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The Liberal government’s nominee to be the next fiscal watchdog insists she’ll run an independent and non-partisan ship — even though her candidacy has created a political rift.
Senior public servant Annette Ryan appeared before the House finance committee Monday afternoon as part of the nomination process for the role of parliamentary budget officer (PBO). Her nomination must be confirmed by the House and Senate before she can take on the role.
In her opening statement, Ryan said maintaining the independence of the office is a top priority.
“I intend to provide you with high-quality, independent and relevant analysis so that you can hold the prime minister, his ministers and senior officials to account,” she told the committee.
Conservatives voting against nomination
Conservatives have already said they will be voting against Ryan’s nomination, saying instead that the job should go to Jason Jacques, who had held the PBO role temporarily starting in September.
Conservative MP Sandra Cobena accused the Liberals of trying to “muzzle” the former interim PBO after he heavily criticized the government early in his tenure.
“This is not about the current nominee. This is about the fact that Mr. Jacques, the former PBO, is being removed,” she told reporters before Monday’s committee meeting.
“There’s no credible reason to remove him and not appoint him permanently.”
Conservative MP Sandra Cobena says the interim PBO should have been made permanent. (Spencer Colby/The Canadian Press)
Ryan has held a number of senior positions across government, most recently as a deputy director at Fintrac, Canada’s financial intelligence unit and anti-money-laundering agency. She was previously associate assistant deputy minister for Finance Canada and chief economist and director general of economic research and policy analysis for Industry Canada.
The PBO nominee listed multiple Liberal and Conservative ministers she has worked under during her career in the civil service.
Conservative finance critic Jasraj Hallan noted his disappointment that Jacques wasn’t given the permanent job, before asking Ryan about her commitment to being independent.
“I would see you [MPs] collectively as my boss,” Ryan said in response to one of Hallan’s questions.
“I see the role as serving Parliament,” she said, saying several times during the committee that she would hold the government’s “feet to the fire” in her analysis.
Hallan also asked about Ryan attending Oxford at the same time as Prime Minister Mark Carney and if that would impact her work. She said it wouldn’t and added that she and Carney knew each other at that time but didn’t have the same “social circles.”
PBOs can serve a maximum of two seven-year terms in the role, but previous people who have held the position did not serve more than one term.
Ryan told the committee that she only plans to serve one term to maintain the “integrity” of the PBO position.
The last permanent budget officer, Yves Giroux, ended his term in September of last year. On his last day in office the Carney government announced Jacques would serve as the interim PBO for six months — his term ended in early March.
Jacques’s tenure got off to a bumpy start when he was criticized for a controversial appearance before a parliamentary committee in September. He described the health of Canada’s federal finances as “stupefying,” “shocking” and “unsustainable.”
Kevin Page, Canada’s first PBO and the president of the Institute for Fiscal Studies and Democracy at the University of Ottawa, reacted passionately to Jacques’s language, telling CBC’s Power & Politics a few days later that Jacques was “just wrong” and his musings were “not consistent with the numbers.”
When the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) issued its report on the PBO last month, it pointed to that performance as evidence that the PBO needs to improve how it communicates its findings going forward.
Jacques told CBC News that his language in that hearing distracted parliamentarians from the message he was trying to convey. He later softened his language in his analysis of November’s federal budget.
Jacques remains on staff at the PBO.
