PBO says under ‘gag’ order over Liberals’ secret carbon-tax analysis

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OTTAWA — The federal government has a secret economic analysis of the impact of the carbon tax that confirms the parliamentary budget officer’s prior findings, and the budget watchdog said he believes that his office has been under a gag order to not talk about it.

Budget watchdog Yves Giroux made the surprise revelation when appearing as a witness at the House of Commons finance committee, as he faces fierce criticism from Liberal MPs for not proactively disclosing a modelling error made by his office on the economic impacts of the carbon tax.

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Giroux told the committee he and his staff has seen the government’s impact analysis but “we’ve been told explicitly not to disclose it and reference it.”

Conservative MP Marty Morantz asked Giroux if the government “put a gag” on the PBO to not talk about their economic analysis. “That is my understanding,” said Giroux.

The PBO quietly published a note on April 17 on its website to specify that the 2022 and 2023 reports of its fiscal and economic impacts of the federal carbon pricing system included not only the consumer carbon pricing but also the industrial pricing.

Those reports found that most Canadian households would lose more money under the federal regime than they receive in rebates when taking into account the economic impacts of the carbon tax. The findings have been heavily quoted from by the Conservatives in the past two years to attack the carbon tax, while Liberals have sharply criticized the PBO’s conclusions.

The note was however only discovered last week, which sparked a fury of criticism, especially from Liberals, who claim that the data are incorrect and should be amended. Some media commentators even suggested Giroux should resign for this mistake.

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Speaking on Monday, Giroux said he was “truly sorry for this modelling error and for not providing more prominent notification to parliamentarians.”

The PBO promised to release a new and updated report by the fall. Giroux has said he does not expect the updated analysis will deviate significantly from the previous results, since most of the industrial pricing is exempt from carbon pricing.

“This analysis is challenging and complex, involving multiple models, programs and databases. We will publish an updated analysis when we have full confidence in our results,” he said.

Ryan Turnbull, a Liberal MP and parliamentary secretary to Minister of Finance Chrystia Freeland, wrote to Giroux last week to tell him that he should have gone to greater lengths to notify the public of the mistake and explain how it may have altered the results.

Giroux promised to be more forthcoming should a similar issue arise in the future.

Turnbull challenged Giroux in committee about the results being unlikely to change, asking Giroux how he can be so sure when the work has not been completed.

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Giroux said that his office’s numbers have been out since 2022 while the government has not published anything of its own in that time frame on the economic impact of the carbon tax.

“The government has these numbers on the economic impact of carbon pricing,” he told Turnbull. “And that’s your government sir. They have not published anything.”

Later, Giroux said that the government’s as-yet-unpublished numbers would confirm this office’s findings, which is why he said he is “comfortable with what is already published,” with the understanding that it provides the overall impact of the carbon tax.

National Post
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