April 2016
COMPARING FISCAL APPLES TO FISCAL ORANGES
Did the Liberals inherit a small surplus (less than $1 billion) in 2015-16 as recently forecast by the Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO) or a deficit of $5.4 billion as forecast by the Finance Minister in his 2016 Budget?. That depends on how one interprets the final outcome, which will not be known until the official Public Accounts numbers are released the fall.
Read MoreLESSONS FOR THE 2017 BUDGET
It has been almost a month since the government’s budget. Traditionally, a first budget is a political document that focuses on fulfilling election promises. Given the political nature of a first budget, the Prime Minister’s Office is quite naturally very involved in its preparation. The objective is to get the budget over with and off the front pages quickly. Unfortunately, for the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance, their first budget is still in the news and not in a favourable way.
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