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1. Ottawa using bounty of robust growth to simply boost spending

   The recently-released 2018 federal budget calls for growth in both spending and revenues. Between 2017-18 and 2022-23, total revenues are forecast to grow from $309.6 billion to $373.9 billion—an increase of 21 per cent. After a three ...

2. 35-stop shopping—coming soon to a government near you

   If more innovation programs were all we needed to solve our innovation problems, they would have been solved a long time ago. ...

3. 2018 budget—another nail in the coffin of Trudeau’s balanced budget promise

   While campaigning for the 2015 election, then-candidate Justin Trudeau made a commitment to Canadians, pledging three years of modest budget deficits of no more than $10 billion, with a balanced budget by the end of his first mandate in ...

4. Trudeau government 0-for-3 for budgets that improve fundamentals for growing the economy

   With the Trudeau government tabling its third budget, the script has become familiar. Each budget the government loudly proclaims platitudes about growing the economy and helping the middle class. In reality, there’s no magic lever to ...

5. Federal budget an opportunity for Ottawa to change big spending ways

   Since coming into office, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government has markedly increased spending, contributing to larger-than-promised budget deficits with no end in sight. Next week’s federal budget is an opportunity to change ...

6. Federal Budget 2017 projects $28.5 billion deficit

   With its largely status quo 2017 budget, the federal government has essentially decided not to decide until President Trump decides. And that leaves taxpayers, entrepreneurs and businesses guessing about what Canada’s economic policies ...

7. Why is Canada’s federal government running a deficit?

   Canada’s federal government has embarked on a path of substantial deficit financing with no concrete target laid out of when the budget might be expected to balance. The deficit will be $5.4 billion in 2015-16, $29.4 billion in 2016-17, ...

8. Why did the planned surplus in 2015/16 turn to deficit? Higher federal spending

   With much of the focus on last week’s federal budget being on the $29.4 billion deficit expected in 2016/17, an important takeaway that largely flew under the media radar is what caused the surplus that the former government had planned ...

9. Infrastructure spending OK, but that’s not what the Liberals proposed

   The dust is settling from the Liberal government’s first budget, which proposed large spending increases, some tax hikes, and deficits throughout their mandate with no balanced budget in sight. Some of the details of the budget, which ...

10. William Watson: budget numbers we really need—benefit per dollar spent at the margin

    My very favourite line from this week’s federal budget is “There are no public transit systems in Nunavut.” This is from a note to a table on page 92 of the Budget Plan. Well, duh, of course there aren’t any public transit systems in ...