Evidence of meeting #49 for Procedure and House Affairs in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was costs.
A recording is available from Parliament.
NDP
Yvon Godin NDP Acadie—Bathurst, NB
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
It's interesting to look at your experience in Parliament and with various governments. It suggests that you had no choice but to take on the responsibility of Parliamentary Budget Officer. It's almost as though this job was forced on you.
Parliamentary Budget Officer, Library of Parliament
No, I'm happy to hold this position. But it's not easy. You have to have the information and be able to work with good analysts like Mr. Khan, Mr. Askari and the entire team; but there certainly are major challenges involved.
NDP
Yvon Godin NDP Acadie—Bathurst, NB
Did you think that the government would cooperate more than it actually has?
Parliamentary Budget Officer, Library of Parliament
I know that the question of accountability is difficult for everyone. It's difficult to have a different point of view in Ottawa, or data that differs from those produced by the Department of Finance. That sometimes leads to controversy.
NDP
Yvon Godin NDP Acadie—Bathurst, NB
Well, okay. With your experience, and with the people working with you, do you think you could go through this pretty fast and give us tomorrow maybe a small résumé and send it to the committee—I don't know if the chair or the committee will want to bring you back—to say “I'm satisfied with this and that's what parliamentarians should have”? Do you think you could give us an idea if this is good...?
Parliamentary Budget Officer, Library of Parliament
Sir, what we could do is go through the binder and effectively--as we did in our February 25 document--explain what's been provided and what has not been provided, so you understand the gap--
Parliamentary Budget Officer, Library of Parliament
We can do that. But what we cannot do, sir, which is what we would prefer to do as well, is give you a sense of whether those estimates are reasonable.
NDP
Yvon Godin NDP Acadie—Bathurst, NB
Reasonable or not reasonable, we should decide that, but do we have enough information to decide if it's reasonable or not? Could you give us an idea and send your opinion to the committee?
Parliamentary Budget Officer, Library of Parliament
We would certainly do our best, sir.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joe Preston
That finishes all of our rounds. If there's anybody who wants a one-off question, I would entertain one or two.
Mr. Brison, you've had questions. I was thinking of people who didn't get a chance to ask questions.
Mr. Albrecht? No?
Seeing none, I will thank you for coming out today.
Mr. Brison, we're going to deal with your motion and we're going to.... Thirty seconds, go.
Liberal
Scott Brison Liberal Kings—Hants, NS
Thank you.
Mr. Page, just to help Mr. Lukiwski with his question on the definition of cabinet confidence, once legislation is tabled in Parliament by cabinet, the cost of that legislation is not covered under cabinet confidence. Is that correct?
Parliamentary Budget Officer, Library of Parliament
No, sir. I think, again, under our Constitution and our Financial Administration Act, it's Parliament that signs off on appropriations, not the government. It's Parliament that needs this information to sign off on appropriations.
Liberal
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joe Preston
Thank you, Mr. Page and guests. Thank you for coming and sharing with us today.
If you've promised something to Monsieur Godin, we look forward to it. Thank you.
I will suspend for a couple of minutes to allow our witnesses to leave, and then we have a couple of things to discuss. We must go in camera, as we have some committee business and some budgeting that we have to do.
Liberal
Marcel Proulx Liberal Hull—Aylmer, QC
Very briefly, I'd like the clerk to explain something to us. At 4:44 this afternoon we received an amended notice of meeting saying that the honourable Laurie Hawn was going to appear tomorrow afternoon. He's the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Defence. Then we were told that he's not going to appear. What's the score here?
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joe Preston
I'll share that as we work today we've been trying to fulfill the requests of all parties for witnesses. My understanding is that at one point we had a yes and now we don't have a yes. We were trying to work something out and it wasn't able to be done.
Conservative
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joe Preston
I don't believe he was on a witness list; he was being nice. As I said, we're trying to go over the top to try to find replacements for some witnesses who have been requested. I think we're about to talk about a motion that may fill that very period of time anyway, so let's go that route.