Parliamentary Budget Office

Canada’s Parliamentary Budget Officer and Information Commissioner sat down for a conversation with senior writer Paul Wells on June 3

The Aussie government releases the state of public finances before an election

We’ve got new numbers on who gets how much

Why stop everyone from saving more, just to stick it to the Daddy Warbuckses out there?

Now an unofficial watchdog, the former PBO has no plans to stop asking tough questions

PBO Kevin Page is not going out quietly

It wasn’t just the recession

Nearly a month ago, the Parliamentary Budget Office wrote to 83 departments of government seeking details of the cuts cited in this year’s budget. Today, the PBO reported back on the responses received so far.

While Parliament struggles with its primary task, the Parliamentary Budget Officer has launched a new website to organize government spending information.

How journalists and politicians got the idea it costs just $4 million a year

The debate over the net costs of the government’s Truth in Sentencing bill is of the kind that makes me want to throw up my hands and whine “Aw, I don’t knowwwww…”. On the one hand, the Parliamentary Budget Office has presented an estimate of the costs that makes the bill seem demented. Kevin Page’s numbers don’t factor in the benefits of any potential deterrence effect; they admittedly rely, at many points, on wild assumptions; and they were assembled with the help of a lot of the sort of “independent” expert who sees prisons as inherently barbarous and would happily blow them all up if someone presented them with a big red button that would do it instantly. But as Page himself has pointed out, this is a fight between questionable evidence and no evidence. The government hasn’t really shown any good-faith sign of a serious effort to cost out the elimination of two-for-one credit for time in remand.

Kevin Page has apparently asked the government if it might turn over the electric version of the paper data it dumped in boxes on his doorstep last week. The NDP’s Thomas Mulcair appeared after QP on Friday with one of the boxes to unleash the following.