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1. Federal finances remain vulnerable to fluctuating interest rates

   Appeared in Calgary's Business, August 20, 2020 There’s been a lot of movement in Ottawa lately, including Bill Morneau’s resignation as federal finance minister, with Chrystia Freeland taking his place. Unfortunately, the Trudeau government’s recent ...

2. Policymakers must ditch their fashionable green recovery plans

   Appeared in the Financial Post, August 19, 2020 There’s a curious idea floating around that the COVID crisis undid the principles of economics. Nobody puts it exactly like that, but it’s implied in the various proposals for restructuring the post-pandemic ...

3. Minister McKenna should re-consider plans for stimulus

   Catherine McKenna, our federal minister of infrastructure, recently said the Trudeau government is thinking about stimulus measures and hopes to have a plan in place this fall. Minister McKenna suggested stimulus efforts would focus on ...

4. Trudeau government—and provincial governments across Canada—can learn from past fiscal consolidations

   Introduction Prior to the COVID recession, Canada faced significant fiscal challenges. These challenges were most severe at the provincial level. For example, Ontario had run uninterrupted deficits for over a decade, while Alberta had ...

5. Any credible plan to fix federal finances must address pre-COVID spending

   Indigenous and Northern Affairs represented the largest share of federal program spending growth. ...

6. The finance minister said what? Part 5

   On July 8, Finance Minister Bill Morneau delivered the federal government’s economic and fiscal “ snapshot,” which pins the federal deficit at $343 billion in 2020. The finance minister lauded (yet again) that the government’s fiscal ...

7. Trudeau government should provide fiscal projections to Canadians

   The CERB is now estimated to cost $61.1 billion compared to the original estimate of $40.6 billion. ...

8. Explaining the Growth in Federal Program Spending since 2015

   In 2019, federal program spending reached $322.9 billion, an increase of $69.1 billion or 27.2% (nominal) since 2015. After adjusting for inflation, the increase in program spending is still sizeable at $50.2 billion or 18.4%. The government finances ...

9. Trudeau government should provide fiscal update—now

   Three months into the COVID-19 pandemic, the Parliamentary Budget Officer has called out the federal government on the need for a fiscal update to provide some direction as to the fiscal implications for Canada of dealing with the ...

10. 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 ...