“For a government that claims to be transparent and accountable, it’s unacceptable for them to hide this information,” said Mr. McCallum (Markham-Unionville, Ont.).
A recently leaked memo from the Treasury Board Secretariat instructed departments not to include the details of their cuts under the strategic and operating review in their upcoming Reports on Plans and Priorities.
Publication of the reports had been delayed by TBS last fall, from their traditional publication date in March until the week of May 7, Mr. McCallum noted.
Cabinet’s Treasury Board Subcommittee on the Strategic Operating Review, led by Treasury Board President Tony Clement (Parry Sound-Muskoka, Ont.), is examining departmental proposals for the strategic and operating review. Federal organizations have come up with plans for five or 10 per cent cuts to their budgets, for at least $4-billion in savings.
Reports on Plans and Priorities set out organizations’ spending, program and strategic plans over a period of three years and include information on staffing levels and financial breakdowns. They are tabled in the House of Commons and reviewed by Parliamentarians.
When questioned about the decision not to include the information in reports after all, Mr. Clement told The Globe and Mail that he didn’t have anything to do with the memo.
“My position is that we have an obligation to provide Parliament with timely and accurate information,” he said.
Mr. McCallum said he has a hard time believing that the minister’s office wasn’t involved with the choice.
“That strains credibility, that a major communication decision on the budget, on the cuts, should be made by bureaucrats without regard to the Minister’s office or the Prime Minister’s Office,” he said.
On Feb. 23, Mr. McCallum sent a letter to Mr. Clement asking him to allow departments to put the details of the cuts in the spring reports.
Jenn Gearey, director of communications for Mr. Clement, said that no final decisions have yet been made on the spending review.
She also stated, “government reports to Parliament, including Reports on Plans and Priorities, will provide an accurate picture of departmental spending” but did not provide details on exactly what level of details Canadians could expect in the reports.
Carleton University professor and co-editor of How Ottawa Spends, Christopher Stoney, said that the lack of information surrounding the spending review as Canada heads into the budget is “unique.”
He explained that in the mid-’90s, when the Chrétien government was enacting the program review, which impacted 45,000 public servants, more information was publicly available.
“Back in the ’90s, it was much more clear what the criteria were, what the process was about, whereas this one it’s very difficult even for Parliament to know what’s actually going on and who’s making the decisions and on what grounds,” he said.
Mr. McCallum pointed to the expenditure review he chaired in 2005 and said that if the Liberals could produce a detailed report of what was cut back then, there is no reason the Conservatives can’t do it now.
In 2005 as minister of National Revenue, Mr. McCallum oversaw $11-billion in cuts. The government published a detailed account of exactly what was chopped, by how much, and its impact, in an addendum to the budget that year.
“This was in 2005, seven years ago. The technology has not regressed,” said Mr. McCallum.
“If they don’t do it, it’s not because they can’t do it, it’s because they chose not to do it,” he added.
The lack of information would put the opposition and the public in a similar position to the one they were in during the governments’ previous strategic review. Departments identified savings of five per cent of their budgets, and those not in government had to wait for the information to make its way out through leaks to the media or reports from federal unions.
“In some respects, it’s not surprising, given the level of secrecy that this whole budget has been held under,” said John Gordon, president of the Public Service Alliance of Canada, of the current situation.
Mr. Gordon said that his union has been asking for information on the upcoming cuts, to no avail, and that the information should at least be available to elected officials.
Mr. Stoney said he thinks the information will eventually come out.
Mr. McCallum said that if the details aren’t in the budget or the reports, Parliamentarians would have to wait until the Public Accounts come out, more than a year later.
“That’s eons into the future, we will have had another budget by then. This will certainly not be hot news,” he said.
The lack of information, and the delay in the Reports on Plans and Priorities, will hinder MPs’ availability to scrutinize government spending, noted Mr. McCallum.
In his letter to the minister, he noted that releasing the reports the week of May 7 would be “too late” for opposition parties to consider the information when choosing which two departments to examine in a committee of the whole.
Individual committees tasked with reviewing specific departments’ will also be challenged.
“If we don’t have the information to begin with, how do we have hearings on something which is just a void, we don’t know what it is?” he stated. He also wondered what the point of releasing the RPPs in May would be, if the information they were delayed to include will no longer be in them.
Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page told The Hill Times recently that providing Parliament with the nitty-gritty of the spending review could re-energize spending scrutiny in the House, while the opposite is also true.
“The best way to undermine Parliament is to starve it,” he said.
Mr. McCallum said that perhaps a political calculation that the fallout from the cuts themselves would eclipse the fallout for not releasing details of the cuts, came into play.
Regardless, the public and Parliamentarians will be demanding information from the government after the budget, said Mr. Gordon.
“I hope that they get grilled, because there is a democratic Parliamentary procedure,” he said.
Original Article
Source: hill times
Author: JESSICA BRUNO
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