Full allocation for PBO in federal budget

Here is the word from this week's Hill Times:

After a dramatic year of struggling with the House and Senate Speakers and the Parliamentary Librarian, Canada's Parliamentary budget officer will receive the full planned $2.8-million budget he was promised, according to the 2010-2011 main estimates.

"We are very pleased that our budget is back to the original planned level," budget officer Kevin Page told The Hill Times in an email. "This will allow us to do a better job at carrying out our legislative mandate."

It's not a complete victory, though:

Mr. Young's [the Parliamentary Librarian] office said the PBO's $2.8-million funding would be maintained throughout the 2010-2011 fiscal year. Mr. Page said that "given recent history ... there should be a separate line for the PBO" under the Library of Parliament's funding.

Moreover, if you look back to the original three demands of the 'open letter', you'll note that adequate funding only satisfies one of the three demands. The other two outstanding complaints--public reporting and independence--seem to have settled down for the moment, but are not completely resolved.

But, let's call this a victory. Thank you to all of the economists and other interested citizens who supported this initiative. Collectively, I think we helped to do some good here.

I'll keep this blog up, both as an archive of the initiative and also as insurance against any future political pressure on the PBO.

So, go now in peace. We may have dispersed, but we will be watching.

Is the Canadian Parliamentary System blissfully perfect?

Over at Worthwhile, there is an interesting comment thread on the PBO following the Fraser Institute piece published last week. The Fraser Institute authors posted a comment here.

Even assuming the PBO is a more reliable source of policy analysis than other organizations, its efforts are of little practical value in the Canadian political context given the institutional environment. Unlike the US where the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) is more influential, Canada’s government operates in a parliamentary system. As in many parliamentary systems, the Canadian legislature has limited powers to change the submitted budget (see IMF study). Generally, parliamentarians can only approve or reject the incumbent government’s spending proposal, while the legislatures in the US government are free to change every aspect of the budget proposal. Policy analysis performed by the CBO is more likely to be used effectively by individual members of congress to adjust proposals accordingly.

This is the old 'accountability is foreign to Westminster Parliamentary Democracy' argument that I discussed previously here.

Let me extract two points of their argument:

1. The PBO would not be exactly like the CBO therefore no parallels to the CBO may be drawn.

2. Canada's Parliamentary system has the advantage that the executive is directly accountable in Parliament--The Finance Minister has to stand up and defend his/her policies.

Point #1 is an all or nothing argument. If not exactly like the CBO, then the PBO is not worthwhile. I see the PBO as adding tremendous value by pricing both government and opposition policies. The use of this information is different in Canada than the US, it is true. In the US this information might be directly incorporated in the bill through the legislative process. This wouldn't likely happen in Canada, since policies are more or less presented as done deals.
However, would pricing information influence debate in the Commons or in the public about a policy initiative? Would it improve the value of that debate? I argue yes. Parliamentary democracy does not mean that there must be no debate once the Finance Minister speaks. Having a well-informed debate in Parliament and in public is, in my view MORE important in Canada's parliamentary system since bad policy proposals can ONLY be influenced by debate rather than legislative horse-trading.

Point #2 is a non-sequitur. Yes, it is a good thing that we have direct accountability of the executive. But we're not canceling Question Period here. We can have executive accountability as well as other channels of accountability. Yes, under the current system we can vote against a government that offers bad policies, once every five years (less for minorities of course). But I like a system that has a little more democratic responsiveness than that; where there are more channels for accountability than quinquennial elections.

But introducing another channel of accountability must surely diminish the power of the direct channel through Parliament, right? Perhaps. So what? I'm willing to make that trade if it makes our democracy function better. As I said previously:

Is the point that our system is currently in a state of perfection? Really? Or that our system is so fragile that a small itsy-bitsy movement toward transparency would cause it to wither? Which is it--we're perfect as is, or fragile as glass?

My argument is that we can add some extra channels of accountability to our system without wrecking it. Our system has evolved substantially since 1867. Let's evolve some more with an effective PBO.

The Office

Back in July, there was some debate about proper descriptive of the O/office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer. As I mentioned at the time, I wasn't trying to be subtle--I had just taken the 'Office' from the website, which at the time referred to the OPBO. Now, I see the leading O has been scrubbed from the website.

Over the Summer, I received several communications accusing me more or less of sedition for having the audacity to refer to the office in which the PBO sat as an Office. I thought this was a bit of an over-reaction, given that many governmental institutions are commonly referred to by names that don't necessarily have official recognition in legislation. (I don't see the phrase 'Mounties' anywhere in this Act, for example.)

Nevertheless, seeing that the website now refers only to the PBO, and conceding the point that the legislation does not recognize the office as an Office, I have begun to refer more to the PBO than the OPBO. When referring to the office in which the PBO operates, perhaps I'll use the acronym oPBO.

But, I'll leave the name of this blog as is because:

• I (and lots of other economists) think the office should be an Office; i.e. independent and reporting to Parliament not the Library of Parliament.
• I would like the focus to be on the role of the institution itself; the office rather than the officer.
• We have an established web presence here--too hard to 'rebrand' the blog at this point.

So, anyone castigating the 'O' users as some kind of Canadian Guy Fawkes for the sin of capitalizing an 'o' can now stand down.

Parsing Language

Kady O'Malley parses the language in the open letter and my opening post.

. . . the site’s creator, UBC economist Kevin Milligan, consistently uses “OPBO”, which stands for “Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer” . Now, this could be just a semantic quirk, but it may reflect a subtle attempt to move the debate away from the individual who currently holds the job — the embattled but unbowing Kevin Page — to the office itself, focusing on policy, rather than the personalities involved.

My intention is not to be subtle. I simply wanted the broadest group of signatories possible. There is certainly a group of economists who like the Office and think the current Officer is doing a great job. However, perhaps there is also a group who like the Office but have some questions about the current Officer. I have no idea which group is bigger, and if there are even any people in the second group. But, I wanted both sets of economists to feel comfortable signing the letter.

Some have also questioned the use of the word 'Office' because it does not appear in the enabling legislation. I don't think it is unprecedented to have a different 'trade name' than legal name for a public institution--legal names can be cumbersome or lack descriptive character. In this case, I am quite sure that the PBO sits in an O, so why not call that shop the OPBO. Moreover, the official website--presumably vetted by the Library of Parliament--calls it the OPBO. I simply borrowed what was on the official website.

Support the Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer

This blog has been established to build support for the Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer of Canada.

The purpose of this blog is support of the Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer. The current Officer is Kevin Page. He may or may not be doing a great job--people may disagree. The point here is to support the institution of the Office itself.

The author of the blog is Kevin Milligan, who is an Associate Professor of Economics at UBC.

An open letter is being prepared and will be posted here shortly. Email me at supporttheopbo@gmail.com to learn about the open letter.

Watch this blog for more information in the days that come.