Carney appoints interim parliamentary budget officer for 6 months

Prime Minister Mark Carney has appointed Jason Jacques to a six-month term as the interim parliamentary budget officer.

Jacques is already the office’s director general of economic and fiscal analysis. He officially starts his brief term on Wednesday.

The parliamentary budget officer is an agent of Parliament who provides independent economic and financial analysis to the Senate and House of Commons.

Jacques is steeped in public sector experience, with stints at the Privy Council Office, Finance Canada, the Treasury Board Secretariat and the Bank of Canada.

The incoming budget officer’s first major task will come soon enough, as the federal government plans to table a budget in the months ahead.

Jacques replaces Yves Giroux, whose term heading up Parliament’s budgetary watchdog office expired on Tuesday.

Giroux told The Canadian Press last month that he didn’t know who his successor would be as the end of his seven-year mandate approached.

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He said that worried him with the fall budget approaching, adding that MPs and senators rely on the fiscal watchdog for non-partisan analysis of spending plans.

While an interim appointment is within cabinet’s power through an order-in-council, Giroux said a full seven-year PBO appointment must be approved by the House of Commons and Senate.

The Prime Minister’s Office said they can’t appoint a full time PBO right now because the House is not sitting, but intend to do so before Jacques’ term expires.

Giroux said in a LinkedIn post Tuesday that it has been a “true honour” to serve as the Parliamentary Budget Officer and the next chapter of his professional story “is still to be written.”