Canada has two independent financial watchdogs of government spending — the auditor general and the parliamentary budget officer (PBO) — and as of Tuesday, one of them, the PBO, is gone, without Prime Minister Mark Carney naming a replacement. Appointed by then-prime minister Justin Trudeau in 2018, Yves Giroux, whose term has expired, was so good at his job that in 2020, we suggested Trudeau should name him finance minister, because he was a far more reliable source on government spending during the pandemic than Chrystia Freeland, who held the post at that time. In his final week of office, Giroux issued two reports explaining that, if nothing changes, Carney’s pledges to increase the supply of housing and reduce the operating costs of the federal government to an increase of less th

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