Mr. Speaker, I rise to bring to the attention of the House the supplementary report submitted with this report on strengthening parliamentary scrutiny of estimates and supply.
While the NDP concurs with the majority report and recommendations, we feel it necessary to qualify our position on one aspect of the report, a widely supported measure recommended by distinguished experts testifying before the committee on how best to achieve improved capacity to clarify and strengthen the role and mandate of the Parliamentary Budget Officer.
Consequently, consistent with that advice, we recommend that the government take immediate action to make the Parliamentary Budget Officer an officer of Parliament and further, that the Parliamentary Budget Officer be mandated to report to the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates with respect to its estimates work.