PBO says he has been told not to disclose government’s carbon price analysis

Parliamentary Budget Officer Yves Giroux suggested the federal government is gagging him from sharing its own findings on the economic impact of the carbon price.

During a Monday Finance Committee meeting, Giroux said the government has its own economic analysis, which he has seen but has not been released.

“You’ve seen their analysis, but they have said, they put a gag on you saying you can’t talk about it?” Manitoba Conservative MP Marty Morantz asked.

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“That is my understanding,” Giroux replied.

The OBPS is the technical name for what is commonly referred to as the industrial carbon price.

At Monday’s committee meeting, Giroux said the government’s carbon price analysis reached a similar conclusion to his.

When asked on Tuesday about the PBO suggesting the government has its analysis that he says he is not allowed to discuss, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland thanked Giroux and his team for their work.

5:29 Conservatives ridicule Liberals’ carbon pricing defence as in ‘complete shambles’

“I am 100 per cent of the view that it was an honest mistake and the PBO does a huge amount of work. They have a huge amount of data that they need to handle. And you know, honest mistakes will be made,” Freeland said.

“Our government is absolutely confident that the price on pollution returns more money to the pockets of eight out of 10 Canadians.”

In April, the PBO said they found an error in their March 2022 analysis of the carbon price that says most people receive less in rebates than they pay once broader economic factors are considered. 

The PBO correction said this model included the consumer fuel charge and the industrial carbon levy, when only the fuel charge on things like gasoline and natural gas should have been considered in this model.

Giroux says he does not expect the updated carbon price analysis, expected this fall, to come to a significantly different conclusion than the 2022 analysis. In an interview with Global News last week, Giroux said this is because 80 per cent of emissions are exempt under the OBPS.

Last week, Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault said that he doesn’t see how that’s possible if a mistake was made in the 2022 PBO analysis.