A Terse Exchange: Independent Review of Budget Figures

The Finance Department has offered a terse but prompt response to a request with a very short deadline from the Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO) for additional information to justify figures in the March 22, 2016, federal budget.

The PBO issued its request for more details on Friday April 1 and Finance Canada was asked to respond by Tuesday April 5.

Finance Canada provided the missing numbers in its response and posted it publicly on April 7, together with a request for longer response times in the future. In addition, the Deputy Minister, Paul Rochon, noted that future budget documents “may have different chapters and different themes . . . work will be undertaken over the next year to further refine these cost estimates and their profiles.”

The budget was short on data to justify six-year totals from 2015-16 to 2020-21, especially as it pertained to the details for measures designed specifically to help and grow the middle class, provide a better future for Indigenous Peoples, and stimulate a clean growth economy, amongst other provisions.

The Parliamentary Budget Officer, Jean-Denis Fréchette, specifically requested the detailed impact of the budget measures across all revenue, expense and public debt interest components of the medium-term forecast.

The request from the PBO included a warning that non-compliance would be a deemed refusal to provide the information, to be reported to the committees responsible for oversight for further action. It also requested that the response letter not be marked “confidential” and that the requested information be attached separately.

The information provided by Finance Canada in its response is worth the read. Table 1 provides additional detail about the fiscal budgetary balance, specifically the difference between the numbers estimated in the February Statement and in the budget and the impact of new measures in the Budget 2016 papers. There is significantly more red ink in the budget.

Over the six-years in question, the cost of the new measures introduced in the 2016 budget total just over $40 Billion when debt charges are included. For the details see the following link: http://www.fin.gc.ca/n16/data/16-048_1-eng.asp

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