Fair warning that this is going to be super wonky and a dive into parliamentary nerdery, but it’s important to how our democracy functions. It seems that the government’s attempt to better reconcile our budget cycle and Estimates process has been declared a failure, and the deeply flawed system that has grown up over a number of years has once again returned, and that’s a huge disappointment because it was an important change that they were attempting.

Part of the problem here is that we don’t have a fixed budget date, but the Estimates cycle operates by a fixed calendar. What this has tended to mean is that the budget can be pushed back after the Main Estimates, which means that all of the spending that Parliament is supposed to approve winds up being reflective of the previous year’s budget, and then it’s up to the Supplementary Estimates later in the year to update the spending to what was in this year’s budget – a system that makes it difficult if not impossible to track spending, particularly as the accounting used in the Public Accounts at the end of the fiscal year is different still from both the budget and Estimates. If Parliament’s key function is to study these spending plans and expenditures and hold the government to account over them, it is a nigh-impossible task (which is one more reason why MPs have given up on doing it, and simply turned it over to the Parliamentary Budget Officer, which is a Very Bad Thing). It was Scott Brison’s pet project when he was at Treasury Board to try and better align these cycles, but that was easier said than done, particularly given some of the sclerotic processes within our civil service, and their attempt to try and get some money out the door faster with a $7 billion fund (derided by the Conservatives as a “slush fund” despite there being a list of approved items that accompanied it) never wound up actually working, and much of that money went unspent even though it was supposed to mean things happened faster. It’s a failure all around – both with this government and within the broader civil service.

I am hoping that the Liberals have taken what lessons they can from this and take more steps to rectify some of the problems, including assigning a fixed budget date so that the civil service can adjust their own cycles and processes to reflect this and the Estimates cycle can then reflect what is in the budget (and aligning the Public Accounts with these cycles would also help). This is at the very heart of how our parliament is supposed to operate, and if we can’t get this right, it’s a very, very bad sign for the health of our system.

Good reads:

• A planned meeting between BC and federal officials and the Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs was cancelled, and BC and the Wet’suwet’en blame each other.
• CBC has compiled a who’s who of the players in the Wet’suwet’en dispute.
• After trying to absolve themselves of responsibility, the Quebec government is finally signing onto injunctions against the blockades in that provinces.
• The Liberals’ economic analysis of the New NAFTA only compared benefits to having no deal than to the existing NAFTA (which is a bit of a dick move).
• Marc Garneau is warning that it could takes weeks, or possibly months, to clear the backlog created by the rail blockades.
• Here is some of the reaction to the medical assistance in dying legislation.
• Briefing materials released by the Canada-China committee show that senior public servants were warning the government from getting too close to China.
• Here’s a look at Canada’s preparedness for COVID-19.
• The Privacy Commissioner is concerned that the RCMP appear to be indifferent to his office investigating their foot-dragging on responding to complaints.
• A StatsCan survey found that most Canadians who didn’t vote in the last election cited the reason as that they didn’t care about politics. (What? How is that possible?)
• There won’t be Canada Day celebrations on Parliament Hill this year because work on the Centre Block is consuming much of the front lawn there.
• The Independent Senators Group are agitating to pass Senator Beyak’s second suspension as soon as possible.
• Two more names – Derek Sloan and Jim Karahalios are now officially in the Conservative leadership race. Both are touted as social conservatives.
• Campaign Life Coalition claims that the party made it too hard for social conservatives to run in the leadership race. (Three of the six are socons).
• Here’s a look at how Andrew Scheer and Peter MacKay are employing the racist trope of the “outside agitator” to delegitimize Indigenous protesters.
• A number of Alberta Conservative MPs are grousing that they weren’t asked for their input or to sign onto the Buffalo Declaration before it went out.
• One Alberta oil company has taken the provincial government to court in order to force them to make a decision on their proposed project.
• Colby Cosh looks into the Alberta Court of Appeal decision on carbon pricing, and the underlying notion of issues of “national concern” in our constitution.
• Kevin Carmichael talks to Bank of Canada deputy governor Timothy Lane about issues affecting our economy like COVID-19 and trade shocks.
• Susan Delacourt reflects on the various assertions of Trudeau’s “weakness” while he tries to inhabit the political centre in the face of a number of political shocks.

Odds and ends:

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