The ABCs of Fiscal Accountability: Grading Canada’s Senior Governments, 2020

COVID Threatens Governments’ Fiscal Accountability

• Many of Canada’s senior governments have made impressive progress with the transparency and accessibility of their financial presentations, but these gains are under threat from the COVID pandemic.
• In the C.D. Howe Institute’s annual report card on the accessibility, timeliness and reliability of governments’ financial documents, the authors assign grades that reflect how readily an interested but non-expert user may find, understand and act on the information therein.
• While many governments have made reporting improvements over recent years, the failure of the federal government, as well as Newfoundland and Labrador, to produce budgets this spring shows that Canadians cannot take these improvements for granted.