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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` to describe federal finances in hindsight.
Tapped over the Labour Day long weekend, Jason Jacques, interim Parliamentary Budget Officer, said words he might use personally aren't necessarily right for the PBO and warned careless adjectives risk politicizing the office.
Before the Nov. 4 budget, politicians and pundits seized on his comments, and Conservative MPs cited Jacques's words as proof of the Liberal government's `reckless` spending amid a $78.3 billion deficit.
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 but said he would be surprised to get the permanent role.
Looking beyond the immediate row, Jacques warned that if the Carney government’s ramp-up of capital investments doesn’t pay off, higher spending could undermine Ottawa’s capacity to absorb the next economic shock, while Kevin Page, the inaugural Parliamentary Budget Officer, publicly disagreed.

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