In his report to parliament about the latest federal budget this past week, the Parliamentary Budget Officer made note that some of the information that they requested was given to them on a confidential basis – in order for them to check the maths, but not report on it public (at least for the time being). It’s a bit of an oddity that the PBO says it puts them in an awkward position, and it also raises questions about the government’s commitment to transparency.

Recently, the Department of National Defence gave the same kind of confidential information to the PBO regarding its 20-year expenditure plan, which one suspects may have to do with either sensitivities in the procurement process (remember that they have been insisting on particular secrecy declarations for those involved in the process), or not wanting to tip their hands on how they’re planning on rolling out their procurement just yet. Maybe. The government says that the budget information that was confidential was because it related to departments or Crown corporations whose information had not been approved by Treasury Board or vetted for release, which makes a certain amount of sense, and does give rise to concerns that the real stumbling block is the bureaucracy and not the government. Backing up this supposition has been complaints that Treasury Board president Scott Brison has made around his difficulty in getting departments onside when it comes to the process of reforming the Estimates, so that they reflect the budget rather than the previous fall economic update and subsequently relying on Supplementary Estimates in order to “correct” the spending plans to reflect said budget (and part of that problem has been ever-later budget releases that come after the statutory Estimates tabling dates). And our civil service, for all of the plaudits it gets internationally, is sclerotic and resistant to change, often exacerbating the “culture of secrecy” around any kind of transparency (though one also has to factor in a certain amount of incompetence around that secrecy – sometimes they’re not being secret for the sake of secrecy, but because they’re simply unable to find needed information).

There have been complaints from the pundit class that the Liberals have subverted the PBO in this manner of giving confidential information, but I’m not sure that I’m ready to go there. They could have simply stonewalled, forcing an escalation of tactics, but they didn’t. They wound up caving and giving the PBO way too much authority and way, way too broad of a mandate when they reformed his office and turned him into an Independent Officer of Parliament, and I will reiterate that they did turn over the information. The question is does this start a pattern, or is this a kind of temporary status while they continue to push the departments into making this kind of data available in a timelier manner, much like the Estimates? I’m not willing to make a final pronouncement just yet, but I am going to consider this notice, and will keep an eye on how this progresses (particularly because I do think Estimates reform is vitally important to Parliament, and if we have the same kinds of problems, then it’s a sign that there’s a systemic issue that needs to be dealt with).

Good reads:

• Justin Trudeau is on an abbreviated March break in Florida, but won’t say much more than he got it cleared by the Ethics Commissioner.
• It looks like Canada will finally deploy a peacekeeping force of helicopters and support troops to Mali.
• Ralph Goodale will table a bill to tighten gun control laws on Tuesday. This will not include a new long-gun registry.
• The federal working group on drug testing in federally working places post-marijuana legalization has reached an impasse.
• Here’s a look at the uncertainty in Mexico around NAFTA given their upcoming federal election, with the leftist candidate as the frontrunner.
• The Auditor General found problems around spending by the Great Lakes Pilotage Authority, particularly around the CEO’s travel and hospitality expenses.
• Another RCMP lawsuit shows the disarray the Force is facing, particularly in Alberta.
• Jagmeet Singh wants Canada to declare anti-Sikh violence in India in the 1980s to be a genocide.
• In case you need to catch up, the National Post has a primer on why Sikh separatism exploded in the news of late.
• Andrew Coyne suggests the right way to go about finding efficiencies in government (but I suspect he would need a wholesale culture change to get there).
• Susan Delacourt wonders if the talk about ageism in the Liberal ranks is going to alienate core Liberal supporters in their upcoming convention.
• Chantal Hébert looks at the NDP failure of issues management around Singh’s past, and notes why the Conservatives are conspicuously silent on the issue.
• Martin Patriquin outlines the need for Jagmeet Singh to denounce political violence, rather than dance around it, if he wants to lead Canada.
• Colby Cosh lays out a definition of “NDP nonsense” as Alberta tables a plan to subsidize the video game industry in the province.
• My weekend column calls out Jason Kenney’s ridiculously disingenuous rhetoric around carbon taxes and the constitution.

Odds and ends:

Here is a lengthier exploration of the Vriend decision, twenty years later.