Government Operations committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. You made a good segue when you mentioned the fall. Should Bill C-44 be passed in the next few hours, all of the PBO team members are looking forward to working with your committee, which is one of the four committees mentioned in the PBO legislation. We're

Finance committee  There is also the not yet existing joint committee. Keep in mind that the legislation refers continually to that joint committee. Finally, the other accounting is that we have to provide an annual report, as other agents of Parliament do, to the two Speakers at the end of the fi

Finance committee  It's through the Speakers. That's why the Speakers now have this control and direction over the PBO. They will hold the PBO to account. They will become—

Finance committee  At the last election, we were asked to provide a report containing our projections on economic growth, unemployment and interests rates, for instance, so that all of the political parties could use it. We published that document and provided it two months before the elections.

Finance committee  Yes, it was just at the beginning of the electoral campaign. Several political parties used that document. In some cases people who worked for them used it to do their own calculations. It was rather good, since everyone was working on the same basis and the same calculations. It

Finance committee  I will answer you in another way. Mr. Page spoke about this a little earlier. Throughout the world, there are only two other Parliamentary Budget Offices that do this type of thing. Only one such director, in Australia, has a true legislative mandate. The one in the Netherlands

Finance committee  If the process were less closely related to the development and choice of policies, I might be more open to the idea. However, as you know—the last election ended not that long ago—ideas are raised on a regular basis, daily, which explains why it would be difficult to calculate t

Finance committee  That's correct.

Finance committee  First of all, it is important to remember that both Speakers are technically neutral, as you know. The difference is that one of them is elected by his peers, by you, the members, whereas the other is appointed by the Prime Minister's Office. That said, when I made my remarks, I

Finance committee  I will ask Mostafa to comment, but my first comment is that certainly the current approach that we have provides more flexibility for parliamentarians. On this one right now, where you're talking about proposed paragraph 79.2(1)(f), it's not only that, but as you know, in the of

Finance committee  First, it's a great comment that you're making there, because when we do our own work plan.... We do have a work plan. We have an annual work plan, as you know, because we contribute to this committee on a regular basis twice a year and even more so in other circumstances. We t

Finance committee  With difficulty.

Finance committee  With the help of the Chief Electoral Officer, perhaps...

Finance committee  ... who is quite scared that this type of request might be made during an electoral campaign, I can confirm that. What you said is quite correct. It is all the more correct in that, if you read the text, you will have seen that it is rather tortuous and extremely convoluted. Any

Finance committee  It is not clear to me either. The legislative provision is not clear on that point, nor on the time the two Speakers may take to table the report and provide their go-ahead. Take the example of the Parliamentary Protective Service. You know that it reports to the two Speakers an