{"id":23553,"date":"2026-04-28T20:30:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-28T20:30:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/23553\/"},"modified":"2026-04-28T20:30:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T20:30:07","slug":"fiscal-update-shows-carney-buying-time-as-canadians-wait-for-his-plans-to-pay-off","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/23553\/","title":{"rendered":"Fiscal update shows Carney buying time as Canadians wait for his plans to pay off"},"content":{"rendered":"

OTTAWA \u2014 The Liberals\u2019 new economic update shows a smaller fiscal deficit than expected, but reveals Prime Minister Mark Carney still struggling with how to make Canadians feel better about their lives while they wait for the stronger country he promises to lead them to.<\/p>\n

The books aren\u2019t quite closed on the 2025-26 fiscal year, which ended March 31, but even after accounting for everything the federal government has done and promised since the November budget<\/a>, the update says the deficit for that year will be $66.9 billion instead of the $78.3 billion expected just months ago.<\/p>\n

Talking Points<\/p>\n

Revenue is higher than expected and expenses are lower, so Canada\u2019s national finances are significantly better than the federal Liberals projects in their autumn budget
\nThe spring update shows a government trying to buy time for its economic overhaul to take hold in the minds of voters who remain worried about their own finances<\/p>\n

Projections for the current year and those to come aren\u2019t as dramatically better, but they\u2019re still improved each year, by $100 million to $400 million.<\/p>\n

This is even though the Liberal government has cut personal income taxes and scrapped Justin Trudeau\u2019s increase to capital gains taxes. It\u2019s cut<\/a> the gas tax. Yet revenue has grown faster than the Finance Department projected last fall.<\/p>\n

Personal income taxes are up because incomes are up. Taxes on non-residents\u2019 Canadian income are up because the stock market is strong. Corporate income tax revenue is up, \u201creflecting steady profits, particularly in the financial sector.\u201d It dips in future years because the government is letting corporations write off more capital investments, then is projected to increase again.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tRelated Articles<\/p>\n

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Spending on programs is lower than projected, partly because the government hasn\u2019t had to pay out unemployment benefits it expected to. Where costs have gone up, it\u2019s mostly for positive reasons, like bigger transfers to provincial governments that arise from higher-than-expected economic growth.<\/p>\n

Carney boasted about the government\u2019s \u201cresponsible fiscal management\u201d on Monday as he announced his plans for a new sovereign wealth fund, but the amount of restraint that takes is limited. The Liberals have not just gone and spent all the money they didn\u2019t expect to have.<\/p>\n

The fiscal update\u2019s numbers show that Canada\u2019s economic situation is markedly better than the last budget anticipated. Yet polls, like this<\/a> recent one from Abacus Data, indicate that the cost of living and the economy top Canadians\u2019 collective lists of concerns.<\/p>\n

A section of Tuesday\u2019s economic update explicitly grapples with this mismatch. \u201cWhy Canadians Still Feel Their Budgets Are Strained\u2014And What the Government Is Doing About It,\u201d it\u2019s titled. Overall inflation isn\u2019t bad now and wages have grown faster than prices for three years, it says. But food and gasoline prices (especially lately) have kept increasing, and even when we\u2019re buying things whose costs have stabilized, 2026 prices give us sticker shock.<\/p>\n

\t\t\"A\t<\/p>\n

\u201cAll macroeconomic indicators are green,\u201d Finance Minister Fran\u00e7ois-Philippe Champagne said in explaining the budget. But, he added, Canadians are asking, \u201cWhat about me? \u2026We need to help people where they are now.\u201d<\/p>\n

In his instantly famous speech<\/a> at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January, Carney drew on Thucydides in saying that it feels too often these days that \u201cthe strong can do what they can, and the weak must suffer what they must.\u201d<\/p>\n

The connection between that lament and Carney\u2019s relentless Canada Strong sloganeering\u2014\u201cCanada Strong For All\u201d is right on the economic update\u2019s cover\u2014isn\u2019t hard to make.<\/p>\n

Insisting to voters that things aren\u2019t that bad tends to go badly for politicians. Furthermore, the current state of affairs is fragile. U.S. President Donald Trump has mostly<\/a> honoured the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement but he might tear it up tomorrow. We woke up one day at the end of February and he\u2019d bombed<\/a> Iran and then gas went up 50 cents a litre.<\/p>\n

The task before Carney is to make Canadians feel strong, buying time for his agenda of getting big projects built and new trade deals done.<\/p>\n

Monday\u2019s Canada Strong Fund announcement<\/a> is in that vein. Carney called it a sovereign wealth fund, inviting comparisons to similar vehicles created by oil-rich governments that had more money rolling in than they knew what to do with. Despite the better deficit numbers, that\u2019s definitely not a problem the Canadian government has.<\/p>\n

But the prime minister\u2019s actual pitch for the fund was different. It\u2019s intended to \u201ccreate wealth for Canadians today and our kids tomorrow,\u201d he said, by buying stakes in (presumably) profitable major projects, for the federal government and individual Canadians who decide to put their own savings into it.<\/p>\n

Everyone, in other words, can be part of the ownership class, not just a helpless watcher of what big international money does.<\/p>\n

Tuesday\u2019s update offers yet more pocketbook help. The government proposes to cut Canada Pension Plan contribution rates a bit; a worker making $70,000 a year would get to keep $133 more of it, with an equal savings for his or her employer. Not a fortune, but nothing.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s expected to cost about $3 billion a year in foregone revenue for the Canada Pension Plan, but a recent assessment found that the plan will still be taking in slightly more than it needs in order to meet future obligations.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s money promised to improve Canada\u2019s dozens of small-craft harbours, which matter a lot in their coastal communities.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s funding for sports, to host more international competitions and support national organizations like Tennis Canada and Canada Soccer.<\/p>\n

\u201cCommunities love to come together to cheer on their friends and neighbours,\u201d the update says. \u201cOur athletes draw us together. They inspire and exhibit the qualities that set Canadians apart: Determination. Team spirit. Grit.\u201d And so on for several paragraphs.<\/p>\n

Does the Brier do measurable economic good in the same way as improving the container throughput at the Port of Vancouver? Not really. But a good curling competition, like seeing your kid play soccer on a nicely spiffed-up field, might be more use in attacking a national deficit in vibes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OTTAWA \u2014 The Liberals\u2019 new economic update shows a smaller fiscal deficit than expected, but reveals Prime Minister…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23554,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[98],"tags":[11721,235,11722,111,290,11718],"class_list":{"0":"post-23553","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mark-carney","8":"tag-budgets","9":"tag-economy","10":"tag-fiscal-policy","11":"tag-mark-carney","12":"tag-national","13":"tag-spring-economic-statement-2026"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23553","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23553"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23553\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}