“I think the $5.2-billion over three years is a misunderstanding,” Chisholm Pothier, director of communications to Finance Minister Jim Flaherty (Whitby-Ajax, Ont.) said in an email response to The Hill Times last week. “This round of savings begins this year, 2012-13, with $1.4 billion in savings and culminates in $5.2 billion a year in savings by 2015-16, [it’s] pretty clear on page 213 of the budget. So the number is $5.2 billion a year, ongoing, starting in 2015-16. Page 237 is talking about savings between 2011-12 and 2016-17. That’s a different time frame so a different number.”
When the government released its budget on March 29, it announced that there would be a $5.2-billion cut to government’s operations over three years, with more than 19,000 job losses to the public service. Looking past the three years, the Parliamentary Budget Office noted in a recent report that there will be $20-billion of cuts over five years.
The budget document, released in March, stated that costs to “support jobs and growth” amount to $3.6-billion over the next five years. “At the same time, the budget will reduce departmental spending by $20.1-billion between 2011-12 and 2016-17 after taking into account workforce adjustments costs which departments are expected to fund internally.”
The operating budget cuts begin this fiscal year, starting at $1.8-billion. Next year, there will be $3.5-billion of cuts, followed by $5.3-billion, according to the budget document. In each of the 2015 and 2016 fiscal years, there will be $5.2-billion of cuts, totaling $21-billion.
The NDP called it a “two-book” system.
“Basically this government now is consistently operating on a two-book system. We see this with the F-35s and we’re seeing this with their budget approach. They have the figures that they want to reveal to the public, and they have the real figures and that’s why they’re losing credibility steadily with Canadians. People see it as trickery. It’s not the kind of honest transparent government that Stephen Harper promised,” said NDP MP Peter Julian (Burnaby-New Westminster, B.C.).
But Mr. Pothier said it’s not the case.
Mr. Pothier said the savings are less than two per cent of total government spending. He noted that he has “no clue what Peter Julian is talking about” and that the budget is “pretty clear and publicly available.”
An official with the Parliamentary Budget Office explained that the difference in figures comes from the difference between the timing of the workforce adjustment measures and the government’s accounting system. Employees who are receiving layoff notices now are still being paid, and that money was accounted for in previous years.
When it comes to using the $5.2-billion figure versus $20-billion, the PBO official said they are essentially the same numbers, but can be used differently, depending on the question asked.
“Both numbers are useful. In terms of what the actual impact is on government operations, and the ongoing impact, usually the $5.2-billion number is more useful,” the official said. “We prepared the $20-billion figure because that gives you a sense of how much money, from an economic perspective, is actually being pulled out of the system. So if you want to get a sense of how much the government in comparison to its previous plan and the current plan how much money they’re not going to be spending and stimulating the economy by or what the overall level of retrenchment is across the economy, that’s where the $20-billion figure becomes interesting because there is $20-billion that they planned to spend, which they are no longer spending. From an economic perspective, it’s usually that number that’s more useful.”
For Liberal MP John McCallum (Markham-Unionville, Ont.), he said the $20-billion figure is not “draconian” and essentially means the same as the $5.2-billion so he’s not too concerned. He said, however, that he’s more concerned with what the government is cutting and the lack of transparency that they’re showing than how much the cuts are.
“I think that’s a significant amount of money. I wouldn’t say it’s draconian, but it’s substantial. My problem is less that they’re doing cuts and more to do with what they’re cutting and what they’re not cutting,” he said, noting that the government could be saving money by tendering the F-35 procurement, and giving up its law and order agenda rather than going after scientists and statisticians in the public service. “They tend to cut the knowledge based institutions, the scientists, so I think that’s a reflection of their ideological base rather than their evidence based policy. So I strongly object to huge cuts at Statistics Canada coming after they abolish the compulsory long form census. That’s destroying our understanding of our country. We Liberals have done cuts in the past. In principle, we’re not opposed if it’s necessary. But it’s more the kinds of things they cut and the kinds of things they don’t cut.”
In addition, Mr. McCallum said, the least the government could do is provide transparent details of where exactly the cuts will be made. It’s what his Liberal government did when it cut back government spending, he said. “I was chair of the expenditure review committee in 2004 and we had cuts not unlike what they have in terms of dollars, but in the budget, every program that was affected in every department was listed with the dollar amounts and the description. There’s none of that here,” he said. “Technology has not regressed since 2005. There’s no reason they couldn’t have done that if they chose to but they didn’t.”
Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page criticized the government last week in his latest report, stating that the Conservatives refuse to give detailed information on where cuts will be made. Responding to comments Treasury Board President Tony Clement (Parry Sound-Muskoka, Ont.) made last week that details on cuts cannot be known until 2013, Mr. Page said, “It’s wrong.”
Mr. Clement told reporters last Wednesday that the government is following rules on releasing information regarding cuts to the public service. “There’s a process in place and the Parliamentary Budget Officer knows full well what the process is. We report to Parliament, we report to Parliament in quarterly reports, we report to Parliament in estimates, we report to Parliament in due course in reports on plans and priorities, consistent with parliamentary rules and requirements,” he said. “So the fact of the matter is we also have an obligation to our employees, that we inform them first. So we’re being consistent with our collective agreements, we’re being consistent with the rules of Parliament. So when things are announced to employees, then of course that becomes public information and the Parliamentary Budget Officer will have that information at that point.”
The PBO is monitoring the progress of the cuts. When the office could not get detailed information from the government, Mr. Page went directly to the departments to ask. Only eight departments/agencies responded to his request, most of them small outfits such as the National Research Council and the National Battlefields Commission. Mr. Page’s aim was to have the full information before Parliamentarians voted on the main estimates in June.
“It’s a type of pressure. I mean, Parliament needs to have this stuff. We’re kind of acting on behalf of Parliamentarians,” Mr. Page said last week.
Original Article
Source: hill times
Author: Bea Vongdouangchanh
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