EDITORIAL: Questions surround Carney’s first budget

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In response to widespread political backlash, Prime Minister Mark Carney has now moved up the date of his government’s first federal budget to this fall instead of next year.

That comes just days after Finance Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne said that instead of a full budget, the government would produce an economic statement, basically a mini-budget, in the fall.

That would have meant delaying the full budget until 2026 for the fiscal year which began on April 1, 2025 — in other words, for at least nine months.

While Carney’s pledge of a fall budget is an improvement, it still begs the question of why the Liberal government isn’t delivering a budget this spring, after Parliament reconvenes post-election and King Charles reads the speech from the throne on May 27.

The prime minister says it would be unwise to rush through a budget prior to the implications of new defence spending, the full economic impact of U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs and consideration of measures to improve government productivity.

However, barely a month ago, on April 19, Carney released what he described as the Liberals’ costed campaign platform, containing $130 billion in new spending over four years with deficits totalling $224.8 billion.

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It also projected increased government revenues of $51.75 billion during that time, coming from a combination of tariffs, increases to government fines and penalties and “savings from increased government productivity,” which almost every government promises and few deliver.

Finally, it detailed the predicted costs of fulfilling Liberal election promises, so why Carney couldn’t produce a budget this spring remains a mystery — unless the figures contained in the campaign platform aren’t to be taken seriously.

Parliamentary budget officer Yves Giroux was highly critical of the last economic statement (again, not a full budget), by the previous Liberal government of Justin Trudeau, in December 2024.

Among his concerns were its lack of transparency, shoddy bookkeeping, delayed reporting of the government’s public accounts and a failure to address rapidly growing contingent liabilities, especially with regard to Indigenous legal claims.

None of those concerns have disappeared and with Canada facing a possible recession this year and an ongoing affordability crisis, it’s important for the government to come clean with Canadians on the true state of the country’s finances.