Budget Implementation Bill, 2017, No. 1
Certain Committees Authorized to Study Subject Matter
May 8, 2017
The Honorable Senator Percy E. Downe:
Thank you for your remarks, Senator Day. You emphasized one of the more important parts of the Parliamentary Budget Officer's mandate, which is that any parliamentarian — any member of the House of Commons or senator — can ask or make a request. You outlined the section in your remarks. And the PBO has to do the work, unlike other officers of parliament, the Auditor General, for example, where he can be instructed by the government.
This is the one avenue individual parliamentarians have to find out information from the government of a financial nature. I have personally used him twice, once on Confederation Bridge where he prepared a significant document on the cost of the bridge and the reduction of tolls on a go-forward basis, and on the revenue agency. He encountered a roadblock with the Canada Revenue Agency in that they refused to give him the information that they're required by law to give him, and he had no enforcement provision. Under the changes, will there be an enforcement provision for him?
