QUESTION PERIOD — Finance
Fiscal Accountability
October 26, 2023
Senator Gold, earlier this week, the C.D. Howe Institute released its annual report card on the fiscal transparency and accountability of Canada’s senior governments — so that would include the provincial, territorial and federal governments. This year, ranking at the bottom of the class again was the federal government, with a rating of C minus. I spoke about this in a speech earlier last year. The federal government always seems to rank at the bottom of the class.
Why is the federal government, with all the resources available to it, languishing at the bottom spot in a report on fiscal transparency and accountability?
Well, it pleases no one, including the Government of Canada, I assume, and certainly not this office, to be reminded that the Government of Canada is not doing a better job. One thing we can say with certainty is that the performance of the government will not be blamed on your persistence —
— and I commend you for it —
— in raising these questions in the chamber.
I am not going to speculate about the different ability, capacity and scope of — or challenges faced by — the federal government vis-à-vis smaller jurisdictions, but I will certainly bring this, although they are already aware of it, to the attention of the government and implore them to do better.
Thank you very much. I have a supplementary question.
Because this issue is very well known and has been present for several years, in 2019, this government supported a report by the Government Operations and Estimates Committee of the House to improve the government’s financial reports and processes. This would have improved the transparency and accountability of the government’s financial documents. There were some pilot projects undertaken, but, after two years, the government cancelled them. There was never any explanation as to why they were cancelled, and nobody could explain it to me.
Why did the government cancel the fiscal transparency project, and why was it never re-established?
Again, Senator Marshall, I do not have the answer to that question, but it’s a legitimate one. I will certainly make inquiries so that I better understand the situation.
