Mr. Speaker, for once I gave a title to my speech, because I think it truly represents the state of mind in this House. The title is “Do they walk the talk?”
Normally, we would not have had to hold this opposition day. We would not have had to move this motion if the government had acted responsibly. If the government is late in appointing a senior public servant, it should have allowed for a transition period.
One wonders why, in recent years, since I have been here, important appointments have always been made late. The Conservatives know the calendar and they can follow it. Unfortunately, nothing is happening.
Therefore, I find it hard to understand why the Conservatives are first unable to follow a calendar and then unable to take responsibility for their mistake and do something really easy such as simply extending the mandate.
I now come to the crux of the issue. We live in a complex world. One of our main responsibilities here is to pass a complex budget. We have an institution that helps all parliamentarians do a good job and better understand what they vote on. It is Parliament's responsibility to pass the budget, but we must first understand that budget and know where it is going to take us.
The Parliamentary Budget Officer is an essential tool in a modern government. Let us not forget—as pointed out by many members—that this institution was created by the Conservative government. However, we get the feeling that they are not comfortable with what they created. Yet, and I rarely say this, that was a damn good idea.
If we look at the mandate as such, which is defined in section 79.2 of the Parliament of Canada Act, the Parliamentary Budget Officer can do things that are done in every modern government.
Incidentally, the budget of the Parliamentary Budget Officer and his staff is ridiculously low, compared to what we see elsewhere. For example, in the United States, the Congressional Budget Office operates with a staff of 250 and a budget of $45 million. That is 16 times more than the resources available to our Parliamentary Budget Officer. Considering that the U.S. population is 10 times larger than ours, we can see that much more resources are provided to help members of Congress follow what could be called budget tentacles.
That is a strong trend among OECD members. A task force made up of senior OECD budget officials established a group that allows them to follow the parliamentary process, which is the equivalent of the Parliamentary Budget Officer.
Contrary to what the Conservatives say, we should not necessarily be following the best practices of the private sector, but rather the best practices of governments around the world. That is what the OECD is advocating and that is what we should be doing.
Last year, the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates, of which I am a member, released a report entitled “Strengthening Parliamentary Scrutiny of Estimates and Supply”. Recommendation 15 states:
That the House of Commons give its Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates the mandate to undertake a study of the Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer;...that...the Committee should consider all structural models for the Office including, but not limited to, the Parliamentary Budget Officer reporting directly to Parliament.
Having the Parliamentary Budget Officer report to Parliament rather than the Library of Parliament has been discussed before. This would give him the powers he needs to do his job. Despite the roadblocks put in his way, he has done an outstanding job.
Consider the evaluation of the F-35 costs. It was not the Parliamentary Budget Officer but someone else who was out in left field. Despite the obstacles he faced, he managed to keep us and Canadians well informed. Obviously, the Parliamentary Budget Officer's role is to restore parliamentarians' ability to have some say in the budget process in order to provide more rigorous and exact oversight.
What I find ironic about this is that it was the Conservatives who suggested creating the position of Parliamentary Budget Officer. However, when the President of the Treasury Board was answering questions about why he was not providing information to the Parliamentary Budget Officer, he said that they are reporting to the House in the usual way. Thus, he is saying that what we had before worked better than what they created, which is nonsense.
That is a real-life example of not walking the talk, of someone who talks about open, transparent government and then hides behind the old approach to accountability. We want openness and transparency for parliamentarians, but also for Canadians who are interested in public affairs, and we want to move forward. We need to remember that we do not work in a vacuum; we work for the people of Canada. We tend to forget that we are accountable to Canadians and that we work for them. I find it hard to believe that anyone would want to limit the public's access to information.
I am happy to hear about open data, but we need to know what data will be open. If we are just talking about weather data, that will not make a big difference in our lives. That is why it is important to have an institution that allows us to analyze the implications of each of our decisions. That is always an issue—evaluating the consequences of various actions.
How will this affect our bottom line? How will it affect government operations? Before the institution of Parliamentary Budget Officer was created—and I can now say that it is an institution that we need—we were lost in a fog. And look at what happened when the Titanic got lost in the fog. We cannot have that happen.
At a time when we have a tight budget, we have a lot of debt and we are looking to maximize the effects of our budgetary measures, I feel it is important to have an institution that allows us to keep track of what is happening. The Parliamentary Budget Officer is a crucial tool. And I would like to take a moment to acknowledge his work and his courage. Given his mandate and the situation he was facing, it could not have been easy.
Canadians need an independent office, in the name of transparency and accountability.