My sinking feeling about the interim Parliamentary Budget Officer continues to plummet, not only in response to last week’s committee appearance where he not only used a bunch of over-the-top adjectives to describe his read of the fiscal situation, but also telegraphed that he has taken all of the wrong lessons from his predecessor and that he intends to make himself a media darling, in defiance of what his role is actually supposed to be according to his legislated mandate:

“If the government wants to go 12 months without producing a budget, as a citizen I would feel a little bit uncomfortable. But as somebody who works in the Parliamentary Budget Office, I’d say, ‘That’s great for us. Because we will occupy all the space that they decide to give up.’”

He was back on TV this weekend, and saying a bunch of alarmist things about how we’re on a “precipice” and so on, which…is not what his office was saying just a few months ago. If anything, this is the kind of alarmism that we’re used to hearing from the “it’s 1995 and will always be 1995” crowd, where any budget deficits are treated as some kind of national catastrophe, and that we’re sitting on a “debt bomb,” but we’re not. People are actively forgetting the measures taken to save the economy during the height of COVID, pretending that it didn’t happen, and now they’re downplaying just what exactly the effect that Trump’s tariffs are having on the economy—or the fact that we have managed to avoid a recession so far (not that it has stopped Poilievre from insisting that our economy is “collapsing.”)

Meanwhile, we’re once again getting the litany of demands from business groups about the budget, and they’re entirely of the “cut taxes and deregulate” variety, because nobody has learned a single lesson about how trickle-down doesn’t work, and that the scars from the last round of government austerity have not healed. And from the looks of it, this PBO is not only trying to become a media darling, but he’s basically rooting his analysis/opinion in these very same frameworks, which I suspect is going to really start to skew just what his analysis is and what it’s saying, which is going to do a real disservice to the job that he’s supposed to be doing.

Ukraine Dispatch

There was another major attack on Kyiv early morning Sunday, with 595 drones and 48 missiles, which killed four people, including a child.

Good reads:

• Prime minister Mark Carney has returned to Ottawa from his London trip, which he defends as being necessary to open new markets for our exports. (Photos here).
• Anita Anand has confirmed that Indian law enforcement is cooperating with Canadian law enforcement.
• Indigenous Services is renewing its funding agreement with BC for child and family services with the Tsilhqot’in First Nation.
• Here is a look at Canada strengthening its ties with Greenland.
• Here is a look at the Canadian military’s annual summer exercises in the Arctic.
• The RCMP say they need more resources to fight foreign interference. (They also need to radically overhaul their mandate and organization).
• Women’s and LGBTQ+ advocacy groups are bracing for cuts in the upcoming budget.
• NDP MP Heather McPherson is now officially in the leadership race.
• Here is a look at the effect that Danielle Smith’s war on renewable energy is having on the industry in her province.
• Kevin Carmichael warns that our policymakers need to pay more attention to “natural capital” and the environment or face worse productivity stagnation.
• Philippe Lagassé points to the costs of sustainment and upgrades to military procurements that never get talked about in purchase prices.
• Mike Moffatt offers a warning about the depth of the housing construction crisis in Ontario, and offers a list of immediate solutions for all levels of government.
• Shannon Proudfoot delivers an obituary of the consumer carbon levy, and all of the ways that the Liberals failed to defend their own policy until its demise.
• Althia Raj calls out the series of omissions the Conservatives like Andrew Scheer and Larry Brock are making in their ragebait videos.
• Emmett Macfarlane states that when it comes to provincial governments invoking the Notwithstanding Clause, they should be subject to scrutiny by the courts.
• My weekend column notes that many of the “solutions” people are offering to save Canada Post are firmly rooted in big city behaviour and expectations.

Odds and ends:

Feel the cringe.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-09-27T01:35:22.194Z

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