Budget watchdog calls for better transparency after Liberals shift fiscal anchors

By Canadian Press on November 24, 2025.

OTTAWA — The interim parliamentary budget officer says Ottawa should turn over scrutiny of one of its key fiscal anchors to an independent body.

Jason Jacques told MPs on the House of Commons finance committee today he fears that changes to the federal government’s fiscal anchors in the recent budget were made quickly and without parliamentary debate.

The government’s new metrics for demonstrating fiscal prudence include balancing the operating side of the budget in three years — after it split capital spending into its own category — and charting a declining path for the deficit-to-GDP ratio.

Jacques says those changes were introduced just six weeks before the budget was tabled and mark a significant departure from the previous anchor, which committed the government to shrinking the debt-to-GDP ratio.

He also says Ottawa’s definition of capital investments is broad and subject to change, so he believes the Liberals should create a new oversight body to ensure the government is adhering to its own benchmarks.

A spokesman for Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne says the government isn’t currently considering the kind of oversight Jacques is suggesting, and argues the Liberals have been transparent since the spring federal election about changing their budgeting approach to focus on capital investments.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 24, 2025.

Craig Lord, The Canadian Press