Government Operations committee  It gives the government between two and six weeks of extra time, essentially, because the budget date is not fixed, so we don't know when the government will actually table the budget. It could be the beginning of March, it could be the end of March, it could be in April. We don'

Government Operations committee  I'm not a member of Parliament, so I don't decide. I don't make that decision. Really, the challenge is for you, not for me.

Government Operations committee  That was the proposal by OGGO in a 2012 report, that the budget date should be fixed. There is really no reason for not having it fixed, but obviously the government wants to have the flexibility of choosing the date of the budget. You know, this is their choice, but the problem

Government Operations committee  One thing you can consider, and I don't know how difficult that is, is to integrate the cabinet process with the TB submission process. These two processes are completely separate now. Departments go through the MC process to get their programs approved by cabinet, and once that

Government Operations committee  Well, relative to the current system, I think anything would be an improvement. There is a performance architecture within the government. They are always trying to improve that. What we have observed in the past is that the way that was managed and the information that was provi

Finance committee  You are absolutely right. I think there are two issues with that proposal. One is that the legislation says, even before we put together a work plan, that we have to consult the Speakers. So just imagine that we have to consult the Speakers about what kind of work plan we want to

Finance committee  I think it would be a great idea to have an external review. I think it should have been part of the original legislation that the PBO would be subject to review after three years or five years, or whatever the decision is. It's quite normal now for other budget officers around t

Finance committee  I believe that would be more feasible for the PBO, if it were platforms and not proposals. I can tell you with a lot of certainty, based on working with the PBO for nine years, that if the legislation stays the way it is drafted right now for platform costing, it would be operat

Finance committee  Yes.

Finance committee  Again, under certain conditions, it would be possible. If we receive the platforms, let's say, two months before the election—

Finance committee  That might be an issue, a challenge for the parties that are involved, but if we had access to information, then it would be feasible to consider that it would be possible to do. But in the current form, it is absolutely not.

Finance committee  Again, I think my response would not be that different from what Mr. Page said. I think certainly, under the legislation, we are here to serve parliamentarians. But again, parliamentarians also serve people, so indirectly, we are serving the public. When we release a report, the

Finance committee  I think the issue is that currently, yes, we do have a lot of flexibility in terms of initiating reports that we believe would be useful for parliamentarians and senators. We have done that over the past nine years, and we believe that they have been received well by the members

Finance committee  There are different parts to that part of the legislation. The first part of the mandate is very prescriptive, in the sense that it stipulates that the PBO can provide assessment of very specific government documents, and there are four mentioned in the legislation. That, to us,

Finance committee  No. In fact under the proposed legislation a member of Parliament cannot ask us to do that costing. The committee can, but not a member of Parliament or a senator. We won't be able to do that costing on our own, because the only way we could do it is if it were part of our work p