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1. Interest Cost Risks to Government Budgets

   This essay calculates the change in government interest costs and budget balances if interest costs return to their 2019-20 levels. Estimates are calculated for 2021-22 gross debt levels for each of the provinces and the federal government. ...

2. Trudeau government’s approach to federal finances anything but ‘prudent’

   Appeared in the National Newswatch, December 2, 2020 Since coming to power in 2015, Prime Minister Trudeau —and his finance ministers —have characterized their management of federal finances as “prudent,” an adjective meaning to act with or show care and ...

3. Canada moving quickly towards U.S.-style ‘spend now, pay later’ government

   The Trudeau Liberals initially promised to run deficits for three years to finance spending increases. ...

4. Trudeau government smashes spending record, must right country’s fiscal ship

   Appeared in the Toronto Sun, May 27, 2020 The federal deficit—that is, the amount of government spending in excess of government revenues this year—is now estimated at more than $250 billion and counting. The sticker shock has many Canadians increasingly ...

5. Deferring Federal Taxes: Illustrating the Deficit Using the GST

   It is sometimes difficult for everyday Canadians to grasp the size of the federal deficit— estimated at $26.6 billion for 2019-20—because of its sheer size. This bulletin, along with subsequent planned instalments, aims to give Canadians that ...

6. Getting political responsibility right in times of crises

   More often than not, politicians are given too much credit for both economic expansions (i.e. prosperity) as well as recessions. That’s not to say that policies don’t matter because they do. But the idea that a politician or government ...

7. 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 ...

8. Trudeau government should learn from Chrétien-era tax relief

   Appeared in the Vancouver Province, March 4, 2020 As the Trudeau government prepares to table its 2020 budget, it should reflect on another federal budget from 25 years ago when the Chrétien government took decisive action to balance the budget (after ...

9. Federal budget continues the spending spree

   In this year’s federal budget, Finance Minister Bill Morneau confirmed the government is more than happy to continue down a risky path of deficit-financed spending. Once again, the government opted to throw money in every direction rather ...

10. It’s official—the Trudeau government has no interest in balancing the budget

    Appeared in the Financial Post, March 19, 2019 On Tuesday, the federal Liberals released their fourth and last budget before facing the electorate this fall. While there are many competing analyses on aspects of the budget, one thing is certain—the ...