Trust us on $7B ‘slush fund’: Liberals MOTION TO GIVE BRISON DISCRETION OVER MONEY

The Liberals are torn. They’d like to live up to their own lofty rhetoric about building a shining beacon on Parliament Hill.

But they’d prefer not to be constrained in any way by the inconvenient logistics of Parliament.

The government’s latest attempt to circumvent the scrutiny of the House of Commons is a streamlining of the budgetary process that would limit Parliament to vote just once on all the spending measures in the recent budget.

It’s the budgetary equivalent of the kind of omnibus bill the Liberals said they would never introduce.

The vote would give Treasury Board President Scott Brison unprecedented discretion over $7 billion, on the promise that the House will be informed about all the messy details at a later date.

Brison has promised to overhaul the estimates process to align it with the federal budget, with the aim of speeding up spending approvals and improving scrutiny.

But while the move may achieve the first goal, the ability of MPs to question government spending will be much reduced.

Pierre Poilievre is the classic example of a political poacher turned game-keeper — the Conservative finance critic knows every artful dodge in the book because he was part of a government that pioneered most of them.

“If this becomes nothing more than a $7-billion slush fund that a board of politicians can play with in an election year, then there’ll be hell to pay in Parliament,” Poilievre predicted.

He knows of what he speaks. The Conservatives introduced a $3-billion “emergency fund” in 2009, in order to dole out money at the government’s discretion to tackle the recession.

The circumstances then were precarious enough to justify drastic measures and the Conservatives argued the fund was crucial to ensure money flowed quickly into the economy.

But, even then, parliamentarians were on guard in defence of the public finances.

The NDP’s Tom Mulcair accused the Conservatives of using the same methods the Liberals used in the sponsorship scandal — creating a slush fund that was exempt from parliamentary oversight.

Those fears were not entirely misplaced. While no laws were broken, there were instances of pork-barrelling, most notoriously the gazebo built in the conspicuously inland Muskoka riding of then Treasury Board president Tony Clement, using funds earmarked for “border infrastructure.”

There would appear to be a less pressing need to reduce parliamentary oversight in the current case.

Jean-Luc Ferland, Brison’s senior communications adviser, said the new initiative is designed to speed up the process and “provide Canadians with more timely access to the programs they need.”

Maybe so, but Brison is likely to face a united opposition when he goes to the House to gain approval for the $7 billion. The government says the money will be used exclusively for the initiatives announced in an annex of last February’s budget.

“For greater transparency, allocations and remaining balances will be reported online monthly and in the next available estimates,” said Ferland. “By establishing this clear link between the budget and the Main Estimates, the government is making it easier for parliamentarians and Canadians to follow the money.”

The Liberals are saying, in essence, “trust us — we’ll behave ourselves this time.”

That is unlikely to wash with the opposition. Daniel Blaikie, the NDP’s Treasury Board critic, said the Liberal proposal is a step backward.

“Despite all the talk, the Liberals see Parliament as a real nuisance,” he said. “There have been several motions designed to circumvent Parliament and this is another instance of that.”

To be fair to Brison, there is a problem here that is crying out for a solution. Items announced in the budget traditionally take months to go through Treasury Board’s approval process. The theory is that by harmonizing the budget and the estimates, that process can be expedited.

But the price is likely to be a reduced flow of information to MPs. A Parliamentary Budget Office study released last year found nearly onethird of all budget measures need more or less funding in reality than was indicated in the budget document.

So MPs will be asked to vote based on a single line explanation in the budget document — for example, $1.9 billion over the next five years on “enabling digital services to Canadians” — secure in the knowledge that there is a good chance that number bears no resemblance to reality.

The basis of the Westminster system is ministers seeking the prior sanction of Parliament by outlining to legislators what they intend to spend the money on. It’s a slow process, and it’s not always done well. It is, for example, absurd that the government’s spending plans sometimes come out before the budget. That disconnection means it is difficult for legislators to hold the government to account.

“Most MPs would require a Sherpa guide, four men of stout heart and the blessing of the Almighty to mount an expedition required to comprehend these figures,” said former NDP MP Pat Martin — and he was chair of the Government Operations committee. But at least in days past, ministers were obliged to provide Parliament with details on operating and capital budgets, program plans and targets, before gaining its approval.

There was a legal obligation that is entirely absent from Brison’s new procedure, whatever its good intentions.

It is the most important job of any MP to make sure taxpayers are getting value for money from their government. The government’s budget implementation vote will make that more difficult.

I predict another ignominious government climbdown in the coming weeks.