Liberals Finally Submits Five-Year Spending Plan to PBO

This article was last updated on April 16, 2022

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Finance Canada has finally accepted the demands of the fiscal watchdog and released its five-year spending plan for scrutiny. Earlier, Parliamentary Budget Officer had criticized the Trudeau government on Wednesday after it refused to publicly disclose its long-term outlook even though it had previously been done by its predecessor Conservative and Liberal governments.

The PBO confirmed on Friday that it had finally received the requested data, which was earlier being deemed as confidential by the government. The assistant parliamentary budget officer, Mostafa Askari, confirmed that “we received what we asked for.” However, the Finance department insisted that it was forced to take long-term estimates with a grain of salt as coming decisions will affect proposed spending plans. The letter addressed to the PBO quoted deputy minister, Paul Rochon, as saying that “as noted in Budget 2016, notional amounts have been earmarked for future years pending further cabinet decisions and policy development. Work will be undertaken over the next year to further refine these cost estimates and their profiles.” Moreover, Finance Canada criticized the PBO for allowing the department only a day and a half business days to provide the requested information.

However, Mr. Askari replied that the data was already in the department’s hands, meaning the PBO’s demand was reasonable. Mr. Askari further rejected the argument the five-year plan featured mostly “notional amounts.” He explained that “governments can always change their plans,” adding that “for now, we have to look at these numbers as the plan of the government for the next five years, until they change it.”