OTTAWA — Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland was grilled Thursday over the mounting cost of providing relief programs to help Canadians and businesses weather the COVID-19 pandemic.
During a four-hour question-and-answer session in the House of Commons, Freeland refused to provide any new numbers about the size of this year’s deficit, the overall federal debt or the potential ballooning cost of servicing that debt should record-low interest rates begin to rise.
She told MPs that those projections would come in a fiscal update later this fall, not before. She declined to set a date for that update.
“I don’t think the minister has given a single number with regards to any of these questions,” Conservative finance critic Pierre Poilievre complained at one point during a series of sharp exchanges with Freeland.
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