OTTAWA — Prime Minister Mark Carney defended the roughly $700,000 salaries of the heads of the new federal Major Projects Office and Defence Investment Agency, noting they are taking a pay cut from the private sector while bearing “enormous” responsibilities.

Speaking to reporters during a pre-budget announcement in Ottawa Friday, Carney pooh-poohed any suggestion that the salaries offered to Dawn Farrell, the head of the Major Projects Office (MPO), and Douglas Guzman, the first CEO of the new Defence Investment Agency, were out of line with his government’s promise to tighten public spending.

“I think you’ll find that their pay when they were private sector CEOs was substantially higher than the pay ranges that they have,” Carney said Friday, adding that their public sector salaries we

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