Carney government unlikely to hit any of its fiscal anchors, says PBO

OTTAWA — Ottawa’s fiscal watchdog says there’s a “low probability” that the Carney government will reach any of the three targets that it has referred to as its fiscal anchors, just months after establishing those key long-term benchmarks. Article content

Jason Jacques, the interim Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO), told a parliamentary committee Thursday that there’s only a 7.5 per cent chance that the government, for example, will hit its target of reducing Canada’s deficit-to-gross domestic product (GDP) ratio over each of the next few years. Article content

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“Based on the analysis we’ve conducted, there is a low probability of respecting the fiscal anchors the government has set out for itself,” Jacques told the House of Commons’ Government Oper