PBO Fréchette faces ‘huge challenge’ of estimating cost of election promises

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Parliamentary Budget Officer Jean-Denis Fréchette will reach out to political parties and deputy ministers this fall as he prepares for a major new assignment that he didn't want: costing political promises during the 2019 election campaign.

The federal government is moving ahead with the controversial plan to involve the PBO in reviewing campaign promises of political parties, in spite of the watchdog's strong objections to the idea.

While the federal Liberals ultimately agreed to address most of the PBO's concerns with Bill C-44, the omnibus budget bill that included several changes to the PBO, the watchdog's objections to costing campaign promises were not.

In an interview, Mr. Fréchette said he accepts the government's decision and is starting to prepare for how the PBO will manage the workload and the sensitivities of providing non-partisan analysis in the midst of an election campaign. "It's going to be a huge challenge to meet all these requests," he said.

Mr. Fréchette wants to ensure government departments are ready to assist the PBO and that political parties are prepared to give his office enough time to thoroughly analyze potential campaign pledges.

The Liberal Party promised during the 2015 campaign to add the costing of party platforms to the PBO's mandate. The platform said this would give Canadians "a credible, non-partisan way to compare each party's fiscal plans."

However the actual legislation is focused on having the PBO analyze specific promises upon request, rather than costing entire platforms.

The budget bill, which made the PBO a fully independent officer of Parliament, outlined how this costing would work. During a period that starts 120 days before a fixed-date election and up until the day before voting day, political parties can ask the PBO to estimate the financial cost of a campaign promise.

Once a party has announced the proposal, the PBO must publish its report on the matter.

In a discussion paper released during debate on the bill, Mr. Fréchette expressed several concerns with the costing aspect of the legislation.

Mr. Fréchette called it "the most significant departure" in the legislation from the PBO's role of supporting Parliament and that "its implementation risks seriously undermining the PBO's perceived independence and non-partisanship."

The PBO warned that based on the experience of other countries, this work is likely to be labour-intensive and costly.

"In effect, this complex provision makes the PBO part of the political parties' policy development process and will turn PBO into a research bureau for all the political parties represented in the House of Commons in the pre-election period," he wrote.

Jennifer Robson, an assistant professor at Carleton University who teaches public policy and political management, said she has several concerns with how this new role will work when the PBO seeks information from departments.

Prof. Robson notes that public servants and ministers are subject to the "caretaker convention" during election campaigns. Federal rules state that during an election, government officials should restrict their activity to work that is routine, non-controversial, urgent and in the public interest, reversible without undue cost or disruption or agreed to by opposition parties.

"The issue is the ministerial discretion to co-operate or not," she said. "You can imagine the weirdness that ensues if a minister, even for legitimate reasons, says 'No, I don't agree to have my department co-operate on a PBO request related to costing.'"

Prof. Robson said the legislation also raises questions about how the PBO should manage its workload in the event that it is swamped by costing requests.

Government House Leader Bardish Chagger recently hinted that the PBO could be given a budget boost to meet this extra workload.

"As this would be a new undertaking for the PBO in Canada, the potential or perceived risks associated with its implementation are yet to be seen," she said in a recent written statement tabled in the House of Commons. "It would be reasonable to expect that the PBO's approach would be reflected in the work plan leading up to the election as well as its budget request for that year."

Former PBO Kevin Page, who now leads the Institute of Fiscal Studies and Democracy at the University of Ottawa, supports the government's plan and thinks the PBO's concerns can be worked out over time.

"The end result of this is you're going to get better costing and hopefully more transparency in these political platforms," he said. "It's definitely going to be challenging and it's not going to be perfect the first time out."