Parliament Budget Officer and NDP Refer to Court for Defining PBO’s Mandate

This article was last updated on April 16, 2022

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Both the NDP and Parliament’s budget watchdog have referred to the Federal Court for settling a dispute among the parties and clarify the mandate of Parliamentary Budget Officer. Both the parties are specifically interested to clarify whether the PBO has authority of asking specific financial information from federal departments.

It has been a longstanding dispute between the parliamentary budget officer, Kevin Page, and the Conservative government. The Conservatives have repeatedly alleged that PBPO is overstepping his mandate by inquiring on specific information regarding federal budget cuts, e.g. the number of jobs being chopped and how much service in each department will be affected.

This court case is most likely going to decide the issue soon as both the NDP and Page are in favor of getting a decisive legal opinion of the verdict. Earlier this month, NDP Leader Tom Mulcair requested an analysis from Page on whether the savings presented in the last budget can be achieved and whether they will have effects on Canada in the long term. But apparently Page replied that “questions have been raised as to whether the analyses you require fall within my mandate” and that he would need to know “the departmental savings premised on staffing reductions.”

In another following letter, Page stated that he is going to refer to the court for clearly defining his jurisdiction on analyzing the extent to which the savings projected in the budget can be achieved.