By The Canadian Press

The clock is ticking for Ottawa to appoint a new parliamentary budget officer

Mar 2, 2026 | 10:33 AM

OTTAWA — The clock is ticking for the Liberal government to appoint a new fiscal watchdog as the interim parliamentary budget officer’s term is set to expire Monday.

Interim PBO Jason Jacques was appointed to a six-month term in September that’s set to end at 5 p.m. ET and no permanent successor has been named.

If no budget officer is in place, the office itself cannot publish any reports or accept new work requests from parliamentarians.

Ottawa opened applications for a new permanent PBO in November and last week a spokesman for the Privy Council Office said information about the appointment of a permanent budget officer would be “made available in due course.”

The appointment of a permanent budget officer to a seven-year term is decided by cabinet and must be approved by parliament. Interim PBOs, like Jacques, can be appointed without parliamentary sign-off for six-month terms.

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The federal government’s “persistent delays” in appointing new fiscal watchdogs were highlighted as a shortcoming in an otherwise glowing review of Canada’s parliamentary budget officer published last week by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.

Jacques argued at the House of Commons standing committee on government spending and estimates on Thursday that it would benefit Ottawa to shift the watchdog’s mandate from the budget officer to the office itself to help with continuity between mandates.

The budget office will continue to work on existing requests while waiting for a new officer to be named.

Bloc Québécois MP Marie-Hélène Gaudreau told the same committee in French that the federal government’s failure to date to name a replacement PBO is “unacceptable” with Jacques’ term coming to a close.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 2, 2026.

Craig Lord, The Canadian Press