Democracy Gone Astray

Democracy, being a human construct, needs to be thought of as directionality rather than an object. As such, to understand it requires not so much a description of existing structures and/or other related phenomena but a declaration of intentionality.
This blog aims at creating labeled lists of published infringements of such intentionality, of points in time where democracy strays from its intended directionality. In addition to outright infringements, this blog also collects important contemporary information and/or discussions that impact our socio-political landscape.

All the posts here were published in the electronic media – main-stream as well as fringe, and maintain links to the original texts.

[NOTE: Due to changes I haven't caught on time in the blogging software, all of the 'Original Article' links were nullified between September 11, 2012 and December 11, 2012. My apologies.]

Monday, March 19, 2012

It’s March main estimates madness as House poised to pass billions of dollars in spending

It was March madness at committees last week as more than a dozen ministers and their officials appeared at Parliamentary committees to explain their department’s funding requests in the main estimates, but one seasoned Parliamentary expert says Canada doesn’t know what good spending scrutiny looks like.

“If the estimates scrutiny is done well by a committee, a committee can learn an enormous amount about what government does. If it’s not done well, as all too often happens, the committee doesn’t learn anything and the government doesn’t say anything,” Parliamentary expert Ned Franks told Civil Circles.

He said that the process of having committees review the estimates has been flawed since it was introduced in the 1960s.

“We don’t know in Canada,” what a fully functional scrutiny process looks like, he stated.

Since both the supplementary estimates “c” for 2011-2012 and the main estimates for 2012-2013 were introduced Feb. 28, committees have jam-packed their schedules with ministerial appearances. Between March 12 and March 15, Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz, Public Works Minsiter Rona Ambrose, International Trade Minister Ed Fast, Justice Minister Rob Nicholson, Defence Ministers Peter McKay and Julian Fantino, Citizenship Minister Jason Kenney and a host of others have made appearances.


The main estimates list $251.9-billion in spending. Of that, Parliamentarians must approve $91.9-billion. The remaining $160-billion is statutory, or legislated, funding for programs like Employment Insurance.

On March 14, the House of Commons voted to pass the interim appropriations bill, which included $26.5-billion in funding for the first months of the fiscal year, beginning April 1. The vote passed 155 to 128, with the NDP and the Liberals voting against it.

Last week ministers spent an average of one hour with their committees, and sometimes dealt with both the main and the supplementary estimates “c,” which listed another $1.2-billion in spending authority for 2011-2012. Opposition MPs say they don’t think that one hour on millions or even billions of spending was enough time.

“Another hour we thought we had would have been helpful, but the minister indicated he’s prepared to return, and I think that would be important,” said Liberal Irwin Cotler (Mount Royal, Que.), his party’s representative on the Justice Committee.

Liberal international trade critic Wayne Easter (Malpeque, P.E.I.), an MP since 1993, said that estimates scrutiny has gotten worse over time, starting when the Liberals were in power.

“I find they’re not as informative as they used to be, but it is an essential process that you have the department and the minister before the committee,” he said.

NDP MP Brian Masse (Windsor West, Ont.) who also sits on the International Trade Committee, said that when Mr. Fast appeared before committee, the session amounted to a promotional tour of the department’s programs.

“What ended up happening is this became really about the Minister promoting some of his trade agenda,” said Mr. Masse.

Mr. Masse noted that there is a $5-million cut to the department in the estimates. But of all the questions asked of Mr. Fast during his appearance, the majority were not on the main estimates, according to MPs.

“Opportunity was given, whether MPs from all side of the House exercised that or not was up to them,” said the chair, Conservative Rob Merrifield (Yellowhead, Alta.).

That MPs often use a minister’s appearance on the estimates to instead either lavish praise or to criticize on the issue of the day is a problem acknowledged by members on both sides of the House.

“They’re doing their messaging on their side, we’re doing ours on our side,” said Conservative MP Mike Wallace (Burlington, Ont.).

Mr. Wallace said that the study of the main estimates is actually better this time around than in previous years.

“The other committees…they’re taking a much more active role on reviewing the estimates than they have been in the past,” he said, adding that he’s had a number of MPs have come to him for help and advice with the estimates.

He said that more committees seemed to have decided to study the estimates than previously. Committees can chose to do nothing about the estimates at all, instead simply letting them be deemed as reported automatically due to a rule in the standing orders sets out deadlines for reports. The deadline for the main estimates is May 31, and subsequent estimates reports are due in early December, late March and the mid-June.

Mr. Franks said the deemed rule is to ensure that opposition parties don’t unreasonably delay the passage of the estimates, something that happened in the years leading up to reform in the 1960s. Mr. Franks noted that in some cases back then, estimates weren’t passed until the next fiscal year had started.

“There are two competing rights here: one is the right of Parliament to investigate things thoroughly, the other one is the right of the government to be given the resources it needs to govern by Parliament,” he said.

Mr. Wallace is vice-chair of the Government Operations and Estimates Committee, which has been conducting a study of how the estimates work in recent weeks.

Treasury Board President Tony Clement (Parry Sound-Muskoka, Ont.) appeared before the committee March 14 to go through some of the government’s estimates.

He supports the committee’s study.

“It’s all out of whack right now,” he said of the estimates cycle.

“Here I was a few days ago presenting the main estimates, three weeks before the budget,” he said.

In a letter to the committee, he suggested a number of questions the group should explore during the study, including the moving the timing of the budget, and defining exactly what Parliamentary oversight should look like.

“How does Parliament want to ensure accountability for/control of expenditures?” he wrote.

The committee has already heard from former Liberal MP Joe Jordan, Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page, officials from Treasury Board Secretariat and David Macdonald, senior economist for the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. Most pointed out issues with Parliament’s spending oversight and proposed solutions.

Some MPs said the oversight process is overwhelming.

Conservative MP Brian Jean (Fort McMurray-Athabasca, B.C) at Government Operations during Mr. Page’s appearance Feb. 29 said he has run 10 businesses in his private career with a portfolio of $20-million and hundreds of employees and that the only way he could run those businesses was through financial statements:

“I am overwhelmed here. I am under budget, trying to run a $300,000 budget with a constituency like Fort McMurray-Athabasca, where I have huge immigration problems, a tremendous number of issues, and I have to run it all on that basis—all the employees, etc.,” Mr. Jean told Mr. Page. “It’s almost impossible. What you’re suggesting along with that, or at least some of the practical suggestions, I just find overwhelming, and I don’t know how it can be done with the current economic climate, and certainly not with the budget and what’s happening in the world.”

Mr. Franks said that it takes departmental and Treasury Board Secretariat officials thousands of hours to prepare the main estimates. Mr. Page recently estimated that Parliament investigated them for less than 100 last year.

“To expect that 100 hours in Parliamentary committees or even many hundreds of hours can substantially re-do that work or re-think it from Parliament’s viewpoint is a bit optimistic,” said Mr. Franks.

Conservative Government Operations Committee member Jacques Gourde (Lotbinière-Chutes de la Chaudière, Que.) said Feb. 29 that the study of the estimates has to be balanced with Parliamentarians’ many other duties.

“If it takes us 250 days per year to do it, our work as Parliamentarians will run into a logistics problem,” he said.

“I don’t think we have all the training we need to study budgets that are as intricate as that,” he added.

Mr. Franks said that the best thing a Parliamentarian can get out of a committee hearing on the estimates is answers that inform the MP. What that Parliamentarian does with that information, in regards to the estimates is limited, he noted, by the fact that committees can’t produce substantive reports on their findings, and that any change to spending levels is viewed as a matter of government confidence. As a result, he said, changes are very rarely made.

“The estimates submitted to the legislator seem to be a fait accompli and we don’t feel that we will be able to make any significant changes,” said NDP MP Alexandre Boulerice (Rosemount-La Petite Patrie, Que.) at Government Operations Feb. 29.

Mr. Franks and London School of Economics associate professor Joachim Wehner will be appearing as witnesses at the committee’s next meeting March 26.

Mr. Wehner, who is based in Cape Town, South Africa and will be appearing by video link, is expected to provide context on how other countries have reformed their estimates. South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and England have all modified their financial approval systems.

During this current round of spending approval, Mr. Wallace and other MPs said that they had to count on their colleagues in other committees’ examinations of the estimates.

“You have to have faith and trust in your colleagues to do an appropriate analysis on the estimates for your own committees,” said Mr. Wallace.

As the system is now, MPs say they have enough information to feel confident in the government’s big-picture spending, but that the details of decisions are unclear.

“Based on the system as it is now, I think we have enough information to make some sort of value judgment on what it is. Do we have enough information that one would feel comfortable saying, ‘I know exactly what all of the bits of the puzzle are?’ No,” said NDP MP Malcolm Allen (Welland, Ont.), who sits on the Agriculture Committee.

While the interim supply bill was passed last week, committees have until May 31 to further examine the estimates. At the end of that period, another appropriations bill will be passed.

As official opposition, the NDP also has the option of calling two departments to a Committee of the Whole for further examination. The party hasn’t chosen any committees yet, and the decision is being put off until after a permanent party leader is chosen March 24.

Liberal Government Operations critic John McCallum (Markham-Unionville, Ont.) said that any further scrutiny of the estimates would be of limited use after the budget is tabled on March 29. The estimates don’t include any of the new spending or savings initiatives in that document.

“I don’t think that there will be too much attention paid to the main estimates because attention will be focused on the budget,” he said.

Mr. McCallum said that he’s “quite optimistic” that in the medium-term, parties on both sides of the House, as well as Mr. Clement, will be able to work together to improve the estimates process.

Mr. Allen said that the current estimates system needs to be changed: “If you can’t show transparency because the system is opaque, how will people ever believe you spent it wisely? Even if you did, how could you be able to tell them that?”

Original Article
Source: hill times
Author: JESSICA BRUNO 

No comments:

Post a Comment