The Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO) will be offering election campaign proposal costing services for the 2021 election. The service, available to all recognized parties represented int eh House of Commons as well as parties without official recognition and independent members without party affiliation, is being launched today and will enable Canadian voters to make informed choices when they go to the ballot box.
The PBO offered this service for the first time in the 2019 federal election. Between June 24th and October 21st, 2019, the PBO successfully costed over 200 requests from political parties, over 100 of which were ultimately published by the PBO.
“The last election demonstrated a real willingness from the political parties to use our costing service for proposed measures. Independent and non-partisan costing of election campaign proposals lead to greater transparency and help build trust in the political process,” said PBO Yves Giroux. “We look forward to working with political parties and independent MPs so Canadian voters have access to the information they need before they cast their ballots.”
After the 2019 election, the PBO’s service was shown to have enhanced the credibility of political parties’ with voters. The review showed that overall there was a consensus that the Election Proposal Costing (EPC) service provided to political parties enhanced the credibility of the democratic process.
“The Office's mandate during an election is to review the financial frameworks of the parties so the public can rely on a neutral source to compare the financial plans of each party“, adds Mr. Giroux. “We will provide secure and confidential access to the expertise and credibility of the PBO’s team of economists and accountants.”
Canadian voters will be able to access the costing estimates from the PBO website.
Also today, the PBO released the results of the Costing Budget 2021 Measures exercise, which was used to stress test internal business processes and costing capacity before the election.