ABSTRACT
The combination of growth-enhancing and fiscally prudent policies will redress the damage COVID has done to federal fiscal capacity, and provide more resources Canadians will need to address an ageing population, climate change and the energy transition, subsequent pandemics, and challenges we do not yet foresee. The Main Estimates for the 2023/24 fiscal year will follow Public Sector Accounting Standards, and will appear before the start of the fiscal year, after appropriate vetting by the Treasury Board. Notwithstanding the federal government's rhetorical emphasis on global warming as an existential threat that requires costly curtailments of fossil fuel production and consumption, the purported economic costs of warming do not figure in its projections, nor do the fiscal costs of adapting and fixing the damage. The response to global warming is likely to be a drag on economic growth (Canadian Climate Institute 2022).
ABSTRACT
Institute staff members are subject to a strict conflict of interest policy. While some of the municipalities we look at released their results late, and we have reservations about below-the-line adjustments that can cloud understanding of the municipality's fiscal capacity we generally award high scores for these municipalities' financial statements. In most cities, simple questions such as how much the government plans to spend, how its plans compare with its current activities and what its plans imply for its capacity to deliver future services are impossible for non-experts to answer. [...]many municipal budgets understate the size of city operations, omit key activities and exaggerate the costs of capital projects. [...]the big price tags in cash-based capital budgets likely bias councillors against investing in some long-life infrastructure and induce them to raise too much money up front to finance the projects they do undertake.
ABSTRACT
Institute staff members are subject to a strict conflict of interest policy. Critically, moreover, the revenues and expenses that Canada's senior governments report in their audited financial statements after year-end typically differ from budget projections by amounts that are significant, and in ways that raise questions. While not necessarily inconsistent with public sector accounting standards, adjustments for "other comprehensive income or loss" are not prefigured in budgets, and get less scrutiny by legislators and the public than do revenues and expenses. Legislators and Canadians generally should demand timelier and better information, and ensure that problematic events - such as those that require spending out of "contingency reserves" - misleading or skipped budgets, or sudden spending increases in response to "windfall" revenues, get appropriate scrutiny and corrective action.
ABSTRACT
Highlights of the 2020 Shadow Budget's measures to support economic growth are changes to personal and corporate income taxes that will encourage talent and investment, elimination of distorting taxes and border frictions, more focused infrastructure investments, and measures to support Canada's labour market. The Shadow Budget would foster opportunity and well-being by supporting saving for, and income in, retirement, establishing more generous treatment for medical expenses, supporting charitable giving, and implementing a more growth-friendly strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions with a new GST rate on motive fuels. The government spent the bulk of this bonus, so the deficit came in almost as projected. Since 2015/16, actual expenses have exceeded budget expectations by a cumulative $13.2 billion - Ottawa's sticking to its budgets would have almost wiped out last year's deficit.1 Voting ourselves benefits, and passing forward the part of the bill we are not willing to pay ourselves, is neither fair nor economically sensible. Parallel with the promise to give Canadians confidence in the federal government's fiscal framework and the longer-term prospects for Canada's economy is a commitment to greater transparency and accountability in the budgeting process.