Today's letters: Federal budgets are more work than Carney's critics understand
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I have been deeply involved in budget-making, in the Paul Martin years, both in fiscal policy in the Department of Finance and then in PCO. Work on late-February budgets started in November, if not earlier. Priorities needed to be set by whatever process (in our case, a Cabinet process). Then, ideas and initiatives were surveyed against them. These are most often collaborative across departments. Tax initiatives needed planning and analysis.
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There were, in my experience, rough budget drafts before Christmas, and then drafts turned around every couple of days or (even overnight in the end), for the last two months.
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You need enough economic and fiscal data for the current year as a base for forecasts, and that comes out with a lag. Why do you think annual fiscal and economic updates are late in the autumn? And initiatives — especially big ones — need enough planning to have confidence in them policy policy-wise and cost-wise.
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So it hasn't dropped in virtually a week after a single Cabinet meeting? Or even next month? Shame! Shame!
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And I hope there are enough crystal balls for everyone, ones you don't want to share with Trump while you're negotiating with him.
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You want a budget that's worth the paper it's written on.
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L.J. Ridgeway, Ottawa
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Re: No federal budget? That's outrageous, May 23.
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There is no more compelling argument for improved civics education in Canada than the letter to the editor entitled: 'No federal budget? That's outrageous.' If we do, in fact, get the government we deserve, we should be very worried.
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Canadians do need to know where their money is spent. This is why the government has limited spending authority until Parliament comes back. The government is obliged to table its annual planned spending, which must be approved by Parliament. At the end of the year (and a bit), the actual spending is reported in the Public Accounts (which inevitably gets lots of media attention, though not always for the best reasons). In addition, the government does not disappear during an election: passports are issued, soldiers are deployed, medicines are approved, tariffs are raised and so on.
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