Canadian politics: the budget, Nov 4, 2025

Self-tutoring about Canadian politics: the tutor mentions yesterday’s budget.

The following is according to my understanding.

Well, Canada’s much-anticipated federal budget, the first I know of from Prime Minister Carney, is interesting. Carney is showing he can spend, but also can cut.

On the spending side, the Armed Forces (81B) and infrastructure (51B) are notable. On the cutting side, forty thousand government jobs are meant to be eliminated, many by attrition, early retirement, etc. Moreover, immigration will be reduced, at least in some forms.

All this likely needed to happen. As Finance Minister Champagne observes, the federal public service has grown much faster than the population of the country since 2019. Furthermore, with the economy struggling and housing still a challenge for many, it seems unwise to bring in more people.

This budget might represent a deficit of around 2.5 percent of GDP, depending on whose figures you use. At 78B, some people seem to think it’s high, but others call it lower than expected. (It’s lower than I might have expected, for instance.) By way of comparison, it seems to me the US deficit, at around 1.78T, might be around 6 percent of GDP right now. Things could be worse:)

Perhaps it’s a good time to take a breath and be thankful to be Canadian. Sure, we might face tariffs, slow growth, etc. Nonetheless, it seems hopeful we have a government that’s equipped to navigate us through it, eh?

Source:

msn.com

cbc.ca

fiscaldata.treasury.gov

data.worldbank.org