Grit budget lacks clarity to scrutinize: watchdog
OT TAWA • The federal budget watchdog says the Liberals’ inaugural fiscal plan was less transparent than those of past governments, making it tougher for people to assess the state of the public books.
A report released Wednesday by the parliamentary budget office said last month’s federal budget failed to separate purely discretionary decisions by the Liberals — like new policy measures and changes in planning assumptions — from shifts in economic con- ditions, as past governments did.
“The government has made changes to the presentation of its fiscal plan that have made it more difficult for parliamentarians to scrutinize public finances,” said the analysis by budget officer Jean-Denis Frechette.
The report came weeks after the Liberals tabled a budget projecting five years of deficits totalling more than $110 billion. The analysis said the government could have provided more clarity for the public in several areas.
Among Frechette’s concerns was a Liberal decision to introduce a risk adjustment that lowered annual forecasts for nominal gross domestic product by $40 billion — a move that translated into knocking $6 billion a year off the projected budgetary balance.
He called the size of the adjustment “excessive” and said it eroded the independence of government’s traditional practice of basing its projections on an average of private-sector economic forecasts.