A government report showing Ottawa faces decades of deficits was kept under wraps for two and half months before it was quietly released online two days before Christmas. Daniel Lauzon, a spokesman for Finance Minister Morneau, said Tuesday that he took “exception” to The Globe’s questions about why the long-term forecast was removed from the update. He said that due to the volatility of economic forecasts, the decision was made to release the long-term estimates at the end of the year so as not to “create confusion” by releasing them as part of the update. Releasing the long-term forecast on the same day would have meant taking a communications risk that the government’s infrastructure announcements would be overshadowed by media attention on the new deficit forecasts, which showed Ottawa is on track to run deficits until the 2050s.
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