Liberals’ fiscal update shows billions more in deficits this year and next

OTTAWA – Canada's federal budget deficit will be billions of dollars deeper than it was supposed to be this year and next, according to the Finance Department.

The figures released this morning show that the Liberals' projected deficit of $19.8 billion for the 12-month period that ends in March is now slated to hit $26.6 billion.

And next year's deficit is expected to be $28.1 billion, before accounting for promises the Liberals will unveil in their 2020 budget.

The Liberals' election platform projected four years of deficits of more than $20 billion, including almost $27.4 billion in the upcoming fiscal year that begins in April 2020.

The Finance Department says the deeper deficit is largely driven by changes to how employee pensions and benefits are calculated, but also accounts for a tax break that takes effect on Jan. 1.

Still, the Liberals say their preferred measure of the state of federal finances — which calculates the deficit relative to the size of the economy — will keep improving, if not as quickly as it was supposed to.

Spending is also expected to go up faster on the Canada Child Benefit than the Liberals projected earlier this year, a reflection of pegging the value of payments to inflation and "an increase in the projected number of children eligible."

The government also says that increased spending announced in the March 2019 budget will be "entirely offset" over the coming years by what the Liberals higher-than-anticipated personal and corporate income-tax revenue.

At the same time, revenues will decline for excise taxes and duties this year — largely from the Liberals' lifting retaliatory tariffs on American steel and aluminum earlier than they planned — and over the coming years from "lower expected growth in taxable consumption."

Federal officials are also promising the first phase of a spending and tax review that the Liberals say will result in $1.5 billion in savings starting next fiscal year, which the government has accounted for.

The update provided today from Finance Minister Bill Morneau comes on the heels of a week where the opposition Conservatives accused the government of creating the conditions for a "made-in-Canada recession."

The government, however, projects that the economy itself will continue to grow over the coming years at roughly the rate calculated in the March budget.

The Finance Department projects growth will be 1.7 per cent this year and 1.6 per cent next year, after weakness late last year and early this year, particularly in the mining and oil-and-gas sectors. The projections would make Canada the second-fastest-growing economy among G7 countries, behind only the United States.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 16, 2019.