Main estimates asks jump 3.8 per cent to reach $449.2-billion in budgetary spending
Comparing the 2023-24 and 2024-25 main estimates, The Hill Times identified 30 departments and agencies for which spending authorizations will change by $100-million or more.
PBO projects ‘sluggish’ economic growth this year, with $11.5-billion increase in budgetary deficit in 2023-24
Former parliamentary budget officer Kevin Page says some observers are concerned about the loss of ‘fiscal room’ because of debt generated during the pandemic.
Minister Freeland should take a walk in beer industry workers’ shoes
The finance minister should cancel the largest beer tax increase in 40 years, and at the same time, preserve Canadian jobs and support middle-class families.
Feds look for $13.2-billion boost to budgetary spending to wrap up 2023-24
Roughly $8.9-billion of the additional spending authorities being sought through the most recent supplementary estimates for 2023-24 will be voted on by Parliament.
Paying the price for a false promise of prosperity
The supply-side neoliberal economic thinking favoured by the likes of Brian Mulroney, Ronald Reagan, and Margaret Thatcher is driving today’s shifting political winds towards left-wing populism.
No easy outs: leaders should wrestle with tensions for a great budget
Budgets represent a set of difficult choices where society’s greatest needs come head to head with the cold reality of what our public finances can afford.
Why we have a terribly imbalanced economy
Canadians now have the highest household debt relative to household income in the G7, and one of the poorest performances in innovation and productivity in its business sector. The two are linked.
Trudeau government not being honest about true costs of national pharmacare
The government will likely need to borrow to finance any new spending and add more debt, which will result in higher taxes in the future. And yet, pharmacare is being presented to Canadians as if there’s no direct cost to them.
Liberals ‘must stop moving so ponderously’ on tax credits to catch global rivals, say renewable-energy advocates
The Liberal government has proposed several investment tax credits intended to support the energy transition, but none have yet passed into law.
Canadians’ economic anxieties have ‘blown past’ pandemic concern benchmark, according to Proof Strategies CanTrust Index
Millennials scored highest in the economic anxiety category at 71 per cent, with boomers coming in at 64 per cent. Women are feeling stress and anxiety more acutely than men.
