Former parliamentary budget officer Kevin Page said there isn’t enough time left before the summer recess for the government to produce a full budget with new policy announcements, but he said the Liberals should at least produce a fiscal update before the summer that shows where things currently stand. He said campaign platforms didn’t fully account for the various U.S. tariff moves that have disrupted the Canadian economy.
“They are out of date,” said Mr. Page, who is now president and chief executive officer of the University of Ottawa’s Institute of Fiscal Studies and Democracy. “Parliament will be asked to approve spending authorities without a reasonable planning framework.”
and lil context:
Federal governments almost always release a budget early in the year. One rare exception was in 2020, during the pandemic, when the government didn’t table one.
The absence of a budget would leave Canadians without a clear picture of the new government’s spending plan, or how recent economic events have affected Ottawa’s bottom line.