By Canadian Press

Federal parties left dozens of potential election promises on cutting-room floor

Jan 24, 2020 | 11:10 AM

OTTAWA — Federal political parties left dozens of potential platform proposals on the cutting-room floor during the last election campaign, a new report from the parliamentary budget officer suggests.

The report published Wednesday reviews the spending watchdog’s first-ever experience costing platform commitments during the fall campaign.

The Liberal government gave it that power in 2017 as a way for voters to have more insight into the credibility of the numerous campaign promises that federal parties make.

The budget officer was asked to estimate the costs of 216 proposals between June and October, which was more than twice the number the watchdog had expected.

Yet only 115 of those estimates ever saw the light of day, the report said, meaning the parties walked away from nearly half of the proposals that got as far as official number-crunching.

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The budget officer’s report did not provide any details on the abandoned proposals, including which parties brought them forward. All proposals were subject to stringent terms of confidentiality until they were announced by the respective party.

The report attributed the unexpectedly high number of proposals to the fact its initial estimate was based on the proposals contained in the parties’ 2011 and 2015 election platforms.

“This failed to account for the significant number of proposals developed by political parties that were ultimately not included in the official platforms,” the report said.

Federal parties used the budget officer’s estimates to bolster the credibility of their campaign promises, though the watchdog’s estimates often came with caveats about different variables and unknowns.

Even then, parties sidestepped the budget officer on numerous occasions. The report says only about half of all proposals with potential financial implications contained in final platforms were costed by the watchdog.

Overall, the report suggests only a few tweaks ahead of the next federal election.

Those include pursuing agreements with more federal departments and agencies to ensure the sharing of information. During campaigns the public service usually goes into an extreme lockdown, lest the permanent parts of the government look as though they’re trying to influence the outcome.

It also proposes expanding its assessments to look at the degree to which certain policy proposals will bring about changes in behaviour, such as whether the implementation of a carbon tax will curb driving.

The report also emphasizes the need to maintain extreme confidentiality when it comes to the dozens of proposals that parties ask the budget officer to cost, which had been an area of potential concern ahead of the election.

“Some stakeholders suggested that the confidentiality protocols be less stringent to enhance the quality of timeliness of cost estimates,” the report reads.

“At the same time, most political parties reinforced that they perceived the downside risk of an inadvertent leak to be severe and therefore endorsed maintaining the current approach.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 22, 2020.

Lee Berthiaume, The Canadian Press