The Trudeau government will soon table its 2022/23 budget. While the hundreds of billions in COVID-related spending contributed to the eye-popping $327.7 billion deficit in 2020/21 and projected $144.5 billion deficit in 2021/22, this government had a big spending problem well before the pandemic, which contributed significantly to the fiscal mess we’re in today.
During Prime Minister Trudeau’s first term in office, the federal government increased nominal program spending by 36.1% — from $248.7 billion in 2014/15 to $338.5 billion in 2019/20 (pre-pandemic)—far outpacing economic growth and inflation and population growth every year from 2015/16 to 2019/20.
To put this into historical context (and adjusted for inflation), Prime Minister Trudeau broke the record for the highest level of per-person federal spending in Canadian history at $9,224 in 2018/19 and again in 2019/20 ($9,671). Remember, this was before COVID. In other words, Canada entered the pandemic with spending levels already at record highs, which raises questions about what could have been.
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