Government Operations Committee on Feb. 26th, 2026

[Pauline Rochefort, Liberal, Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON]

I will share my time with my colleagues. I have two questions and if—

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

I'm sorry, but Ms. Khalid told me Mr. Osborne is up.

[Pauline Rochefort, Liberal, Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON]

Okay, go ahead.

[Tom Osborne, Liberal, Cape Spear, NL]

I apologize to the official from OECD. I intended to ask her some questions, but based on the last line of questions, I've changed my mind. This question is for the Parliamentary Budget Officer.

Vote 50 is a contingency fund. Do you trust the officials at Treasury Board? They have to approve any of these allotments. They have to analyze any requests out of this fund. In the changing geopolitical world that we are in and with the need to expand our national defence, I understand why we have a contingency fund, vote 50. I absolutely understand.

Based on the actions of this government.... As one of our members identified previously, we have the largest foreign direct investment in Canada in 18 years. That foreign direct investment, in large part, is attributed to breaking down interprovincial trade barriers, building new trade corridors and national defence spending, I would think.

Going back to my question, Treasury Board officials have to analyze any requests out of vote 50. Is that correct?

[Jason Jacques]

To the best of my knowledge, yes.

[Tom Osborne, Liberal, Cape Spear, NL]

Treasury Board officials will determine and justify whether or not a request for this funding is justified.

[Jason Jacques]

To the best of my knowledge, yes.

[Tom Osborne, Liberal, Cape Spear, NL]

I think this is a transparent process, because this funding will eventually go to estimates and be viewed by you, be viewed by parliamentarians, be viewed by the Auditor General. This is not something that we're hiding behind closed doors, saying we're going to make decisions without anybody knowing. Is that correct?

[Jason Jacques]

I would say, looking at vote 50, that the legislative language looks very similar to Treasury Board vote 5, which has been there for a very long time. In that context, in that situation, parliamentarians have determined that they're comfortable providing the government with discretion around $1 billion in Treasury Board vote 5 to deal with urgent and unforeseen circumstances, ceding some of their legislative control and authority to the government in that specific area. It's up to parliamentarians to determine whether they're comfortable doing the same thing with respect to Treasury Board vote 50.

[Tom Osborne, Liberal, Cape Spear, NL]

The transparency is there. One bead of the string of pearls leads to the next. This is all reported. It will be reviewed by you, by the Auditor General and by parliamentarians.

[Jason Jacques]

Yes, and there are additional ways outside of the estimates process to further enhance transparency. I seem to recall that in the past, going back about a decade, when the government used similar centralized votes previously.... They can report on the actual allocation outside of the estimates process as they see fit. If there are concerns around transparency, obviously there are further options.

As I mentioned earlier, I've never seen a government official come to the table, after receiving a recommendation from a parliamentarian to enhance transparency around financial reporting, and say no.

[Tom Osborne, Liberal, Cape Spear, NL]

Thank you. I appreciate that.

I will now go to the OECD with my questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

You have a minute and a bit.

Please go ahead.

[Tom Osborne, Liberal, Cape Spear, NL]

Thank you.

Can you briefly explain the methodology used by the OECD to evaluate independent fiscal institutions and how consistency is maintained across country reviews with different political and institutional contexts?

[Scherie Nicol]

Thank you for that question.

Indeed, we do have a framework that we use for each and every one of these reviews. It is guided by the OECD's principles for independent fiscal institutions, and that forms the core of our review framework. We look at our principles and the way in which the institutions align with these principles, and that allows us to have a common assessment framework. We have a database that shows how all of the institutions perform across different aspects of these principles, which we can use to compare the institutions internationally.

[Tom Osborne, Liberal, Cape Spear, NL]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

You have 20 seconds.

[Tom Osborne, Liberal, Cape Spear, NL]

Please pass it on to my colleague Pauline when her turn comes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Okay.

Madame Gaudreau, go ahead.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I have a question for Ms. Nicol.

Since you are in Paris, I will speak French.

I just want to verify that you can hear the interpretation. I will take a moment so you can make any adjustments. Is it working? Yes. Great.

I would like to discuss the recommendations and findings in the report. I would like to know more about transparency. First, I want to hear from you and then we can have a discussion.

What about transparency at the Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer?

[Scherie Nicol]

Thank you for the question. I will respond in English.

Transparency is one of the nine areas where we have principles for independent fiscal institutions. As these institutions are promoters of transparency, they have a strong duty to act as transparently as possible.

In fact, we find the Canadian parliamentary budget office to be very transparent by international measures. These sorts of measures include having all the reports published on their website, having their own website, making sure they are open to questions about their methods and models, and presenting their work to Parliament. By these headline measures, the parliamentary budget office in Canada stands as one of the more transparent institutions across the OECD.

Of course, there are always areas that can be improved, and some of these were highlighted in our report. We felt there could be greater transparency on the peer review process, for example, the quality assurance process, which, as mentioned earlier by the interim Parliamentary Budget Officer, was something that was very much in practice in the office but hadn't been formalized on paper and, in terms of transparency, communicated with different stakeholders.

There are always ways in which these institutions can further improve their transparency. Indeed, we've highlighted ways in which we hope the parliamentary budget office will take this forward in the coming years.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Thank you very much.

Granted, transparency can always be improved, but what about the OECD's assessments of the disclosure of the information the Parliamentary Budget Officer needs to do his job properly and provide the information that parliamentarians want to obtain?

[Scherie Nicol]

Do you mean access to information?

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Yes.

I will take the time required to tell you what I mean. Transparency refers to the disclosure of information that will be presented once the data has been compiled, but it also includes the disclosure of work tools used to produce reports.

However, we do not always have the information the Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer needs to provide information. That is why I think it is important to define transparency. Do you have any analyses regarding data collection?

[Scherie Nicol]

There are different areas in which we had analysis as part of this review. One of the areas we looked at was the way the office is able to access information. The other side of the coin, as you rightly pointed out, is the extent to which it promotes transparency in its work. On the information-gathering side, we found that, in this area, the institution has been strengthened in recent years. We found, in particular, that the 2017 legislation helped strengthen access to information. However, there is still some way to go, particularly in access to tax microdata, which doesn't enable the PBO to do timely and transparent analysis in this area. We also felt there was some space to improve access to information by establishing memoranda of understanding with government departments on a routine and consistent basis.

In terms of how it presents the information, we felt there could be greater consistency in the way methods are documented by the institution. There is no question that if anyone asks something of the institution, it is open with its methods and models. It's never trying to hide the way it's done the work. However, it's certainly best practice among such institutions to ensure that there is consistent presentation of methodology across different outputs. That's something we'd like to see continue to improve in the coming years.