government spending

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On Tuesday, the National Post's editorial page celebrated the continuation of Canada's AAA credit rating, in light of the U.S. downgrade to AA+. While there's no doubt our fiscal health is relatively better than the United States and Europe, the recent market volatility combined with declining commodity prices should not make us too complacent.


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The latest deals to “save” American and Greek public finances—allowing those countries to put themselves into even deeper debt—should puncture the illusion the welfare state was ever a success. The fact is, it was always built on borrowed time and borrowed money.

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All expectations for next week's federal budget are that it will look much like the March version -one that included a substantial $30-billion deficit this year (2011-12) and no credible plan to return to a balanced budget.

Canadians deserve more. The newly minted Conservative majority should seize the opportunity to put forth a truly conservative plan to balance the budget -one that puts federal departmental spending on the chopping block.


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Slash or spend? Cut or conserve? The federal government will bring down its budget on March 22. What should be in it? We ask five prominent Canadian think-tanks to offer their fiscal fix for the coming year.

Over the past five years in office, the federal Conservatives have not exactly been a bastion of fiscal conservatism. But on March 22, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Finance Minister Jim Flaherty have an opportunity to re-define their fiscal legacy.


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This past weekend, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty encouraged the G20 countries to rapidly implement their stimulus packages, highlighting that his government provided a greater stimulus budget than the G20 countries agreed was needed. While that may be so, his government's 2009 budget also turned back the clock on Canada's 15-year record of sound fiscal management and set the nation back down the path of larger, more interventionalist government.


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Earlier this week, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty wrapped up his cross-country pre-budget consultation trip in search of recommendations for the upcoming federal budget. Most interest groups, economists, and activists are calling for massive increases in government spending to “stimulate” the economy– much of it directed at their own pet projects or industrial sectors.


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If Canadian businesses want help to offset the negative effects of a high Canadian dollar, they should lobby Canada's governments to end corporate welfare in exchange for a dramatic reduction in corporate taxes. They would find the tax relief dramatic, given how much federal, provincial and municipal governments now spend on business subsidies.