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No one is watching the money at the moment.

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There is no parliamentary budget officer scrutinizing federal spending in Ottawa after the interim fiscal watchdog’s term expired Monday without a successor, The Canadian Press reported.

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The parliamentary budget officer is an independent agent of Parliament tasked with analyzing federal budgets, spending proposals and election campaign promises to raise the quality of public debate. With no budget officer installed, the office cannot publish any reports or accept new work requests from parliamentarians. The budget office will continue to work on existing requests while waiting for a new officer to be named.

Interim parliamentary budget officer Jason Jacques finished a six-month term on Monday at 5 p.m.

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

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Lack of new PBO ‘unacceptable’

The prime minister’s cabinet decides the appointment of a permanent budget officer to a seven-year term. Parliament must then approve the appointment. Interim parliamentary budget officers, such as Jacques, can be appointed without Parliament’s OK for six-month terms. During his tenure, he argued it would benefit Ottawa to shift the watchdog’s mandate from the officer to the office itself to aid continuity.

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 Office published last week by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.

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Bloc Quebecois MP Marie-Helene Gaudreau said the federal government’s failure to date to name a replacement parliamentary budget officer is “unacceptable” with Jacques’ term coming to a close.

Jacques hit the ground running as budget watchdog, criticizing the Liberal government’s fiscal plans as “unsustainable.” When the Liberals later tabled their 2025 federal budget, Jacques said Ottawa’s debt path was sustainable, but cautioned the government had used up some ability to absorb fiscal shocks. He also argued for another independent body to properly define capital spending under the Liberals’ new budget framework.

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