Inflation will make the upcoming federal budget a tough balancing act of offering Canadians relief for cost-of-living increases without increasing deficits or triggering an election.
“We’ve got affordability issues because of inflation. And government spending, of course, can spur inflation. And so, it’s a difficult needle to thread,” Telford said in an interview.
“They’re trying to bring the deficit down after COVID, and trying to get the debt on a downward trajectory relative to GDP. This is a difficult issue for them to address people’s needs while maintaining a semblance of fiscal prudence,” Telford said.
“This is a government that likes to spend. It’s difficult, for what they consider to be restraint might not be restraint in other people’s books.”
Steve Ambler, a professor of economics at Université du Québec à Montréal, believes the government can’t ignore the coming wave of debt-servicing costs.
“They will have to borrow at higher, much higher, interest rates than they could a couple years ago, which you would think would put the fear of God into them, but we shall see,” Ambler told The Epoch Times.
“I’m not entirely convinced that they are at all serious about getting this under control, myself. They still seem to be going, ‘It’s good, it’s OK, as long as the debt-to-GDP ratio doesn’t explode.’”
Ian Madsen, senior analyst for the Frontier Centre for Public Policy, said an ideal budget would restore spending to pre-pandemic levels to diminish the coming wave of debt-servicing costs.
“The only caveat would be that defence spending should rise somewhat higher, to glacially, eventually, reach the level of 2 percent of GDP that is the commitment under NATO. But [that’s] hard to accomplish given the procurement problem of it taking eight years to get anything purchased and delivered in hand,” Madsen said.
‘Just Transition,’ Health Care
Last October, the US$500 billion Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) in the United States included new spending and tax breaks to boost clean energy, reduce health-care costs, and increase tax revenues. It’s possible Canada will take a similar approach, though Ambler is opposed.“The so-called ‘just transition’ [has] already gone a long way to decimate business investment spending in Canada ... [which] right now is just a complete disaster. A lot of it is because of the federal government threatening to destroy the energy industry,” he said.
“[Now they’re] talking about essentially destroying Canadian agriculture by an absolute reduction of 30 percent [emissions from] the use of nitrogen fertilizers. That’s just crazy.”
Telford suggests that the just transition is unpopular with Prairie voters but that budgetary measures on climate-change policies and improvements to public transit would be welcomed by the Liberal support base.
“Liberal attention is elsewhere, and that is on the urban centres of Canada, suburbs as well, and trying to ensure that they maintain that support,” he said.
“A big concern for a lot of Canadians is health care, and the federal government addressed that, for better or for worse, in the in the deal they made last month with the provinces.”
“The NDP has to see NDPish things there, and no poison pills, that is, things that the NDP would strongly object to, in order to get their support and get this budget past Parliament,“ Telford said. ”I don’t think the Liberals are looking to bring down their own government at this time.”
Nelson Wiseman, an emeritus professor of political science at the University of Toronto, agrees.
“I expect the debt to increase as the budget will be in deficit,” he said.
“However, the debt to gross domestic product will likely decrease—the measure most commonly used now by economic analysts to determine whether there is a path to budget balance and sustainability. A challenge will be that debt payments will eat up more of spending because of the rise in interest rates.
“The budget will talk about inflation and affordability, but government policy will have little influence on inflation or disinflation. They are global phenomena.”