Former PBO Kevin Page 'not confident' next government will be transparent

Former budget watchdog Kevin Page doesn't have much faith that a new government in the post-October 19 world would be any more transparent than the previous one.

"I'm not confident," Page told host Chris Hall in an interview airing Saturday on The House. "I don't think it's just a question of changing a political stripe."

Page has strong words for the Conservatives in his new book, Unaccountable: Truth, Lies and Numbers on Parliament Hill, in which shares his concerns about the state of Canadian democracy from his perspective as Canada's first parliamentary budget officer.

The timing of the release of his book — coinciding with the final weeks of the federal campaign — was no accident, Page said.

"I'm quite happy with the timing," he said. "It's an important election and I think we need to be talking about these issues of accountability. I'm sending a message. Things are broken in Ottawa."

Page, who finished his five-year mandate in 2013, is calling for an overhaul in government transparency, and he says his critiques are not party-specific despite wishing for a "better relationship" between the Conservatives and the PBO.

"I think it goes back to the time, those five years [2008 - 2013] were a difficult time for the government. Recessions and deficits and big-sticker issues that weren't perhaps fully costed," he said. "I think the government thought that somehow that was partisan.

"But if we find the Conservative Party in opposition somewhere in the future, and somewhere in the future they will be in opposition because that's just the way politics go, then I think that relationship will change over time."

Page: Conservatives more accountable before 2011 majority win

But the contentious relationship between Page and the Conservative government didn't start out that way, he said.

"The context has changed. The government goes from a big stimulus program, where we actually had quite a bit of transparency in a minority context, to basically no transparency in an austerity majority context," he said. 

After winning a majority in 2011, the Conservatives had less reason to be open about their costing, Page said.

"In a minority, the government can fall on a financial bill, so there's a lot of pressure for them to give Parliament the time they need to look over numbers and approve those numbers," he said.

Surplus 'not the norm' for most governments

Page said a string of consecutive surpluses in the 1990s and early 2000s "created a culture" in Canada of budgetary surpluses being the norm. 

"We're having these debates about whether to be balanced and which is the appropriate fiscal stance going forward," he said. "Those are important questions, but for the most part, they're still short-term questions."

"The bigger questions we're going to face are going to be over the next 10 to 20 years," he added. "What programs do we need to put in place to deal with aging demographics? Do we have the health-care system to deal with that? How do we reduce our carbon footprint?"

Page conceded that long-term goals can often get lost in a four-year election cycle.

"I think we need some type of aspirational leaders who say, 'here's where we want to be 10, 20 years from now, here's where the rest of the world is going, here are the changes we're going to put in place'," he said.

"We don't expect our leaders to be the best cost accountants or the best economic economic forecasters, so I think they need to set those priorities and policy directions for the long term."

'Not done yet'

Page has plans of his own for the long term, ending his book with the declaration that he's "not done yet."

"Not done yet means I think there's still gas in the tank, and these are really important issues," he said. 

"There's no victory flags at this point in time in respect to strengthening institutions, and I think the battle goes on."

Page added that his role teaching at the University of Ottawa is an important part of that fight.

"I think you can do a lot in terms of getting the next generation of leaders ready," he said. "To me, that's part of not being done yet."