Procedure and House Affairs Committee on March 16th, 2011

[Kevin Page]

I think it would be incumbent upon the government and upon the public service, when they are doing their estimations, to look at all costs and to estimate all the costs if, as in this case, they're changing the Criminal Code and it's going to have an impact not just at the federal level but also at the provincial level. I think it would be just fair practice to share that information with the provinces so that they would have it available.

When we did our study on the Truth in Sentencing Act, it was clear to us that there would be significant costs at the provincial level of government. Just because of the way the system is designed, there would be a large impact as well on the provinces. We did not have baseline information to estimate what the fiscal impact per se would be on the provinces, but we can get a sense of what the overall fiscal requirements would be, and we did try to provide an estimate of that.

I think in a country where fiscal federalism plays a large role, you'd expect that there would be a strong dialogue between provinces and the federal government.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Yes, but for us as parliamentarians, when we make decisions here that will put a cost to the provinces, shouldn't we know that cost? We're voting on it. We have to go back home. We don't live in Ottawa. We come in to make bills and laws and that, but we still have to go home. We still have a province we answer to.

[Kevin Page]

Sir, I think you should have information on that cost at both the federal level and the provincial level, and that information should be made public when you're voting on it.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Then, really, for Bill C-4--as I said, they've said here that because it's the provinces, they cannot give us the costs--you're saying that we should have the costs.

[Kevin Page]

You, as one taxpayer.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Yes. It's the taxpayer who is paying. They're all paying.

According to what you're saying, we should have had those costs. That means what we have here is not enough, because the finance committee wants to know what it's going to cost, even if it's not federal and it's going to be provincial, because at the end of the day it's probably going to be federal anyway, because they're going to negotiate the costs.

[Kevin Page]

That's right, sir. Again, when we did our costing on the Truth In Sentencing Act, we did our very best to provide estimates at the provincial level.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

With respect to justice legislation, you say that the government must provide specific information about its underlying methodologies, assumptions, cost drivers and risks, and that the government has not provided an adequate response to the committee request.

Are you still of the view that the government has not provided the committee with the information it needs?

[Kevin Page]

There again, Mr. Godin, I did not have an opportunity to see the binder, but as I was saying, there is a need for information about methodologies, as well as estimates of fiscal and operating costs, capital costs and exemptions—in other words, the important numbers.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Are you of the opinion that the government gives you enough information to allow you to do your job and fulfill your responsibilities?

[Kevin Page]

You have to have information.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

The question is, do you feel that you get enough information?

Are you receiving enough information from the government to fulfill your responsibilities?

[Kevin Page]

I find, in general, in terms of our experience costing different projects--like Afghanistan, the cost of Canada's engagement in Afghanistan, aboriginal educational infrastructure, crime legislation, and F-35--we struggle to get information. It has been a struggle.

We're trying to build bridges with the public service in order to create a culture of more openness and transparency, but I think the process continues.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

The government created your position in the fall of 2006, and since then, you have been saying that you don't have the necessary information to correctly serve parliamentarians and Canadians. That must be frustrating. Please explain. We and every other Canadian out there would like to understand.

[Kevin Page]

There is certainly some frustration there, but the most important thing, in my opinion, is to provide you with meaningful and adequate service.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

I understand that your role is to provide service and that this is what matters, but if you don't have the information you need to fulfill your responsibilities, that just confuses people more than anything else, in my opinion.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Yvon, thank you.

Mr. McGuinty, for five minutes.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you very much, Mr. Page and team, for being here. Thank you for your good work.

I want to explore where my colleague Monsieur Godin left off.

I put to the assistant secretary of the Treasury Board, before your arrival here today, a question with respect to your office's access to information. The government will have us believe and regularly will put forward the idea that this is simply a difference in assumptions--not in facts, but assumptions.

All right, let's say there are varying degrees of assumptions. We can talk about that.

I want to ask you a question about something I don't think there is a varying degree of assumption about, or for that matter subjectivity about. Are you getting access to the information you ask for from this government?

[Kevin Page]

Sir, on some occasions we have received access to information. As a result of the motion, we now have information we've been actually asking for since I think the fall of 2008, the information on corporate profits projections, so that we can actually do a reconciliation.

What we've said today, sir, was that this should just be standard practice. As we have shared this information in the past with the private sector, we should be doing this now.

I think, sir, that's what we said in our report on February 25, because we now have that information.

We definitely struggled on crime legislation to get information. We got some information in a recent report on F-35, but none sufficient for us to actually reconcile estimates because we don't understand the methodologies behind it.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Let me get this right. The Conservative government comes into power. Parliament decides to create the Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer. You're appointed and you're telling Canadians you've been asking for information, for example, on the corporate tax side. You began asking for information three years ago.

Then you just told us that you finally got access to some information on the question of costing crime bills because we put a gun to the government's head through a Speaker's ruling to tell them to deliver up the information to the Parliamentary Budget Officer, so Canadians can know what's happening to their money.

You're confirming here for Canadians, in simple, plain language, that you're not getting the information you need to do your job. Are you?

[Kevin Page]

Well, sir, I mean, we struggle, but we struggle on your behalf. I guess we--

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

No, you're struggling on Canadians' behalf, not on our behalf.

[Kevin Page]

Well, we want parliamentarians to have this information so that when they're voting on it.... On the question of the crime bill in terms of Bill C-25, we still don't have any paper with respect to outlining the roughly $2 billion over five years. We saw some information in the main estimates, but that's only one year....

We haven't seen anything in a budget document, so we don't understand what their methodology is. We've been told that's a cabinet confidence in terms of how they're providing this information, but we're hoping that perhaps some of this information is in the binder today.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

So are we.

I'm going to raise with you right now a piece of paper that was distributed today on estimated provincial costs on one bill, Bill C-4. The government now says they're going to ask provinces to eat $2.467 billion in costs over the next five years. That's the cost to the provinces in five years to implement youth justice.

The costing requires consultation and judgment, right? Are provinces stakeholders? Shouldn't provinces know that this is coming down the line? Shouldn't we as parliamentarians know, on behalf of Canadians, whether or not provinces can afford $2.467 billion on one bill over five years before giving this government the authority to spend more money on Bill C-4 at the federal level?

How is it possible that we could be expected to do that unless we exercise our responsibilities and ask where the provincial money is going to come from?”

[Kevin Page]

Well, sir, I think you need to know what the estimates are and what the methodologies and assumptions are in terms of what those provincial costs are.

As I understand it, today a former clerk of the Privy Council said that it's standard practice in the expenditure management system to look at different levels of government, costing of different levels of government. I should have said that to Mr. Godin. I'm sorry, I should have highlighted that point.

They need to know. When we did our work on crime bills, we went to the provinces, actually, to get information on their systems. Effectively, we had to work that way.