Ottawa

Now openly scoffing at the Parliamentary Budget Officer

The opening exchange from this afternoon’s QP.

Thomas Mulcair: Mr. Speaker, Conservatives are withholding information from Canadians about cuts to their vital public services. According to the Parliamentary Budget Officer, 85% of Conservative cuts are aimed directly at front-line services, but the PBO cannot measure the full impact of these cuts because Conservative ministers are hiding key financial data. The Parliamentary Budget Officer has now been forced to take the extraordinary step of asking the Federal Court to intervene. Why are Conservatives obstructing the very office they created to provide objective financial information to Parliament? What do they have to hide?

Stephen Harper: Well, of course, nothing, Mr. Speaker. The government has made available to Parliament and to all Canadians all relevant information whenever it is available and we will continue to do so. We created the Office of the Parliamentary Budget Office so he could do his non-partisan work and we will continue to supply information for that.

Various laughs were heard from the government side at the Prime Minister’s use of the phrase “non-partisan.”

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