Federal Budget Analysis | Ottawa fails the transparency test

(Ottawa) The Trudeau government fails the test of transparency when it announces new spending in its latest budget without providing parliamentarians with all the information necessary to assess its relevance, estimates the Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO), Yves Giroux, in an analysis released Thursday.

To correct this shortcoming, the Ministry of Finance should be forced to table the budget on a fixed date earlier in the year, according to Mr. Giroux.

In Budget 2023, the PBO estimates, the Minister of Finance announced revenue and spending decisions of over $12 billion over the next five years on which no specific details are given.

Furthermore, the last budget was tabled one month after the government’s expenditure plan and the main estimates for 2023-24, which means that the additional expenditures of 9 .8 billion contained in the last federal budget.

The PBO therefore recommends that Parliament adopt a new legislative or administrative framework to increase budget transparency and thus allow elected officials to do their analytical work properly. A budget submitted on a fixed date at the beginning of the year would, in his opinion, make it possible to achieve this objective.

In its analysis, the PBO also criticizes Minister Freeland for not having presented any evaluation of the effectiveness of the programs that the Trudeau government had launched in the 2022 budget. Last year, the Minister of Finance announced her intention save at least $3 billion over three years. Ultimately, $3.8 billion was saved not by looking at spending, but by lower than expected spending on some COVID-19 support measures in 2021-22.

In the last budget tabled on March 28, Minister Freeland promised to “refocus government spending” to reduce spending by approximately $15 billion by 2027-28.

Since coming to power, the Trudeau government has never presented a balanced budget. The third budget tabled by Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland last month is still written in red ink – a $40 billion deficit is projected in fiscal year 2023-24. The deficit is expected to reach $14 billion in 2027-28, according to Department of Finance projections. Thus, the return to a balanced budget remains a distant and uncertain project in Ottawa.