Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland announced Monday that she will deliver a fall economic statement on Dec. 16.
The fiscal update will provide a fresh look at Ottawa’s finances heading into 2025.
It will give Canadians a sense of how items announced since the 2024 federal budget, including planned immigration caps, the upcoming GST holiday and Ottawa’s pledges to meet NATO spending commitment in future years will impact the federal balance sheets.
The fall fiscal update is set to arrive later than usual, just a day before members of Parliament are scheduled to wrap up their business for the year.
Freeland has blamed an ongoing Conservative filibuster stymying regular business in the House of Commons for the delay.
The Dec. 16 update will also offer a glimpse into whether or not the federal government has stuck to its fiscal anchors heading into an election year.
Canada’s fiscal watchdog has recently put substantial scrutiny over some of Ottawa’s spending plans.
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The parliamentary budget officer has projected that the federal Liberals likely missed a pledge to cap the deficit at $40 billion in the previous fiscal year.
On the Liberal promise to meet NATO spending commitments, the PBO said last month that those plans hinged on “erroneous” economic forecasts. The PBO also projected in a report this past summer that the capital gains tax changes would bring in $2 billion less in revenues over five years than the Liberals expected in the 2024 budget.
The upcoming fiscal update will also include revised economic forecasts for Canada’s economic growth amid cooling inflation and interest rate cuts from the Bank of Canada.
Randall Bartlett, senior director of Canadian economics at Desjardins, told Global News in October that while lower interest rates are usually a boon for governments that eventually see lower costs on their debt, easing inflation actually means lower revenues for Ottawa in the near-term.
He added that plans to curb immigration growth in the coming years will limit Ottawa’s tax base and could dampen economic growth, further tightening the federal purse strings.
“That slowing pace of real GDP growth is going to weigh on federal government revenues more than is going to save them in expenses. And ultimately that’s going to contribute to a higher deficit than the federal government planned back in the spring,” Bartlett said at the time.
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