It looks like the Parliamentary Budget Officer, Yves Giroux, decided to extend his “winning” streak and cover himself in glory at the Commons’ finance committee yesterday, and once again immolated what credibility he has left. Defending his report, claiming he had access to a confidential report from Environment Canada that he was “gagged” from releasing (which the Conservatives jumped on and launched a thousand shitposts about, because committees are now only about content generation), lamented that the government doesn’t publish more climate modelling of their own, and how he hates how his reports are politicised, even though he’s been at this job for years and knows full well that PBO reports are always politicised, because that’s why MPs like them—so that they can both wield those reports as a cudgel, while hiding behind the shield of the PBO’s non-partisan “credibility” to keep the government from attacking it.
https://twitter.com/LindsayTedds/status/1797780078203671008
https://twitter.com/prairiecentrist/status/1797691621708054916
While this Tony Keller column lays out four major problems with the original carbon price report that the PBO produced—which again, Giroux continues to not really apologise for—energy economist Andrew Leach has some additional comments, driving home both how shallow the analysis is, and the fact that it’s not replicable because the PBO studiously refuses to explain his methodology, relying on “trust us, that’s our job.” But as we saw on P&P and again at finance committee, he complained that the government should be doing this kind of modelling work when it’s literally his one statutorily legislated job to do.
I have a slightly different take on this. The problem starts in how the PBO presented its initial results. Here's what the PBO report says about their methods in assessing the economic impacts of carbon pricing. That's it. They jump from here right to the household results. 2/ pic.twitter.com/MfU2s2FWhq
— Andrew Leach (@andrew_leach) June 4, 2024
Why does this matter? Suppose PBO had shown that in their "no carbon tax case", oil sands production increases. Or GHGs from power generation go up. They would have wondered why that was happening since those entities don't pay consumer charges. The error would have been obvious.
— Andrew Leach (@andrew_leach) June 4, 2024
If they do that, maybe they can rebuilt some trust. But today's FINA display was not a step in that direction. I hope we'll see an apology and a new approach from the PBO.
— Andrew Leach (@andrew_leach) June 4, 2024
And to be helpful, Jennifer Robson provides some unsolicited advice on how the PBO could make his methodologies more transparent, if he actually wanted to do that (which I doubt, because so many of his reports rely on his pulling a novel methodology out of his ass, according to the many economists I’ve interviewed in the past). But that’s also part of the point about why he has no credibility left, and why he should start drafting that resignation letter.
The info-sharing MOUs with fed departments & agencies should be updated to recognize this “use without citation” issue.
— Dr. J Robson (@JenniferRobson8) June 4, 2024
https://twitter.com/lindsaytedds/status/1797817128483254759
Ukraine Dispatch:
A civilian was killed in a Russian strike on a recreation facility in Kharkiv. Here’s a look at what to expect from Ukraine’s peace summit to be held in Switzerland next week.
❗️“All Seven Pillars of Nuclear Safety and Security have been fully or partially compromised [at the #Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant],” stated #IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi today.
Photo — #UN pic.twitter.com/BvNcAuiPWG
— UkraineWorld (@ukraine_world) June 3, 2024
⚡️Kyiv council denies permission to hold KyivPride event in metro system.
Kyiv City Council has denied permission to hold this year's Kyiv Pride march to be held in the capital's metro system "for security reasons," it announced on June 3.https://t.co/EpiDYRXK3V
— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) June 3, 2024