![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/indicator-big.gif\")
<\/p>\nPierre Cuguen, spokesman for the Privy Council Office, said in a media statement Monday that \u201cthe work of the office continues under the guidance of the senior leadership within the Office of the PBO.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t<\/p>\n
Ottawa opened applications for a new permanent PBO in November and Cuguen said information about the appointment of a permanent budget officer would be \u201cmade available in due course.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said that appointment will be based on the process outlined in the Parliament of Canada Act, which sees a new officer approved in Parliament after consultation with the leaders of all recognized parties in the House of Commons and leaders within the Senate.<\/p>\n
Permanent PBOs are appointed to seven-year terms while interim officers, like Jacques, can be tapped without parliamentary sign-off for six-month terms.<\/p>\n
The federal government\u2019s \u201cpersistent delays\u201d in appointing new fiscal watchdogs were highlighted as a shortcoming in an otherwise glowing review of Canada\u2019s parliamentary budget office published last week by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.<\/p>\n
Jacques argued at the House of Commons standing committee on government operations and estimates Thursday that it would benefit Ottawa to shift the watchdog\u2019s mandate from the budget officer to the office itself to help with continuity between mandates.<\/p>\n
Bloc Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois MP Marie-H\u00e9l\u00e8ne Gaudreau told the same committee in French that the federal government\u2019s failure to date to name a replacement PBO is \u201cunacceptable\u201d with Jacques\u2019 term coming to a close.<\/p>\n
Jacques\u2019 tenure heading up the budget office started with a bang in September as he criticized the Liberal government\u2019s fiscal track as \u201cunsustainable.\u201d<\/p>\n
Later, when Liberals tabled their 2025 federal budget, Jacques said Ottawa\u2019s debt path was broadly sustainable in the long term but argued the feds had used up some of their ability to absorb future fiscal shocks.<\/p>\n
He also pushed for a new independent body to clarify definitions of capital spending under the Liberals\u2019 new budget framework.<\/p>\n
This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 2, 2026.<\/p>\n
Craig Lord, The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pierre Cuguen, spokesman for the Privy Council Office, said in a media statement Monday that \u201cthe work of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":511359,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194295],"tags":[879,49,48,2467,2461,2468,2460,2462,2463,44,2464,20739,2465,2466,82],"class_list":["post-511358","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ottawa","tag-breaking-news","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-central-vancouver-island","tag-nanaimo","tag-nanaimo-breaking-news","tag-nanaimo-news","tag-nanaimo-news-now","tag-nanaimonewsnow","tag-news","tag-oceanside","tag-ottawa","tag-parksville","tag-qualicum","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511358","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=511358"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511358\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/511359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=511358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=511358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=511358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}