The Morning After: A Post-Binge Federal Shadow Budget for 2023

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).