Ontario's New Financial Accountability Officer: An Evaluation

Journal of Parliamentary and Political Law, 2014, Forthcoming

28 Pages Posted: 28 Dec 2013 Last revised: 6 Mar 2014

See all articles by Tolga Raymond Yalkin

Tolga Raymond Yalkin

University of Ottawa - Faculty of Law

Patrick F Baud

Department of Justice, Government of Canada

Date Written: December 24, 2013

Abstract

In September 2013, Ontario became Canada’s first province and one of the world’s few subnational jurisdictions to create an independent budget office. The Financial Accountability Officer’s (FAO) mandate will be to assist Ontario’s parliamentarians in holding the government to account by providing them with independent forecasting and fiscal analysis. While this development is to be welcomed, the structure adopted for the FAO suffers from some serious shortcomings, touching on access to and disclosure of information, terms of office, and budgeting and management. Accordingly, there are a number of reforms that would overcome, to some extent, these problems and support fulfillment of the FAO’s mandate.

Keywords: Independent fiscal institution, parliamentary budget officer, financial accountability officer, administrative law, government accountability, parliamentary officers, officers of parliament, legislative officers

JEL Classification: H11, H50, H60, K23

Suggested Citation

Yalkin, Tolga Raymond and Baud, Patrick François, Ontario's New Financial Accountability Officer: An Evaluation (December 24, 2013). Journal of Parliamentary and Political Law, 2014, Forthcoming , Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2371693 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2371693

Tolga Raymond Yalkin

University of Ottawa - Faculty of Law ( email )

2292 Edwin Crescent
Ottawa, Ontario K2C 1H7
Canada

Patrick François Baud (Contact Author)

Department of Justice, Government of Canada ( email )

Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0G5
Canada

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