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Interim budget officer says he regrets calling feds’ fiscal management ‘stupefying’

Jason Jacques, interim Parliamentary Budget Officer, said he would not have used `unsustainable`, `shocking` and `stupefying` in hindsight, reflecting on his September forecast comments.
Tapped over the Labour Day long weekend, Jason Jacques, interim Parliamentary Budget Officer, said careless adjectives risk politicizing the PBO and personal word choices may not suit the role.
Before the Nov. 4 budget, politicians and pundits seized on his comments, and Conservative MPs held up Jacques's words as proof of the Liberal government's `reckless` spending approach.
The Liberal government posted the permanent Parliamentary Budget Officer posting in November requiring parliamentary approval, and Jason Jacques expects his interim term to end in March while planning to continue explaining parliamentary finances.
The succession dynamic matters because the permanent role has never been internal, and Kevin Page, the inaugural PBO and head of the Institute of Fiscal Studies and Democracy, publicly disagreed with Jacques's warning that Ottawa's finances were heading toward a `precipice`.

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Interim budget officer says he regrets characterizing the feds' fiscal management 'stupefying'

Jason Jacques says he learned a lot about the importance of choosing his words carefully in his first few months as the interim parliamentary budget officer.

7 hours ago·Canada

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