Law Times

Page 6 June 18, 2018 • Law Times www.lawtimesnews.com Heated battle over spending plans BY KADY O'MALLEY F or the last few months, your duly elected federal representatives have been engaged in a pitched battle over how the government presents its spending plans to the House of Commons. This particular dispute is over the format for the main estimates — the itemized list of projected program and operating expenditures for each and ev- ery department and agency, every line of which must be authorized by both the House and Senate before it can be spent. For years — decades, really — MPs have complained over the convoluted and often counterintuitive protocol for providing those numbers to the House. Not only was it difficult for even those with accounting experience to com- pare year-to-year allocations or even check back to see how closely the pro- jected expenses came to what actually ended up being spent, but the March 1 deadline for delivering the preliminary outline to the House nearly always pre- ceded the budget, so none of the big- or even small-ticket items included therein would make it into the first set of esti- mates. They would instead show up several months later in the first batch of supplementary estimates. During the 2015 elec- tion campaign, the Liberals pledged to overhaul the esti- mates review process to make it easier for MPs to follow the money before — and, for that matter, after — signing off on the proposed outlay of cash. Last year, Scott Brison, president of the Treasury Board, unveiled his first attempt at giving the House "more co- herent information" on the government- wide spending plan. For starters, he'd bring in an interim estimates package before March 1 that would cover the first three months of the year and hold off on tabling the full main estimates until after the budget had been tabled, thus allowing for any measures proposed in the budget to be included in the projected expenditures. And that's where it all went wrong, at least from the perspective of the op- position parties. They were quick to spot a $7-billion line item for budget-related items with no actual details on how the money would be spent, on the entirely logical if utterly frus- trating grounds that, in most cases, those budget proposals hadn't yet been approved by the House and, thus, couldn't be included, as that could be seen as pre-empting the will of Parliament. For his part, Brison de- fended the change, which, he maintained — and maintains to this day — is very much not a nefari- ous scheme to hoodwink MPs into giv- ing blanket approval for billions of dol- lars in unspecified spending plans. He has even attempted to allay their fears by providing a (very top-level) overview of how the money would be divvied up. Brison has also agreed to include a line making it clear that not a penny of the cash can be put to non-budgetary items. The opposition parties, however, re- main unmollified. They have been waging procedural war on the govern- ment for weeks to protest the maneu- ver, using what is, in a majority-held House, the most potent and reliable weapon at their disposal: the clock. With the end of the sitting fast ap- proaching, the government is scram- bling to cross items off its pre-recess to- do list, and every committee filibuster or marathon House vote means fewer hours to devote to high-priority legisla- tive business. Eventually, the two sides will almost certainly manage to reach some sort of tentative, cautious consensus on how to move forward on the estimates. Until they do, however, the battle is likely to continue even after the vote on the first round of spending plans. But while it may not be a headline grabber — as yet, no one has even tried to affix a -gate to it — voters should never- theless be quietly pleased that, while di- vided on the best way to achieve it, both sides are being driven by their desire to ensure parliamentarians can perform their most critical collective duty: keep- ing a close eye on the public purse. LT uKady O'Malley is a member of the par- liamentary press gallery in Ottawa and writes about politics, procedure and pro- cess for iPolitics. She also appears regu- larly on CBC television and radio. COMMENT u EDITORIAL OBITER By Gabrielle Giroday ©2018 Thomson Reuters Canada Ltd. All rights reserved. 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Karen Lorimer Managing Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jennifer Brown Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Gabrielle Giroday Staff Writer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Anita Balakrishnan Copy Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Patricia Cancilla CaseLaw Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Leah Craven Art Director . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Phyllis Barone Production Co-ordinator . . . . . Jacqueline D'Souza Electronic Production Specialist . . . Derek Welford Making a difference N o matter what your partisan leanings are, there were some heartening elements of the recent provincial election in On- tario. Take voter turnout, which was the highest it had been in nearly 20 years, with 58 per cent of eligible casting ballots. There is a raft of new MPPs, some of whom hold law degrees and bring a vastly varied background to their position in public office. Among them, there are lawyers with experience in health care, personal injury, commercial and civil litigation, real estate law, busi- ness and international trade law, criminal defence and more. The democratic process benefits when there are people with vast and varied experience to shape and guide public policy. This is im- portant now more than ever — the challenges facing elected officials are steeper than in years past. Issues exist and persist. This issue of Law Times, for example, features a story on a jury representation report by a judge who was on study leave. The report has attracted the attention of the criminal defence bar. "The state doesn't get to select which types of people it wants on a jury. It's particularly offensive because while white, wealthy home- owners are overrepresented on the jury, the marginalized, racialized [and] impoverished are overrepresented as accused," says Solomon Friedman, an Ottawa lawyer. Serious stuff. Outgoing Law Society of Ontario Treasurer Paul Schabas has a valid point that is relevant to all who choose to serve in public office, no matter how they choose to apply their talents. "Enjoy it and press on. Press on in meeting the challenges that the society has for us as a profession," he says. On June 28, Schabas leaves his role, having in- f luenced some high-profile issues (name change, for one) and lower-profile issues (such as LSO gov- ernance) that show how he left his mark on the regulatory body. Those who have come into office as MPPs and the new LSO treasurer will have a chance to apply their talents as well. The democratic process can be a beautiful thing. LT The Hill Kady O'Malley Kady O'Malley

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