After more than half a decade at the helm of the Finance Department, MPs and experts are lauding outgoing deputy minister Paul Rochon’s service as a man who has “lived two years in one” throughout the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, but with the appointment of Michael Sabia as his replacement, former parliamentary budget officer Kevin Page says he will “instantly be one of the most powerful deputy ministers in the public service—first among equals with the clerk of the Privy Council.”