Finance committee  As you suggest, the current legislation is intended to be consistent under an election scenario. When Parliament is dissolved, there are no committees for the PBO to report to. The expectation, as the legislation is currently drafted, is that should a party wish to have an electi

Finance committee  Correct.

Finance committee  The difference is the simultaneous nature, if I understand it correctly, whereas the next amendment is one day later.

Finance committee  Just taking the words that were provided, rather than the strict cost of a proposal, you would also consider the distributional impact, perhaps some beneficiaries, if it's a tax measure, distributional impact on people paying the tax. You're basically looking at it from different

Finance committee  Yes, it possibly could be. The economic distributional impact by gender would be conceivable, at least as I interpret the subamendment.

Finance committee  I don't think it would be far beyond what the PBO does on some of his broader economic analyses, but the further you go from a pure costing mandate, the more likely you are to bring in judgment factors. You can also do a neutral declaration of the distributional impacts of a pa

Finance committee  The current language is “cost”, which is pretty narrow. I think what you're proposing is a broader range of economic factors. It could be regional, demographic, and distributional.

Finance committee  The subamendment would broaden the role of the PBO in this particular instance from a strict costing mandate to economic and distributional impacts, so you're broadening the role of the PBO.

Finance committee  That's speculation, but given a fixed budget, yes, you're correct.

Finance committee  We're midstream on a broad set of amendments, but the current bill does not allow that.

Finance committee  Certainly. If the honourable member were to propose a private member's bill on Muskrat Falls, he would be within his rights under the proposed legislation to request a costing of it.

Finance committee  “Shall” is stronger than that. It's a requirement for the PBO to respond. Now, of course, there would be a discussion and it sounds like the honourable member would be very reasonable about it, but, yes, “shall” means—

Finance committee  You seem very reasonable to me.

Finance committee  You are correct. A member of Parliament can speak with the PBO and have something included in the annual work plan, so in making the case to the PBO with the changes, I believe you could do it both at the beginning of the year in the establishment of the work plan, but also throu

Finance committee  In the work plan, the PBO can set out his priorities, but the requirement of “shall”, as you've interpreted it, is correct. He's required to do it.