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1. What would Chrétien’s budget rules have meant for Trudeau: Part 2

   After successive years of higher-than-promised federal deficits and record levels of per-person federal spending, the Trudeau government now finds itself less prepared to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. This blog post estimates where ...

2. Government policies hurting—not helping—on several fronts

   Picture if you will the following scenario. There’s a forest fire underway. How to deal with it? One logical approach is to deploy firefighters and waterbombers to extinguish the fire. Another approach is to light a number of smaller and ...

3. Fiscal update—increased spending and debt comes at a cost

   Nearly two months after the federal election, the Liberals released their fall fiscal update on Monday to inform Canadians about the status of the economy and government finances. Once again, the federal government failed to make ...

4. Federal Deficits Then and Now: Is Canada Repeating the Fiscal Mistakes of 1965 to 1995?

   From 1965 to 1995, the Canadian federal government repeatedly ran deficits, accumulating debt, a habit that culminated in the near crisis of the mid-1990s. After a period of reform beginning in 1995, Canada returned to deficits in 2008/09. While ...

5. Recession would seriously derail federal finances

   Appeared in the National Newswatch, February 15, 2019 Fiscal prudence—the ability of the government to balance its budget and manage the finances of the country responsibly—is an increasing concern for Canadians. According to a recent Nanos poll, a ...

6. The Trudeau and Ford governments—two fiscal statements, one debt problem

   Appeared in the National Newswatch, November 14, 2018 Both the Ford government in Ontario and the Trudeau government in Ottawa will release their fall fiscal and economic statements this month. Despite a tendency to compartmentalize these separate events, ...

7. Trudeau government employs spend it if you have it (and more) fiscal policy

   Federal program spending will reach a projected $321.5 billion next year—up 22.2 per cent since 2015. ...

8. Two fiscal freight trains hurling toward Ottawa

   The annual deficit from a recession could increase from its current level of $19 billion to almost $50 billion. ...

9. Federal finances and the irony behind Ottawa’s new ‘stress test’

   Appeared in the Financial Post, October 18, 2016 Ottawa recently announced a series of new regulations for the housing market to “protect the long-term financial security of borrowers and all Canadians.” You have to love the irony. While the federal ...