Finance committee  The intent of the bill is not to restrain MPs. It's to provide different avenues for you to get the answers you need.

Finance committee  Mr. Chair, my apologies if I gave the impression that parties would have to provide their costings 120 days in advance. It's as of 120 days before the election that the PBO would be available to begin that work.

Finance committee  Thank you for the question, Mr. Chair. In a very narrow sense, yes they would. I would say, though, that the question before you is whether to put it in legislation. Certainly, as a competition is set up for a future PBO, the sorts of considerations around educational experience

Finance committee  Mr. Chair, typically what happens is, once the bill has passed, as part of the development of the merit criteria for the position, an assessment is made based on the complexity of the job, so I can't give you an exact range for the PBO. Sometimes it depends on who the successful

Finance committee  Anyone taking the job would know the salary they'd be receiving ahead of time because the comparable will have been done with other officers of Parliament.

Finance committee  I'm not sure.

Finance committee  Yes.

Finance committee  Yes. First of all, “submitted” is no bar at all, right? You submit. It just simply gets transferred. As Mr. Booth explained, that's literally a mailbox. “Considered” is a slightly higher standard, which I think is what Mr. Albas was getting towards. Typically in this situation,

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.

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

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.