Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page, who fought and recently won a highly-publicized and drawn out public battle for his own $2.8-million office budget, says he's still fighting for a strong independent office and wants to leave it as a legacy.

As Mr. Page is about to celebrate his second anniversary in the pressure cooker post and looks ahead to the future, he spoke with The Hill Times about the ongoing challenges to his job. He said the PBO still has ongoing staffing issues and needs more clarity from Parliament.

"To be honest, my track record isn't great. It's two years and I still haven't been able to nail down a human resources structure and we made progress but there's still uncertainty and my job is to make sure that that office has a strong foundation and I'm still struggling with that," said Mr. Page.

Mr. Page said he is hoping to be done with this issue in the coming months. He said he wants the Library of Parliament to approve his human resources model, which will have salary relativities—a rationale for why staff should be paid what the PBO plans to pay them—and if the Librarian requests it, Mr. Page said he has a former deputy minister of Finance, a former clerk of the Privy Council and a former Treasury Board president lined up as third-party experts "to provide advice on the competencies required to deliver on the legislative mandate of the PBO." Mr. Page declined to identify the prospective advisers.

Mr. Page said his longer-term objective is to have an independent PBO, though he admitted that it requires legislative changes so it's out of his hands.

"My own belief is that the next Parliamentary budget officer needs to be an independent officer of Parliament and appointed by Parliament through some kind of Parliamentary process, dismissed by cause so he works in good behaviour and right now I'm effectively appointed by the Prime Minister, governor in council and I could be dismissed at pleasure," said Mr. Page.

Opposition MPs have talked about the need for an independent PBO but when the Joint Library of Parliament Committee—a committee with all-party representation that was tasked with looking at the PBO and clarifying its mandate—came out with its recommendations, it concluded the PBO should have its full $2.8-million budget as long as it remained within the Library of Parliament and it toned down its independent behaviour.

When the committee report was released, NDP MP Paul Dewar (Ottawa Centre, Ont.) tabled a private member's bill calling for an independent PBO and later on the Liberals came out saying an independent PBO would be part of their platform.

The House Finance Committee included a resourced and independent PBO as its first recommendation for this year's budget, proposing the it include the necessary legislative changes. This year's $260-billion federal budget document doesn't include any reference to the PBO.

Finance Committee Chair James Rajotte (Edmonton-Leduc, Alta.) said that although an independent PBO is not something that's on the committee's lineup of studies, it is an issue some of the committee members are concerned about and it could come up again in front of the committee.

"That's a big discussion, he's operating under the framework for which the legislation was passed, I'd have to listen to what the arguments are as to what it is to take him out from under the Library of Parliament," said Mr. Rajotte.

"He has, as far as I can see, almost complete independence now, he studies what he wishes and he reports what he wishes and he releases those reports when he wishes, so I'm not sure what else, in fact, in this way, he released his report when Parliament was prorogued, which the auditor general cannot do, so I'm not sure what more independence he would have if he were out from under the Library of Parliament," said Mr. Rajotte.

Parliamentary Secretary to the Finance Minister Ted Menzies (Macleod, Alta.) said it's up to the Joint Library of Parliament Committee to suggest any legislative changes that would lead to a more independent PBO. "The Library of Parliament is a committee onto itself, I'm not going to suggest what they should do," said Mr. Menzies.

NDP finance critic Thomas Mulcair (Outremont, Que.) told The Hill Times the only way to make the PBO independent is legislatively and he supports Mr. Dewar's bill to do so.

"Kevin is saying that for the future we have to change the statute to ensure the independence for himself or anybody else who will occupy that position and I think he's completely right on that. He is a servant of Parliament so he should have much more autonomy in doing his work, it's been quite clear to me since his first day that, as usual, Stephen Harper has been interfering and using whatever intermediary he could find to try to meddle on the independence of Kevin Page," said Mr. Mulcair.

"Get him his money first thing, make sure it's perennial, second thing, and then make sure we change the statute to bring forward an independent and an autonomous body that could offer advice to Parliament without ever being interfered as it was in the past."

Liberal finance critic John McCallum (Markham-Unionville, Ont.) said his party wants an independent PBO, but he doesn't expect this to happen unless the Liberals become government.

"We have to be the government because this government won't go for that. They made it abundantly clear, but our leaders made it clear that under a Liberal government he would be an independent officer of Parliament," said Mr. McCallum. He said that if there is a way to make the PBO independent faster, such as Mr. Dewar's bill, his party will support it but he doesn't anticipate that would happen "until there's a change of government."

Last week, meanwhile, the PBO released a briefing on the budget that criticized the government's long-term projections as too rosy and said that the severity of the Canadian recession is in line with other G7 countries, rather than being of lesser severity as the budget suggested.

In the short term, the PBO's numbers are similar to the government's with the government predicting a $53.8-billion deficit and the PBO saying it's a $53-billion deficit, for the year that just finished. Over the long term, the government sees a $1.8-billion deficit for 2014-15 while the PBO is estimating a $12.3-billion deficit for that year.

The PBO is now working on reports on Employment Insurance, a report on stimulus spending on infrastructure and a major report on the cost of the tougher crime legislations introduced by the government.

cmunster@hilltimes.com

The Hill Times