Government withholds real financial picture from MPs

Exerpt from Ottawa Citizen March 1 2012

…a greater danger to the functioning of our democracy was laid out at a committee meeting this week by Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page, far from the bright lights. He reported that MPs are “starved of information” necessary to effectively review $250-billion of annual spending. That, arguably, is their most important job.

A perfect example of how disconnected from reality financial accounting has become: the government estimates for 2012-’13, released this week, do not reflect cuts expected in the March 29 budget. In other words, the estimates are already outdated. Why would MPs waste their time studying them?

Page reported, as well, that annual departmental reports have become “communications tools” rather than a scrupulous accounting of future plans and that “only a handful of people know how the whole system hangs together.”

Instead of breaking down spending by program — the child care bonus, the Afghan war, border infrastructure — the government offers MPs global figures, which obscure more than illuminate.

Ordinary members don’t have the time, resources, expertise, or co-operation from finance officials, to uncover the real cost of various initiatives. By some estimates, they spend an hour considering every $1 billion in spending. There is more consideration given to the average city budget.

That is a scandal and a costly one. But, because we are dealing with columns of numbers, not disposable cellphones, there haven’t been many national TV call-ins, or screaming headlines, over this insidious trend.

And, while governments of all stripes manipulate the numbers, few have been as brazen as the Harper Conservatives. They were found in contempt of Parliament last March for withholding the costs of their justice agenda. They don’t appear to have learned their lesson: this week Page (him again) suggested the government didn’t even do basic costing on their omnibus crime bill — and still hasn’t offered a credible estimate.