“This is tantamount to policy and political fraud,” said Liberal Public Accounts critic Gerry Byrne (Humber-St. Barbe-Baie Verte, Nfld.). “Decisions are being taken about the Conservative budget without proper information being made available.”
It’s been six months since Mr. Page first requested information from government departments and agencies on how they planned to meet their financial savings commitments under the 2012 budget’s strategic operating review. The budget outlines $5.2-billion in cuts over the next three years to direct program spending.
Shortly after first requesting the information from more than 80 organizations in early April, Clerk of the Privy Council Wayne Wouters, the top bureaucrat in government, informed Mr. Page he wouldn’t be getting the information, citing concerns for the privacy of workers and obligations to private sector unions.
Mr. Page fired back, affirming that he had the legal right to the information in a “free and timely” manner under the Parliament of Canada Act. In June, the PBO released a legal opinion from University of Ottawa constitutional expert Joseph Magnet that underscored the PBO’s claim.
Last week Mr. Page wrote Mr. Wouters asking for the information for a third time, and requested that groups of departments provide it to him by Sept. 17 or 24. Before Mr. Wouters’ intervention, 18 smaller or more independent organizations had already responded to the information request.
“The missing information hampers my office’s ability to carry out its legislative mandate and its provision is pressing,” wrote Mr. Page to Mr. Wouters.
Mr. Page has contemplated taking his case to the courts to assert the rights of the PBO and to finally get the information he needs, though his most recent letter makes no mention of legal action.
“Kevin Page should continue the fight, and he should receive the support of not only Parliamentarians but also the Canadian public while he does it,” said Mr. Byrne.
“He’s not doing this for himself, he’s not doing this because he’s trying to pick a fight, he’s the Parliamentary Budget Officer. The centerpiece of the last budget were all of these cuts,” he added.
The exact information the Mr. Page wants each government organization to provide is planned savings, planned personnel reductions and service level impacts. His office has prepared a simple chart for the organizations to fill out with the information.
“By law, the government is required to provide that information. He’s not asking for anything untoward. He’s asking for the information that he’s supposed to be provided by law and in a timely matter,” said NDP MP Linda Duncan (Edmonton-Strathcona, Alta.) who sits on the House of Commons’ Government Operations committee.
“We want action,” she said.
The government has indicated that the information Mr. Page wants will be published in government financial reports, but in a report released Sept. 5, the PBO points out that releasing the information this way lacks timeliness, and will likely also lack the details needed to thoroughly analyze the cuts.
“These shortcomings could result in a full fiscal year being completed before the anticipated impacts of all planned spending cuts are presented to Parliamentarians,” the PBO writes.
A spokesperson for Treasury Board President Tony Clement (Parry Sound-Muskoka, Ont.) suggested last week that Mr. Page direct his energies to other projects.
“Our government feels that rather than spending resources tracking money that won’t be spent, the PBO should stay focused on his mandate to Parliamentarians pertaining to money that is being spent. We will continue to use the normal reporting mechanisms including Estimates, quarterly financial reports and the Public Accounts,” spokesperson Sean Osmar told The Hill Times via email.
When asked if there was anything the opposition parties, who have also been calling for the information’s release, could do to have the data made public, Ms. Duncan said that ultimately it’s in the hands of Prime Minister Stephen Harper (Calgary Southwest, Alta.).
“There could be a motion, but how many more motions and reports do you need? We’ve done this excessively. This is an ongoing issue with the Harper government, is the refusal to provide full, timely, access to information to duly elected members of Parliament. We had it on Afghanistan, we had it on the fighter jets, and now we have it on what’s happening with the layoffs. What’s happening with the budget?” she said.
Over the summer Mr. Page requested to schedule a meeting with Mr. Wouters to discuss the issue, but the Clerk wasn’t available. The PCO also did not respond to a request from The Hill Times for further information by the time of publishing.
In his September letter, Mr. Page did not make any mention of forthcoming legal action, but in an interview with The Hill Times this spring, Mr. Page said that it was a “last-resort option.”
“Is there a pivot point where things change? If months go by and there is complete silence,” he added. Mr. Page was away from the office last week and unavailable for an interview.
Taking the matter to court would be a “sad final adjudication of the issue,” said Mr. Byrne.
“With that said, I still would encourage Kevin Page to proceed through the courts if that’s what’s required, if for no other reason than to simply strike the precedent, to establish the precedent that it is illegal for the government to suppress this information,” he said.
Ms. Duncan said that the NDP would continue to keep the pressure on the government to release the information, but hoped it wouldn’t be necessary.
“I would hope that we do not have to prolong the pressure, I would hope that finally the government will step up to the plate and deliver its responsibilities,” she said.
Mr. Page said the information is “essential” to his work.
“The information requested by the PBO is quite essential to providing Parliament with an independent analysis of the current state of affairs,” he wrote in his Sept. 5 letter.
Both Ms. Duncan and Mr. Byrne said that while working in their ridings this summer constituents wanted to know what was going to happen to the government services and jobs in their ridings.
“The cuts to the line departments, like Immigration, Service Canada, are extremely of interest to constituents, and certainly we need to have that information to know how better we’re going to serve our constituents,” said Ms. Duncan.
Whether or not the government gives him the information he wants, Mr. Page will be doing a quarterly analysis of spending based on information from the Receiver General and other information on expenses from government departments. His first report is due out later this month.
The PBO has noted in reports that when savings exercises in the past three budgets are taken into account, the total cuts to the public service amounts to $37-billion over five years, far above the $5.2-billion over three years announced in the 2012 budget. The PBO puts the ongoing reductions at $10.8-billion.
In a report released last week by the PBO, the office added that it has mostly received partial or no information on budget restraints going back to 2010.
“The PBO has filed five separate information requests seeking further details of restraint. Only one had a complete response. In other cases, the government indicated that the data did not exist or could not be shared,” the office states in its Restraint Monitoring Framework report, released Sept. 5.
Ms. Duncan said that the government’s intransigence “is showing great disrespect for the office of the PBO.”
She added: “The ball is in Mr. Harper’s court, and his Cabinet.”
Original Article
Source: hill times
Author: JESSICA BRUNO
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