No one can envy Minister Wowchuk’s job of delivering this year’s budget. As we work our way through the “great recession” the budget will face even more scrutiny than usual. Her job is made perhaps even more difficult by the fact that nationally the recession seems to be releasing its grip, albeit very slightly, making some call for a return to business as usual. But the Minister should not be lulled into a false sense of security: Manitoba’s economic recovery depends on many factors outside her control and is, therefore, fragile at best.
Government finance
As the Manitoba government prepares for this year’s budget, the air of equanimity evident in last year’s budgetary deliberations has given way to hyper-timidity, if not panic. Government leaders seem preoccupied with the fact that the deficit could reach $500 million and talk relentlessly about the need for restraint.
Since 2000, the CCPA-NS has stimulated the dialogue on Nova Scotia’s economy through its alternative budget document, a tool to assess the fiscal situation and the choices available to governments in Nova Scotia. Provincial budgets, like all public policy, are about choices and values. Through the budget, our governments make important choices that have serious implications for the everyday lives of Nova Scotians, now and in the future.
This opinion piece was featured in Canadian Business, April 12, 2010 edition.
The Harper government just pressed the wrong panic button — prematurely tackling the budgetary deficit before resolving the jobs crisis, Canada's worst in a generation.
Over the past year and a half, the most forceful global economic downturn since the Great Depression has destroyed half a million full-time jobs in Canada. They tell us the recession is over, but we’re still short hundreds of thousands of permanent jobs.
The 2010 BC Budget was a disappointment on the climate action front. Even as Premier Campbell waxed poetic in the Globe about the impact of climate change on the “Spring Olympics” – with its sunny days, crocuses, daffodils and cherry blossoms making it fun for people on the street but a big mess up at Cypress Bowl – the budget offered little assurance that this government still cares.
“The Government of Nova Scotia has a serious problem,” states the Back to Balance website, “and needs your help to solve it.”
The serious problem, according to the government, is an impending 1.4 billion dollar deficit facing the province in 2013 unless revenues are increased and spending is curbed.
TORONTO – The global recession hit Ontario harder than most provinces, making the need for job creation – not deficit reduction -- a top priority in this week’s provincial budget, says a new report by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA). Steering Ontario Out of Recession, by CCPA Research Associate Hugh Mackenzie, says Ontario lost 201,000 permanent jobs last year while only 15,000 new part-time jobs and 20,500 temporary jobs were created to offset those losses.
OTTAWA – It’s time to remove the rose-coloured glasses around the reliability of “consensus” forecasts used in the federal budget, says a new report released today by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA)
The report, by economist David Macdonald, highlights the underlying uncertainty of GDP “consensus” growth forecasts and extends the concerns recently expressed by the Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO).