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News Release
Democracy Watch Calls on Federal Joint
Committee to Approve of Parliamentary Budget Officer’s Past Actions,
and to Recommend Key Changes to Increase PBO’s Powers, Funding and
Independence
Thursday, May 28, 2009
OTTAWA - Today, as the federal Joint Committee on the Library of
Parliament meets to consider its report on the Parliamentary Budget
Officer
(PBO), Democracy Watch called on the Committee to ensure its report
finds the PBO has acted properly and within his legal mandate so far,
and recommends increased powers, funding and independence for the PBO
to ensure he can do his job in the future without further harassment.
“The Parliamentary Budget
Officer has clearly acted within his legal mandate in preparing and
releasing reports so far, but the law needs to be strengthened and
clarified to ensure that no one can threaten the PBO with dismissal or
funding cuts for unjustifiable reasons, and to ensure that government
institutions provide the PBO with the information he needs to do his
job,” said Duff Conacher, Coordinator of Democracy Watch.
“The Parliamentary Budget
Officer must be given the powers, funding and independence to ensure
government spending statements are accurate because the track record of
similar agencies in other countries has shown that their accurate
information not only increases government accountability and the
quality of public policy debates, but also saves much more money than
these watchdog agencies cost,” said Conacher.
The PBO’s powers, funding and independence must be increased in the
following ways:
- changing subsection 79.1(2) of the Parliament of Canada Act to allow
dismissal of the PBO only for “cause” (currently, the Act states that the PBO serves at
the “pleasure” of Cabinet and can be dismissed at any time for any
reason, which greatly undermines the PBO’s independence (and breaks the
Conservatives' election promise to establish an independent PBO));
- adding a new subsection to section 79.2 of the Act (or enacting a regulation under
sections 74.2 and 79.2) requiring the PBO to release his reports to the
public at the same time he gives them to an MP, senator, parliamentary
committee, the House of Commons or Senate (currently, the Act is not specific about when and
how the PBO’s reports should be made public);
- adding a new subsection to section 79.3 of the Act that gives the PBO the right to
a quick injunction hearing in Federal Court if the head of any
government institution refuses to comply with the PBO right under the Act “to free and timely access to
any financial or economic data in the possession of the department that
are required for the performance” of the PBO’s mandate (NOTE: there are
many exemptions in the Act to
the PBO’s right of access to data, so the court hearing would determine
whether the institution must give the data to the PBO);
- adding a new subsection to section 79.3 of the Act that gives the Federal Court
the power to penalize the head of any government institution that the
court determines has unjustifiably refused to give the PBO requested
data, and;
- adding a new section to the Act ensuring the PBO’s funding must
match the funding levels of similar agencies in other countries
(proportional to the size of the Canadian economy and amount of federal
government spending) -- essentially, this would increase the PBO’s
funding to somewhere between $5-10 million annually.
- 30 -
For more information, contact:
Duff Conacher, Coordinator of Democracy Watch
Tel: 613-241-5179
Democracy Watch's Voter
Rights Campaign
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