The Parliamentary Budget Officer weighed in yesterday on the government’s desire to create a $7 billion fund as part of the Estimates to get a jump start on budget promises before those spending plans can be finalized with departments and voted on in the Supplementary Estimates later in the year. The verdict? That enabling this would make it more difficult for MPs to do their duty of controlling government spending, because in their estimation, nothing obliges the government to spend that $7 billion on what is outlined in the budget annex. Government officials (on background) dispute this because they say that if they were to spend it on something other than what is laid out in the budget annex that it would constitute an unauthorized use of public funds.

“See! It’s a slush fund!” The Conservatives immediately cried and gave their little song and dance about how it’ll mean the Liberals can spend it willy-nilly on anything they want. And perhaps they should know – after all, they created a $3 billion “emergency fund” to deal with the 2008 financial crisis and wound up spending it on things like the gazebos in Tony Clement’s riding for the G8/G20 meeting when those funds were supposed to be used for border infrastructure. So is this the voice of experience talking? Good luck getting them to admit it. The NDP line, meanwhile, is that this is the Liberals trying to “suppress Parliament,” which I think you’ll have a hard time trying to find evidence for given how few actual strongarm tactics they’ve managed to engage in so far (a couple of ham-fisted moves that they’ve had to walk back from aside).

While on the one hand, I think the PBO has a point, on the other hand, it’s not a $7 billion black box, and the spending is outlined in the budget, and they can be held to account for it, which is also Parliament’s role. And given that the Estimates are basically unreadable currently and the fact that most MPs don’t pay the slightest bit of attention to them, the cynic in me wonders why they really care (other than it’s a convenient bludgeon to bash the government with). After all, I’ve watched enough times when the Commons has passed the Estimates at all stages with no actual debate or scrutiny on several occasions, leaving the actual hard work up to the Senate. Add to that, watching the Conservatives on their vote-a-thon vote against line items in the Estimates that they probably shouldn’t have shows how little attention they actually pay to the process and the contents. So would this $7 billion fund matter in the long run? Probably not. If nothing else, it’s more impetus for why we need to fix the Estimates process, to realign it with the budget and the Public Accounts, and ensure that they’re readable once again. And until that happens, I find myself having a hard time caring about this item given that there has been an attempt at due diligence that is otherwise so often lacking.

Good reads:

• Justin Trudeau will join a dinner at Rideau Hall for the Aga Khan tonight, who is in Canada as part of his diamond jubilee celebrations.
• Ahmed Hussen says there are no formal offers on the table with the Americans about reforming the Safe Third Country Agreement.
• The Conservatives are demanding that the government accept Senate amendments to the transportation bill as a means of ensuring it gets passed swiftly.
• The Senate Aboriginal Peoples committee recommends that legal cannabis be delayed for a year to better prepare Indigenous communities.
• There are criticisms that the government’s new election law lacks sufficient privacy protections. The bill does close a certain loophole that the minister wasn’t aware of.
• The AFN is holding a special legislative assembly, and both Andrew Scheer and Jagmeet Singh made their pitches about how they would act in government.
• It looks like government sources were used to find “case-saving” evidence to extradite Hassan Diab, who was later acquitted of terrorism charges.
• Here’s a look at the scope of the problem with irregular border crossers.
• Here is a look at why it’s so difficult to fire government employees.
• The Senate is debating Senator Black’s Trans Mountain bill, whose preamble contains the invocation of Section 92(10)(c) of the Constitution (which is bad).
• The NDP Supply Day motion to call for a papal apology for residential schools passed by 269-10 yesterday.
• While reports say that NDP MP Erin Weir faces “multiple” harassment allegations, Weir says this is trumped up because of a dispute with a former senior staffer.
• The seven former Bloc MPs who quit the party are thinking of starting up their own party to defend Quebec’s interests in Ottawa.
• As the Facebook privacy scandal continues to reverberate, Colin Horgan notes that our desire to treat the Internet like a fortune teller is blowing up in our faces.
• Susan Delacourt looks at the electoral reform bill and wonders if the government has sufficient buy-in with the opposition for there to be proper optics.
• Jen Gerson tries to map out what she sees could be a path to Rachel Notley’s political salvation. She also says Doug Ford will probably be an adequate premier.
• My column looks at the government’s inability to make necessary appointments in a broad swath of areas, and how that has become a full-blown governance crisis.

Odds and ends:

The presumed birthplace of Sir John A. Macdonald in Glasgow has been demolished to put up a new condo development.

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