan right now, so you're still not going to get more time.
The time that parliamentarians have to review the main estimates has always been an issue. One solution in 2012 was to move the budget date back, and then you would have most of the measures included in the main estimates from the end of February to early June, and you will have time to look at the main estimates, but that's obviously not part of the plan.
Conservative
Liberal
Brenda Shanahan Liberal Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC
Mr. Chair, I'd like to give my time to my colleague Mr. Whalen.
Liberal
Nick Whalen Liberal St. John's East, NL
Thank you, Ms. Shanahan, and thanks, Mr. Chair.
I might disagree with the last statement that obviously it's not part of the plan, because the President of the Treasury Board has been before us. He did initially ask for until May, and then over the course of a couple of fiscal cycles to have the opportunity to bring the preparation of the documents back up to where they currently stand so that they would be able to achieve more of the recommendations outlined in the 2012 report.
In the fact that this current change to the standing order doesn't mandate that, the current state of the proposed change to the Standing Orders is perfectly consistent with having the budget tabled before March 1 and the main estimates tabled along with the budget once the machinery of government has had two full fiscal cycles to deal with the change.
Would you not agree that the changes are consistent with the recommendations of ultimately having budgets and estimates tabled both before the start of the fiscal year and in an aligned fashion?
Assistant Parliamentary Budget Officer, Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer, Library of Parliament
That would be ideal if that happens, obviously, but as I said, the four pillars and the proposal on the table right now is not for that; we're changing the main estimates date and not fixing the budget date. My comment wasn't based on that—
Liberal
Nick Whalen Liberal St. John's East, NL
But you would agree that the change, for having two years of this date and then going back to the dates as they were, is consistent with ultimately achieving the recommendations set out in the 2012 report of having the budget and the estimates tabled at the same time before the start of the next fiscal year.
Assistant Parliamentary Budget Officer, Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer, Library of Parliament
I can't really say it's consistent unless we see the results at the end of the day—
Assistant Parliamentary Budget Officer, Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer, Library of Parliament
—to see whether they are actually able to achieve that.
Liberal
Nick Whalen Liberal St. John's East, NL
I think everyone here has been consistent in the view, including you, obviously, that everyone wants us to be better off as parliamentarians and as the Canadian public in being able to review the financial information once this is all said and done. However, the proof of the pudding is going to be in the eating as to whether Mr. Brison, Treasury Board, and Finance achieve the goals they've set for themselves. Obviously, not all the intricacies of the goals have been laid out before us, but the four-pillar plan, the 2012 recommendations, and Mr. Brison's extensive consultations before this committee have laid out a path that I believe will achieve the goals.
There are pitfalls. You've already outlined some of them. I've been concerned about staffing. I asked Treasury Board whether they felt that they were appropriately staffed to implement this change, and they said yes. What are your feelings about whether they should staff up additional resources to implement the changes being proposed?
Parliamentary Budget Officer, Library of Parliament
I cannot really comment on the staffing at Treasury Board.
I want to come back to your question and to the previous question about timing and this committee, but also the staffing of this committee. If you do see, as you say, that the path of this reform will drive this committee to have a greater role to play and have all the information right at the beginning of the fiscal year, as recommended in the past by this committee and other committees, you're going to need not only more time but more resources to scrutinize all this and do a proper job.
As for Treasury Board, it's up to them to decide whether they have enough people to achieve that, to change the culture and have this better alignment for the documents.
Liberal
Nick Whalen Liberal St. John's East, NL
Much of the concern we're hearing both from the opposition members, which is not unfounded, as well as from the witnesses today centres around not doing enough change, that the changes being proposed aren't enough. From my perspective, I would rather see an incremental change being done well, with a clear goal in mind to ultimately achieve those goals.
What sorts of things should we also be doing at this first stage of the process? Besides getting the machinery of government aligned in terms of timing, are there other particular things that you believe should be part of this first phase and that don't appear to be based on the comments that the President of the Treasury Board has been making?
Financial Analyst, Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer, Library of Parliament
One thing you could look at is the documentation itself. Part of doing the tracking document was to look at the way things are presented in the budget versus the way things are presented in the estimates.
Let's just say they aligned and everything from the budget was in the main estimates. How would you know? The way the information is presented, it's very difficult for you. You would just have to take it on faith from the Treasury Board Secretariat that it was achieved. They could present information that was clear and more readily traceable by parliamentarians. You could start to look at the way information is presented to Parliament.
Liberal
Nick Whalen Liberal St. John's East, NL
I agree. Ultimately, I would like to see more project-based appropriations. I think that's a good goal, but in terms of achieving the overall direction, what I see is that it would complicate the process more if they tried to do that plus align the estimates to the budget at the same time. Wouldn't we want to see a couple of years of smooth functioning of this initial change before we then start to overlay changing to project-based appropriations on top of that?
Assistant Parliamentary Budget Officer, Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer, Library of Parliament
I think it's not only the issue of appropriations by project. What was mentioned here is the way that different measures are explained in the main estimates and the budget. Sometimes they're completely different—different titles, different explanations—so it's very hard to line them up to see what was the budget measure. In the budget, there is a table with different measures, and you don't see exactly the same items in the main estimates, so it's very hard to connect them.
That's what Alex was mentioning. If they improve those things, that will help you to understand the main estimates better and to align them with the budget items. Also, for us, it might be easier to analyze them.
Liberal
