Soon, the Wynne government will present its first budget since being re-elected with a majority last June. This will be a critical test, particularly with respect to the bond market and credit rating agencies.
government spending
April 7, 2015
6:00AM
Ontario’s net public debt is estimated at $287.3 billion and will hit nearly $320 billion by 2017. The evolution of this daunting number is an interesting story as the spring budget approaches.
April 4, 2015
12:00PM
The day before delivering his budget speech, Quebec Minister of Finance Carlos Leitão called the budget a “good news budget.” Indeed, Quebec’s 2015 budget continues to make progress on tackling deep-rooted fiscal problems.
March 28, 2015
7:00AM
With tumbling oil prices and resource revenues, Premier Jim Prentice had a choice when he delivered Alberta’s 2015 budget. He could emulate former premier Don Getty and raise taxes or follow the Ralph Klein playbook and reduce spending.
March 21, 2015
6:00AM
As everyone from the Manitoba-Ontario border to Tofino knows, the local and provincial economies, which depend on resource extraction, have slowed.
March 16, 2015
12:00PM
In a recent column about the upcoming Metro Vancouver transit plebiscite, Vancouver Sun columnist Daphne Bramham complained about business leaders who talked “way more about cutting taxes for poor beleaguered taxpayers for the past 30 years than they have about the valuable services tax money provides.”
March 14, 2015
8:00AM
Over the past decade, the province of Alberta treated boom-time resource revenues like a permanent state of affairs. That set the province up for fiscal failure, for multiple lost opportunities.
February 18, 2015
2:00PM
It’s budget season in Edmonton but Premier Prentice has already announced a five per cent across-the-board reduction in program spending to help deal with an expected $7 billion-plus deficit.