OTTAWA — Who is Kristalina Ivanova Georgieva-Kinova? And how did she apparently convince the debt-ridden Canadian government to spend billions of dollars?

Georgieva-Kinova, or simply Georgieva as she is known professionally, is a Bulgarian economist who has been the managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for the last six years.

But unlike most 72-year-old, eastern European technocrats, Georgieva seems in recent months to have had a profound influence on Canadian fiscal policy.

At almost every public stop in recent weeks, including Thursday’s post-budget event at an innovation hub in Toronto, Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne has referred to Georgieva’s apparent endorsement of the Canadian government’s policy directions, particularly its willingness

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