“Build back better!” We have heard that a lot since COVID hit — mainly from advocates for government spending, who saw pandemic-related fiscal stimulus, financed by central bank bond purchases, as suddenly making things that had seemed out of reach affordable.
The 2022 federal budget highlights their success. Ottawa’s last pre-COVID projections, in its 2019 fall update, showed federal spending at $421 billion in fiscal year 2024-25. The 2022 budget’s projections have it at $479 billion a year (adding back $2 billion in pension obligations the government stopped including meanwhile). That’s $58 billion more, long after COVID-related measures are gone. The slogan we should have been hearing is “Build back bigger!”
In 2019, a…
With inflation on the rise, the Bank of Canada kicked its tightening cycle into high gear Wednesday by announcing a 50-basis-point increase in its target for the overnight rate — the first non-25-basis-point hike in over 20 years. It also modified its stance concerning its over-sized holdings of Government of Canada bonds, which swelled its balance sheet during so-called Quantitative Easing (QE). Those days are over: it will now initiate Quantitative Tightening, or QT, by not replacing bonds on its balance sheet as they mature, thus reducing its bond holdings over time.
Some might be disappointed the bank didn’t go further on QT by announcing it would actually start selling its holdings of government bonds. Not to worry.…
Pas facile de lâcher le biberon pétrolier qui empoisonne notre planète. Comment concilier la nécessaire décarbonation et la sécurité énergétique ? Et, de surcroît, assurer une transition juste pour les provinces productrices ?
Ces questions n’ont pas de réponses faciles. À raison, les environnementalistes poussent pour un sevrage et une transition rapide vers les énergies renouvelables. Mais les consommateurs sont habiles à rationaliser l’utilité de leur VUS. Et à l’ère du populisme, les gouvernements craignent de les brusquer. Quant aux pétrolières et aux provinces productrices, elles cherchent évidemment à protéger leur pactole le plus longtemps possible.
En Europe, la guerre en Ukraine a rappelé brutalement l’…
