Evidence of meeting #3 for Library of Parliament in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was cost.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:25 p.m.
Conservative
Bob Saroya Conservative Markham—Unionville, ON
Can we expect a still independent PBO, where we won't see any political interference in the future?
Have you any comments or concerns or suggestions from that angle?
12:25 p.m.
Parliamentary Budget Officer, Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer
In my five years, I never had any political interference with my office.
12:25 p.m.
Liberal
Angelo Iacono Liberal Alfred-Pellan, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I thank the representatives of the Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer for being here with us.
Until quite recently, the office was a part of the Library of Parliament. The separation led to several changes, not only for you and for the library, but also as regards the services provided, so as to avoid any duplication.
My question is a bit different from the one that was just asked.
Can you tell me how the PBO office and the library work together to reduce duplication of the resources and services provided to parliamentary committees, senators and members of Parliament?
12:25 p.m.
Parliamentary Budget Officer, Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer
Thank you for the question.
My answer will be brief. First, the librarian and I work in close co-operation, just as we have always done, not only before the changes made to the act in 2017, but also since then.
Now that the act makes it very clear that the Parliamentary Budget Officer must cost measures —a task the library used to do, and may still do, depending on the type of request—this is what we do. If a member of Parliament or a senator asks us to do a cost analysis, an office like ours does not necessarily have all of the analytical capability that the library has, and we function according to a different model. We do not do a confidential cost analysis; if someone asks us to do a confidential cost analysis of a measure, a private member's bill or a motion, my answer will be “no”, because my business model applies to all of Parliament, as prescribed by the act. The library, however, can perform confidential tasks for parliamentarians. There is a whole process between the research service and my office whereby we agree on how to divide up the tasks.
The important point is the cost assessment. I will only do cost assessments for existing measures. If someone tells me that he has an idea and would like a cost analysis done for that idea, I do not have a legislative mandate for that. That would probably be more in keeping with the mandate of the research service of the Library of Parliament.
12:30 p.m.
Liberal
Angelo Iacono Liberal Alfred-Pellan, QC
Did you run into difficulties during the development of that co-operation, and if so, could you tell us which ones?
12:30 p.m.
Parliamentary Budget Officer, Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer
I encountered no difficulties in setting up a collaborative process to work with the Library of Parliament.
12:30 p.m.
Liberal
Angelo Iacono Liberal Alfred-Pellan, QC
Just like the library, you provide services to parliamentarians. Can you describe the exact nature of those services?
12:30 p.m.
Parliamentary Budget Officer, Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer
The act sets out four general categories of services. The first is that the Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer must produce macroeconomic documents, analyses and reports.
The second is that we must respond to any request made by any of the four committees mentioned in the act, and they are the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance, the House of Commons Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates, the House of Commons Standing Committee on Public Accounts, and the Standing Senate Committee on Finance. Those four committees may under the act request macroeconomic analyses, analysis of economic trends, and so on.
All other parliamentary committees of the Senate and House of Commons may request cost analyses. For example, what will it cost to implement Bill x if it is passed into law? I can give you another very concrete example. Two years ago, the House of Commons Standing Committee on Health asked us to do a costing analysis for a national pharmacare program that does not exist in Canada. The members of the committee adopted a motion. The committee's motion became the order of reference of the PBO, so to speak, for that cost analysis. We worked with the Standing Committee on Health and we were able to draft a report, nine months later, which the committee then used to prepare its own report.
In the final analysis, all parliamentarians may submit requests to us, not about ideas, but having to do with the financial cost of parliamentary measures that already exist and are debated in Parliament.
12:30 p.m.
Liberal
Angelo Iacono Liberal Alfred-Pellan, QC
I am going to continue based on the examples you gave.
Do you have any other suggestions to provide to the committee to reduce duplication, provide more services, and also reduce the costs of the two offices? Currently, they are separated, so would you have other solutions to propose to avoid duplication?
12:30 p.m.
Parliamentary Budget Officer, Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer
At this time, I think the model is complementary and works well in that way.
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
Kevin Sorenson Conservative Battle River—Crowfoot, AB
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I want to thank you, sir, for being here today and for bringing your staff with you. Thank you for the comments you've given to this committee.
This may have been covered in some of the other questions, but how many employees are working in the parliamentary budget office?
12:30 p.m.
Parliamentary Budget Officer, Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer
Currently we have 18 people, including directors. I include directors as not only directors and managers but also as contributing to the various reports and analyses. Jason, for example, as a senior director of costing, writes reports as well. He doesn't only manage and supervise reports.
We have 18 people, including me, and right now we have five support staff. One of the five is on contract just because of the transition. That is what I mentioned in my remarks in terms of additional costs. You have to understand that getting out of the library meant that we had to develop our own policies—official languages, staffing, and so on. We needed someone to write all these policies, plus write all the MOUs that are in the process of being negotiated with the library. Most of them are now completed. We needed someone to write the MOUs so that the library became the service provider to the PBO.
Right now we are 23. We are in an intensive recruitment process. The process is going well. We plan to have 33 to 35 analysts working for parliamentarians, plus seven to nine people in terms of support.
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
Kevin Sorenson Conservative Battle River—Crowfoot, AB
Do you do any work outside of this Parliament? For example, our Auditor General is also responsible for the Northwest Territories or somewhere up north, whether it's the Yukon or Northwest Territories. Is there anything broader than this Parliament here that you would be requested to do, from provinces or from other levels of government?
12:35 p.m.
Parliamentary Budget Officer, Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer
What you see here is what the legislation basically says, that parliamentarians, senators, MPs, senate committees, and House of Commons committees are the main “clients”, if I may. We don't do work outside, although we do a little bit of outreach work with the PBO network, with the OECD network of PBOs. There are about 38 PBOs recognized by the OECD. We do some work in terms of good practices and so on.
I know that Jason wants me to mention that he attended an international meeting recently. The Canadian PBO is recognized as a very good model or example of good practices in terms of what we do with regard to the mandate and the relationship with this Parliament.
12:35 p.m.
Conservative
Kevin Sorenson Conservative Battle River—Crowfoot, AB
Do any of the provinces have your equivalent within their province? Do the provinces employ a provincial budget office?
12:35 p.m.
Parliamentary Budget Officer, Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer
Ontario is one province. They have the Financial Accountability Office, or FAO. The financial accountability officer who was just appointed, by the way, is a former senior director from my office.
12:35 p.m.
Conservative
Kevin Sorenson Conservative Battle River—Crowfoot, AB
We have an election going on in Ontario now. Are his or her capabilities the same as yours with regard to costing amongst the political parties that come up with ideas or platforms? Does their office cost those programs?
12:35 p.m.
Parliamentary Budget Officer, Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer
Just as a personal comment, he is a lucky man. He doesn't have to do the election platform costing in Ontario. It's the Auditor General in Ontario who is essentially calculating a baseline at the beginning and end and then providing that to the various parties. That is exactly what it is in Quebec also, where an election is coming. The Auditor General provides baselines such as macroeconomic projections, which parties can use for their own calculations.
12:35 p.m.
Conservative
Kevin Sorenson Conservative Battle River—Crowfoot, AB
Going back to Mr. Saroya's point, the non-partisanship of the Library of Parliament has never ever been in question, even though the Auditor General has a difficult job bringing down an audit against certain departments they study. You say that in five years there's never really been a question, but certainly there is a possibility that parties may believe there is partisanship when they're in the middle of an election and all of a sudden a report is released, or something like that. How do you safeguard against that?
12:35 p.m.
Parliamentary Budget Officer, Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer
The quality of the work, the integrity, and the reputation of the office for the past 10 years will be the guarantee that the reports will be neutral, non-partisan, and so on.
12:35 p.m.
Conservative
