Interim Parliamentary Budget Officer takes aim at Liberal accounting, but says budget sustainable

Days before MPs are set to cast their vote on the Liberal budget, interim Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO) Jason Jacques is calling the government’s accounting into question, suggesting there’s a less than 10 per cent chance it will stay within its deficit targets.

Despite that criticism, the report contrasts with Jacques's September comments that Canada’s spending is “unsustainable” and “shocking”: he now says that according to the PBO’s own framework, the government’s finances, while tight, are sustainable over the long term.

The report saves its harshest criticism for the way Finance Canada changed the way it reports deficit financing by separating out capital from operational spending.

The "PBO maintains its view that the government’s definition of capital investments is overly