“It was an accident that the current PBO became a true legislative budget office. If Parliament, the media and Canadians want a true legislative budget office they will have to ‘stand up.’ The current PBO is about to go down,” Mr. Page told The Hill Times. “The process is very late. I am leaving in two weeks. We will have a budget very soon. The PBO will be in Federal Court on a reference opinion very soon. The timing of the selection process and the interim appointment of the librarian do not support the interests of Parliament. If Parliament, the media, and Canadians do not see what is unfolding and react appropriately—PBO will soon be an institution of the past. The risk is we go from the spirit of accountability to the spirit of a ‘sounding board.’”
Mr. Page said this is dangerous. “With a ‘sounding board’ you get soothing communication lines of consent. You get useless and inoffensive work that does nothing to support the ‘power-of-the-purse’ role of the House of government,” he said in an email to The Hill Times. “People will behave according to the incentives of the system. Under flawed legislation, the PBO is appointed by the PM with no role for Parliament. The person works at pleasure of the PM. The person reports administratively to a librarian who has no formal training in public finance and budgeting. Now the librarian controls the operation of the mandate and the administration of the office. The legislation is bad.”
Government House Leader Peter Van Loan (York-Simcoe, Ont.) announced last Thursday evening that Parliamentary Librarian Sonia L’Heureux was appointed the interim Canada’s Parliamentary budget officer when Mr. Page’s term ends on March 25.
“We thank Ms. L’Heureux for accepting this appointment on an interim basis,” Mr. Van Loan said in a press release. “She will be a capable steward of this important office until the appointment of a new Parliamentary budget officer.”
NDP MP Pat Martin (Winnipeg Centre, Man.) said the appointment is “preposterous” and means the government wants to leave the position empty on the eve of a new budget process starting.
“The PBO already reports to the chief librarian. Appointing the chief librarian is tantamount to not appointing anyone and leaving the position empty during this whole budget period. I can see why they don’t want a Parliamentary budget officer during a budget. The obvious course of action would have been to extend Kevin Page’s term for six months while an honest search is carried out or, failing that, to appoint one of any competent senior staff already working in the PBO,” said Mr. Martin. “Unfortunately, I’m afraid the good people on Kevin Page’s staff are being tarred with the same brush as the PBO even though their only crime is being thorough, diligent, and competent. Many of them would have made an appropriate interim or permanent replacement for Kevin Page.”
Mr. Page told The Hill Times last week that it was “a poor decision,” however, because Ms. L’Heureux, although a “good person,” does not have “training to be a legislative budget officer.”
In an email, Mr. Page said: “The legislative mandate afforded to the PBO belongs to the officer. The officer must be held responsible and accountable. I do not buy communication lines like the interim will be a ‘steward,’ or something similar. There should be no responsibility without accountability. There were excellent candidates for an interim position within PBO—people with knowledge and experience. The decision speaks to the inherent flaws in the legislation. The PBO needs to be truly independent, responsible and accountable.”
Mr. Page also criticized the search process and the secretive nature of the selection committee surrounding the next appointment.
“We now know the selection committee includes no former deputy ministers of Finance, or TBS or clerks of the Privy Council. We have been told that the committee includes a representative from PCO. This is wrong, PCO supports the executive, not Parliament,” he said. “The fox is in the hen house and it was allowed in through the front door. A secret selection committee is being argued to promote objectivity. Yeah, right. Since when on issues of power and independence do we ‘trust the better angels of our nature?’”
Liberal MP Frank Valeriote (Guelph, Ont.) told The Hill Times last week that the government did not want to appoint someone currently in the PBO, such as one of Mr. Page’s deputies, because these deputies are associated with keeping the majority-governing Conservatives accountable, and they don’t like it.
“I can’t predict, I can’t speculate on whether the chief librarian will undertake with the same vigour and passion to have all those numbers presented to us,” he said. “This is not a reflection of the librarian at all. This is a reflection of the Conservatives frankly running from an officer of Parliament, the Parliamentary budget officer who has forced them, against their preference to essentially be more transparent than they are willing to be.”
Mr. Valeriote said he’s concerned that there will be no PBO in place during the budget process but will still ask financial and costing questions and hope for transparent answers from the office.
“We’ll make that attempt. Again, this is not a reflection of Sonia L’Heureux,” Mr. Valeriote said. “It’s discouraging, frankly, and it will make it incredibly more difficult for Parliamentarians who are already hamstrung by this government who give very little time for us to look at the budget or the estimates and, frankly, with budget implementation bills that are 400 and 500 pages long, to get information. … It’s regrettable.”
The Library of Parliament posted the job vacancy last Thursday, 17 days before Mr. Page’s term ends. When Mr. Page was first appointed, it took eight months to complete the search. The vacancy notice states that the next PBO “should possess experience in negotiating and achieving consensus on complex issues among a variety of stakeholders with competing objectives.”
The ideal candidate will also “possess strong leadership and managerial skills as well as have the ability to provide impartial and authoritative advice and support to Parliamentarians on matters relating to the state of Canada’s finances, the estimates of government and trends in the national economy. The ability to respond to complex situations with multiple competing interests arising in a partisan environment is required.”
In addition, the person should be “decisive, impartial, tactful and discreet” and “possess integrity and high ethical standards.”
When asked last week about the vacancy notice, Treasury Board President Tony Clement (Parry Sound-Muskoka, Ont.) said that the process of appointing a new Parliamentary Budget Officer is up to Ms. L’Heureux.
“She’s got the file. We respect the process. We respect the fact that she’s got this role and responsibility so we will let the process unfold,” he told reporters last Thursday. “She has, I believe, a responsibility to set out the terms and conditions. I see nothing in there that offends the will of Parliament so as far as I’m concerned it’s a matter that she the responsibility for.”
Mr. Clement said that the goal of the search process is “to find a credible, nonpartisan Parliamentary Budget Officer, so in the absence of evidence that they’re [the Library of Parliament] not doing their job, I respect them to do their jobs.”
Mr. Valeriote said he’s concerned with the job description because the PBO “is no longer required to tell the truth,” instead the new appointee will have to find “consensus.”
“In the absence of a really strong budget officer who’s willing to keep their feet to the fire, in fact, who’s willing to take them to court in order to get that information, then I doubt we’re going to have full and fair disclosure of anything,” he said. “I’m worried. We should be worried, and Canadians should be worried about a failure, a breakdown, frankly, in the budget process because of their omnibus budgets but also because of their changing the job description that no longer requires the Parliamentary budget officer to tell the truth. He or she’s going to be required to find some form of consensus which will not happen.”
It is just one more “setback” for the office, following the Senate Speaker’s ruling that the PBO has breached Senators’ privilege by asking the Federal Court to determine the office’s mandate, Mr. Martin said.
“I do see it as a setback. It’s a further piling on and ganging up on the poor guy, frankly. He’s trying to at least leave his house in order when his term expires and that the mandate will be clear and the succeeding PBO will have a fighting chance of being able to do their job unmolested by the government side,” Mr. Martin said. “It’s kind of a sad thing, really, that the Senate Speaker has decided to intervene in this way. I think they’re the ones who are overstretching their mandate to tell you the truth. I think they should butt out of the affairs of the PBO.”
Mr. Martin, who sat on the special legislative committee studying Bill C-2, the Federal Accountability Act which created the Parliamentary Budget Office, said he believes Mr. Page is executing his mandate in a way that those who created it intended.
“I strongly believe that Kevin Page sees his mandate much the way those of us who crafted the bill saw his mandate and he’s been frustrated and undermined and thwarted at every turn and all he’s trying to do is do his job the way we believe it was intended to be done, those of us on the committee of the founding legislation. When his office was created through the Federal Accountability Act, we expected him to do exactly what he’s doing. And it’s hard for us to accept that the government sees it any other way.”
Green Party Leader Elizabeth May (Saanich-Gulf Islands, B.C.) agreed that the ruling could affect the next PBO. “The reality is that there’s clearly a partisan attempt to undermine Kevin Page and his role as the Parliamentary budget officer which could colour the future of the office and I think we need to preserve the independence,” she said. “We need to increase the independence of the office, it should be standalone, it should have better resources, and I hope that whoever takes the job next will be a strong person, who will not have to undergo the kind of personal abuse that Kevin Page did.”
Mr. Page said, however, that he will continue to fight for transparency as long as he’s in the position. He asked for clarity on his mandate at the Federal Court because the government refuses to hand over information on plans for spending and budget restraint.
“Once we have legal clarity, the PBO can take the next step. Assuming it is determined we are operating within the mandate, my strong belief, we intend to go back to Parliament and ask their help to get the spending plans they need to hold the government to account. The Federal Court decision is not an end. It is a new beginning,” Mr. Page told The Hill Times in an email. “We are one year from budget 2012, yet Parliament still does not have departmental spending plans consistent with budget 2012. Freezing direct program spending for the next five years, after it has been growing more than six per cent per year over the past 10 is not an easy accomplishment. Parliament must see the plans. The PBO should analyze the plans for fiscal and service level risk. Without the plans, there is no accountability. Parliament is undermined.”
Original Article
Source: hilltimes.com
Author: BEA VONGDOUANGCHANH
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