Kevin Page said he’s prepared to go to Federal Court as a “last resort” if his office and Privy Council Clerk Wayne Wouters are unable to resolve their differences over the timing and release of information about the cuts.
“Would PBO be prepared to go to court? Yes, if necessary,” said Page in an email.
“This is a dangerous precedent which undermines the role and mandate of the Parliamentary Budget Officer under the Act of Parliament but also, the role and mandate of individual MPs who have a fiduciary responsibility under the constitution and the Financial Administration Act to scrutinize spending.“
For now, Page has notified Wouters that his office is preparing a “legal opinion” to lay out how the government’s foot-dragging in disclosing details about spending cuts violates the Parliament of Canada Act, which gives the budget office the power to demand “free and timely access to financial or economic data” that departments have.
The showdown between Wouters and Page is the latest in the budget office’s battle to shed more light on the nature of the cuts and the impact on programs and services to Canadians. Page has issued two calls to deputy ministers since the March budget for details on the savings they intend to book. About one-fifth of departments, mostly small agencies, have responded and have some provided detailed breakdowns of the cuts.
The only grounds for refusing are if the PBO request involves private or personal information or is part of a cabinet confidence. Page argues none of those exemptions applies here.
Page said he’s seeking routine financial information that departments collect. Such details must have been part of the two scenarios departments proposed to meet the five- and 10-per-cent reduction targets demanded by the government. He wants details on spending cuts, job losses and services levels no later than the fall and before the 2013 reports on plans and priorities are tabled next spring “by which time all decisions would have made and implemented without parliamentary oversight.”
Wouters replied to Page on behalf of deputy ministers in a May 15 letter. He said their hands are tied by collective agreements with federal unions that oblige them to first inform unions and employees about cuts. The workforce adjustment agreement (WFA) on how layoffs should be handled is part of employees’ contracts.
The unions don’t buy it. They have been fighting for more transparency and details on the cuts from the start and back the PBO’s efforts. Gary Corbett, president of the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada, said the WFA protects the identity of employees facing layoffs but nothing prevents the release of information on the nature of the cuts.
“There is no rule or legal reason why that information can’t be released right away and the PBO’s letter makes that clear,” said Liberal MP John McCallum, who led a similar spending review for the Martin government. “The only reason not release it is if the government is fearful of the political consequences which I assume what they want to avoid.”
A big question is whether Wouters, who is also the deputy minister to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, is doing the bidding of the PMO or whether public servants would also like to dodge the disclosure of what’s being cut.
All indications are that departments are banking on “efficiency” savings for nearly half of the savings by revamping how they do business, amalgamating offices or overhauling “back-office” operations. These savings can be risky to achieve and the public service has a bad track record of realizing such savings especially if they rely on technology. If targets aren’t met, departments will have to dig and find savings elsewhere.
The Finance department recently offered a breakdown of the $5.2 billion in cuts which confirmed for the first time that the biggest reductions would come from a $2.5 billion saving in operations. About $1.7 billion of the reductions comes from eliminating 19,200 positions and another $1 billion from reducing funding for grants and contributions.
In his most recent report, Page said such big operational savings make these cuts more akin to the Liberals 2005 expenditure review than the massive downsizing of the mid-1990s. About $2.5 billion of those savings were supposed to be generated by procurement reform, a plan that failed miserably and savings never materialized.
In his letter, Wouters repeated the government’s position that details of cuts will be released through the normal channels as information becomes available, such as hearings at parliamentary committees, departments’ annual reports on plans and priorities, quarterly reports or in the supplementary estimates.
But those channels have hit road blocks along the way.
For example, the Conservatives revamped the government’s expenditure management system in the 2007 budget so budget measures would be reflected in supplementary estimates A, the first round of supplementary estimates released after the budget. This move was supposed to better align the estimates with the budget so MPs can make better sense of the two documents.
Despite the policy, the supplementary estimates tabled several weeks ago had no details on any new expenditures or reductions from the budget.
This comes after Treasury Board ordered departments to keep all budget information out of their annual reports on plans and priorities. Initially, Treasury Board asked departments to delay the reports from March until May so the impact of the budget could be incorporated in the reports. It later back-tracked and ordered departments not to include any budget details in the delayed reports.
Similarly, the guidelines departments follow when preparing their quarterly reports don’t require them to highlight reductions, job losses, shrinking business lines or policy changes that affect programs.
Some say the government could dig in its heels and delay the release of many details until the fall of 2013 when the Public Accounts are released. The government must get Parliament’s approval of its spending plan in the main estimates, but it doesn’t need approval to spend less. It could freeze departments’ spending internally and then recoup the savings as lapsed funds at the end of the year. Those reductions would be reported in the Public Accounts.
It’s unclear why the government, which prides itself as the champion of open government, is so intransigent about releasing information about the cuts. Critics argue the lack of transparency has effectively silenced debate among parliamentarians and Canadians on what programs and services they are willing to give up in the name of austerity.
Ironically, this tussle comes when all parties on the government operations committee is in the midst of a major review of the estimates process in the hopes of improving the archaic system so Parliament can do a better job of holding the government to account.
“It’s a paradoxical situation because I believe Conservative MPs on the committee are serious about reform but their government is acting in the opposite direction,” said McCallum.
Original Article
Source: ottawa citizen
Author: KATHRYN MAY
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