“At its core, the parliamentary budget officer position as created in 2006 was to be responsible for forecasting the cost of purchases resulting from specific policies.” – Unaccountable

Budget Offices, whether congressional or parliamentary, serve to my mind a very important function. It is too easy for governments to fudge numbers: to take a trite example, the economy is always reported as doing well just before an election, but if another party wins they always conclude that it is actually doing terribly. Budget Offices provide essential analysis that helps support transparency and good decision-making.

Unfortunately, if that’s what you’re interested in, Unaccountable doesn’t add much. It is written almost entirely for partisans, and if you’re interested in economics, public policy, or budget offices, the book offers little in terms of details or facts. It focuses largely on the fact that when the PBO asked for information, the conservative government in power refused them. I’m sure that’s true, but having acknowledged that I would have liked the book to move on, not just repeat the same thing ad nauseam.

Kevin Page is a devoted civil servant and I suspect highly competent—he would have to be to have succeeded as PBO. I was disappointed, therefore, that this book didn’t provide more. He’s clearly very bitter about his experience, and perhaps that has affected his entire worldview. While leading the PBO, for example, he suggested the government intentionally misled Canadians. Though probably true he has no evidence for it, and I suspect making such claims without evidence only costed the PBO credibility. Throughout the book, because he doesn’t come across as unbiased or even self-aware, it’s hard to know how much credibility to give him.

Perhaps the strongest section is the final chapter, where he considers the future of the civil service. Even there, unfortunately, he skirts issues rather than engaging with them though: he argues that civil servants should provide information directly to Canadians, for example, but doesn’t mention how that fits with the Westminster model of a neutral civil service that serves the government of the day.