The federal government’s fall fiscal update had a mix of eye-grabbing announcements, including a massive infrastructure bank, mixed with under-the-radar but welcome improvements to fiscal transparency, and a plan to put the budget and main estimates on a consistent accounting standard for easy comparison. Conspicuously absent from the update was a firm target for a return to a balanced budget. Without one, we can’t judge the prudence — or recklessness — of the government’s fiscal policy.
The finance minister takes comfort in the expectation that the debt-to-GDP ratio will remain around its current value. True, governments can be said to be fiscally sustainable if debt does not grow as a share of the economy. But what…
Last week, Canada’s federal and provincial health ministers were engaged in negotiations about the future federal transfers to the provinces for health. The negotiations appear to have ended in a standoff, with provincial governments insisting that there have to be bigger transfers in order for them to offer even current levels of care, and the federal government refusing to increase the transfers significantly unless the provinces agree to a set of conditions in a new Health Accord.
The best outcome would be to leave matters as they are: There should be no new transfers beyond those already scheduled, with or without conditions.
Jane Philpott, the federal Health Minister, should be commended for her explicit recognition…
The fate of the Canada-EU trade deal remained unclear on the weekend, thanks to the objections of Wallonia, a region in Belgium few Canadians had ever heard of before now.
After spending agonizingly frustrating days in Brussels trying to salvage the deal, Trade Minister Chrystia Freeland finally lost patience and walked out of talks on Friday, a totally appropriate response under the circumstances.
Given the amount of political capital the Trudeau government has invested in supporting this Conservative-negotiated agreement, criticisms of Ms. Freeland by Conservative politicians last week were puzzling to say the least. Even though the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) was concluded by the Harper government…
