OTTAWA - The interim parliamentary budget officer says Ottawa should turn over scrutiny of one of its key fiscal anchors to an independent body.

Jason Jacques told MPs on the House of Commons finance committee today he fears that changes to the federal government's fiscal anchors in the recent budget were made quickly and without parliamentary debate.

The government's new metrics for demonstrating fiscal prudence include balancing the operating side of the budget in three years — after it split capital spending into its own category — and charting a declining path for the deficit-to-GDP ratio.

Jacques says those changes were introduced just six weeks before the budget was tabled and mark a significant departure from the previous anchor, which committed the government to shrinking the de

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