OTTAWA — Canada’s budget watchdog said he is not “muzzled” by the federal government and that prior comments suggesting that was the case were limited to the economic analysis of the carbon tax that his office was forbidden to disclose.

Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO) Yves Giroux has been in the spotlight once again since he all but admitted that he was under a gag order to not talk about the government’s internal data on the carbon tax. Those numbers were finally publicly released last week.