{"id":188480,"date":"2025-10-04T00:58:13","date_gmt":"2025-10-04T00:58:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/188480\/"},"modified":"2025-10-04T00:58:13","modified_gmt":"2025-10-04T00:58:13","slug":"federal-budget-watchdogs-comments-are-just-wrong-says-one-of-his-predecessors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/188480\/","title":{"rendered":"Federal budget watchdog’s comments are ‘just wrong,’ says one of his predecessors"},"content":{"rendered":"

A former parliamentary budget officer says it is “just wrong” to suggest that the federal finances are unsustainable and is publicly disagreeing with the current fiscal watchdog.<\/p>\n

Kevin Page \u2014 who was Canada’s first parliamentary budget officer (PBO) starting in 2008 \u2014 told CBC’s Power & Politics<\/a> that he disagrees with the language of the current PBO, Jason Jacques.<\/p>\n

“I think the language from the current parliamentary budget officer, Mr. Jason Jacques, is just wrong and he should walk that back, quite frankly,” Page told host David Cochrane.<\/p>\n

“I think it’s definitely inflamed certain passions around Canada’s fiscal situation that I think are not consistent with the numbers.”<\/p>\n

Jacques \u2014 who was appointed interim PBO last month \u2014 recently described the state of Canada’s finances as “stupefying,” “shocking” and “unsustainable.”<\/p>\n

“I think everybody should be concerned,” Jacques told MPs on the government operations and estimates committee last week.<\/p>\n

WATCH |\u00a0PBO’s words of warning about Canada’s finances ‘just wrong,’ says predecessor:\"\"<\/p>\n

PBO’s words of warning about Canada’s finances \u2018just wrong,\u2019 says predecessor <\/p>\n

Former parliamentary budget officer Kevin Page calls out interim PBO Jason Jacques for his warnings about a ‘stupefying’ and ‘not sustainable’ fiscal picture last week. Page says Jacques’s language is ‘just wrong,’ that Canada’s finances are sustainable and that Jacques needs to walk back the comments for the good of the office. <\/p>\n

We’re hoping, and certainly expecting, the government as part of budget 2025 to clearly indicate what the government plans to do to address \u2026 this problem.”<\/p>\n

Page, who now heads the Institute of Fiscal Studies and Democracy at the University of Ottawa, said the language Jacques used isn’t typical\u00a0for someone in a non-partisan position.<\/p>\n

“You wouldn’t see a governor of the Bank of Canada or the auditor general use that kind of language,” Page said.<\/p>\n

He said he expects to see less of that kind of language from Jacques going forward.<\/p>\n

The PBO is a non-partisan officer of Parliament, providing independent economic and financial analysis to the Senate and the House of Commons.<\/p>\n

“I think they recognize it’s a mistake,” Page said. “I think they have to walk it back.”<\/p>\n

CBC\u00a0News reached out to the PBO for comment.<\/p>\n

\"AJason Jacques is the interim parliamentary budget officer. (Justin Tang\/The Canadian Press)<\/p>\n

The most recent report from the PBO \u2014 which gives a baseline heading into the Nov. 4 budget \u2014 projects the federal government will post an annual deficit of $68.5 billion this year, up from $51.7 billion last year.<\/p>\n

Prime Minister Mark Carney has said the deficit will be bigger than the last, citing the effect of U.S. tariffs and additional spending announced by his government.<\/p>\n

Page didn’t disagree with the recent PBO report, but he argued Canada is fiscally “in a pretty good place” relative to other G7 countries.<\/p>\n

“It’s not shocking to see a deficit go up because the economy is slowing and we have NATO commitments. To me, it’s sustainable,” Page said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A former parliamentary budget officer says it is “just wrong” to suggest that the federal finances are unsustainable…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":188481,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-188480","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188480","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=188480"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188480\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/188481"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}