For this particular line item it isn’t Carney math vs PP math but it doesn’t appear that the revenue generating initiatives go through the PBO. Maybe I just can’t find them
But things like increased revenue from new homes built of 4.2 billion doesn’t seem to have a PBO estimate. Revenue gains from capital gains measures that more than offset the cost of the capital gains measure seem convenient and not backed a PBO calc. Nothing explaining the 5 billion in new revenue from repealing the EV mandate.
So while the expense side seems well costed the rest seems like smoke and mirrors.
There are also short term tax cuts that may be made permanent like the capital gains reinvestment that are not included in years 3 and 4.
The big suspect number in the liberal plan is the 13 billion in government efficiencies.
There is roughly 25 billion in mystery revenue and about 14 billion in spending cuts not tied to program cuts in the PCP plan.
So definitely some suspect math on the revenue side of the PCP plan relative to the liberal plan.
For this particular line item it isn’t Carney math vs PP math but it doesn’t appear that the revenue generating initiatives go through the PBO. Maybe I just can’t find them
They dont.
Quote:
In addition to costing provided by the Parliamentary Budget Office, this platform was developed with input from two of Canada’s most respected economic experts as verifiers and validators: Philip Cross, former Chief Economic Analyst at Statistics Canada, and Dr. Tim Sargent, former Associate Deputy Minister at Finance Canada.
They reviewed and assessed the calculations and assumptions underlying individual measures and the overall fiscal framework, including revenue projections tied to economic growth from eliminating the electric vehicle mandate, the emissions cap, the clean fuel standard, and implementing the proposed capital gains deferral holiday. Cross and Sargent each independently reviewed these estimates and confirm they are reasonable and consistent with research conducted in these areas.
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The Conservatives' projections also seem to be based on some very unlikely GDP growth assumptions. I haven't gone through and done the math myself, but apparently based on the federal revenue increases they're projecting, they're assuming something in the neighbourhood of 2.8% a year Real GDP growth over the next 4 years.
That's roughly double the growth that most forecasts project and what the Liberals appear to be using for their numbers (based on their deficit-to-GDP forecasts). Carney even said himself, if the Liberal platform used the Conservatives' GDP growth assumptions, they'd have projected a budget surplus within a few years.
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The Conservatives' projections also seem to be based on some very unlikely GDP growth assumptions. I haven't gone through and done the math myself, but apparently based on the federal revenue increases they're projecting, they're assuming something in the neighbourhood of 2.8% a year Real GDP growth over the next 4 years.
That's roughly double the growth that most forecasts project and what the Liberals appear to be using for their numbers (based on their deficit-to-GDP forecasts). Carney even said himself, if the Liberal platform used the Conservatives' GDP growth assumptions, they'd have projected a budget surplus within a few years.
So what PP and the Conservatives are saying is...budgets balance themselves?
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The big suspect number in the liberal plan is the 13 billion in government efficiencies.
Government efficiencies lol. I needed a good laugh. I can't believe any party would honestly campaign on achieving government efficiencies and expect anyone to believe it. That goes for any party.
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My comment wasn't partisan. A big reason why we're reaching the end of democracy / capitalism is because we're at the stage where the electorate basically just chooses which brand of fiscal ruin for the country best suits their own individual interests: lower taxes or more goodies or some combination of both - all options end up stacking debt.
I wasn't really reading your comment as partisan or attacking you. but I did take the opportunity to take a partisan swing at the conservatives, because I did think you teed it up nicely, PPs party deserves it.
I think it's fairly presumptuous to say that we are at the end of democracy / capitalism. But it is definitely a tumultuous time for both, but I also think we have seen times like these before, and we have come out of them stronger.
I have a fairly well established thesis on the cause of this topic specifically in my head, and basically it goes back to the post WWII order containing such a high tax regime from the need to finance full scale modern warfare, and such a large peace dividend from the finale of those wars making future direct conflict seem unthinkable that governments began to invest in a standard of living that built out wealth, innovation and middle class populations on a level unimaginable to any generation in history. But then with some combination of stagnation and globalization governments lost to political legitimacy to levee taxes, this is partially because without productivity gains people demanded wealth increase by reducing taxes without out the foresight to see by diminishing social infrastructure overtime they would make all of us poorer. But more so it is because in a globalized world governments are competing against each other for tax revenue and it has become a race to the bottom, particularly in terms of corporate welfare.
I prescribe solutions in a couple of areas, the first might sound like I am parroting Trump, but it is an idea I have been kicking around for sometime, and it is that there should be a global trading block that tariffs or locks out countries who do not hit a certain minimum standard to corporate taxation. The key way that this really differs from Trump is the formation of a global collaborative effort on this. Seemingly the TPP was a crude attempt at instating some level of global governance over things like intellectual property, which very well could have lead to something like that, but it was tanked by people who couldn't even be bothered to understand what was contained in the agreement.
Additionally governments need to be given the space to fail, trotting out loses of millions of dollars on programs that had the potential to create billions in wealth is poisoning the well for future innovation. We should be encouraging them to overspend on projects like ccs, health research, and passenger rail in the service of proving the market for society. I also think that demands on government accountability tie there hands in a way that costs us way more than we are potentially saving, there is a limit to how much consultation and redesign a project should accept before you just move into eminent domain territory, and there is a certain latitude that people in government procurement should take with vendor relationship management, both of which are too quickly attacked without any view on what the return on investment of those attacks are. Again this sounds like I am advocating for less government accountability. But this is where the frustration lays, if a guy is going to save the government millions in exchange for a few free steak dinners is it corruption? Probably yes. Is it something bad for Canadians as a whole? No. Is it corrupt that people with proximity to power are able to leverage their high status into cushy speaking engagements? yes. But is there a tangible harm to Canadian society on that scale of no longer having good people who will demand high paying cushy assignments? No not really.
And Finally I think that it is OK for the government to own things. A lot of the narrative from the right since the 80s has been directed towards the governments inability to run things. But the truth is if you take away a lot of the excessive layers of accountability governments are the most qualified organizations in the world to do big difficult things, because they have the risk tolerance and resources to do basically anything, at any scale. I think if you are looking at necessary services that do not fall into typical capitalist paradigms of exponential growth, it is a fruitful area to expect a publicly owned entity to manage it. I think of utilities as an examples, in a world where population growth is declining, it is basically impossible for the utility industry to out preform the market unless we A) consume more or B) charge more relative to inflation, so any capitalist enterprise will either A) encourage excessive consumption or B) push prices up to an unsustainable level over time. This is a good candidate for public ownership where they can be OK with sustaining without grown (relative to inflation). The other one I think of is the tobacco industry, if the government wants the industry to go away, they should just buy it, and stop putting any resources into growth or customer acquisition.
Maybe I am wrong out these, but however you look at it these ideas are basically anathema to the modern conservative economic project, I think they are fairly conservative ideas, in the sense that they are focus on preserving the institutions we built up in the 20th century, and long term fiscal management, but they just don't square with modern conservatism (or libertarianism as I call it)
My biggest problem with the Liberals these days, is that they seem to intuitively understand these things, but they aren't will to stand up and say it's OK for the government to do more. They want it, but they try to pretend they don't. And the NDP misses the fact that this needs to be a slow moving well planned project that requires collaboration with other governments and NGOs and industry, that you might have to squish a few flowers to plant a new garden.
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My comment wasn't partisan. A big reason why we're reaching the end of democracy / capitalism is because we're at the stage where the electorate basically just chooses which brand of fiscal ruin for the country best suits their own individual interests: lower taxes or more goodies or some combination of both - all options end up stacking debt.
The electorate has become so infantilized that we can’t even acknowledge that there are tradeoffs in public policy, let alone support politicians in making tough choices.
Demographic decline is real. Health care and pensions are already cannibalizing everything else in public budgets, and it will only get worse. Health care capacity is in a permanent code red status. And no government will take measures to address the unfolding crisis because it would involve pain for some part of the electorate who will howl.
A responsible Liberal government brings in the GST to assure reliable public revenue. A populist Conservative government rolls it back. A responsible Conservative government plans to increase the eligibility age for public pensions to account for the ever-longer lifespans? A populist Liberal government scraps it.
We will accept no pain. We’ve bought into the notion that we can solve any problem with someone else’s money. Or that problems are all the fault of bad government - especially the party we hate. Can’t possibly be that our entitlements exceed our willingness to pay.
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Last edited by CliffFletcher; 04-22-2025 at 04:20 PM.
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Fiscal responsibility isn't on the menu this election in any capacity red or blue. It's reflective of the times we're in and ultimately the electorate's complete lack of accountability to understand they ultimately one way or another need to pay for the services they demand and/or demand less services. Alberta saw a decade ago what happens at the polls when a competent leader in the fiscal space promises to actually be fiscally responsible and actually try to sustainably underpin government spending - they get turfed from power.
Did you miss the point of the mirror comment that much? It was a disaster to say because he was blaming the population for the decisions of the government he was leading. The Conservatives needed to look in the fricken' mirror. Nobody likes to be told they are to blame when they aren't in power. That was an arrogant thing to say without the qualification that the government had failed Albertans.
Now, you are right that Albertans did need to look in the mirror, and make the choice to stop electing the same group of wieners with the same failed strategies over and over, but the vast majority of Albertans still haven't learned that particular lesson.
It had nothing to do with Albertans rejecting the concept of doing things differently, they just didn't want to be told they were to blame.
Oh man, this ad (that doesn't feature PP at all, must have realized how unpopular he is) is so cringe. Poor Sarah's doing soo poorly, her white boomer dad had to buy her a house! Better vote for PP!
The electorate has become so infantilized that we can’t even acknowledge that there are tradeoffs in public policy, let alone support politicians in making tough choices.
Demographic decline is real. Health care and pensions are already cannibalizing everything else in public budgets, and it will only get worse. Health care capacity is in a permanent code red status. And no government will take measures to address the unfolding crisis because it would involve pain for some part of the electorate who will howl.
A responsible Liberal government brings in the GST to assure reliable public revenue. A populist Conservative government rolls it back. A responsible Conservative government plans to increase the eligibility age for public pensions to account for the ever-longer lifespans? A populist Liberal government scraps it.
We will accept no pain. We’ve bought into the notion that we can solve any problem with someone else’s money. Or that problems are all the fault of bad government - especially the party we hate. Can’t possibly be that our entitlements exceed our willingness to pay.
Not to be *that guy* as I agree with the point of your post... but... the GST was introduced by Brian Mulroney's Progressice Conservative government, not the Liberals.
I believe Chrétien campaigned on Axe the Tax but once elected did not. I could be mistaken on eliminating or just reducing though.
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The electorate has become so infantilized that we can’t even acknowledge that there are tradeoffs in public policy, let alone support politicians in making tough choices.
Demographic decline is real. Health care and pensions are already cannibalizing everything else in public budgets, and it will only get worse. Health care capacity is in a permanent code red status. And no government will take measures to address the unfolding crisis because it would involve pain for some part of the electorate who will howl.
A responsible Liberal government brings in the GST to assure reliable public revenue. A populist Conservative government rolls it back. A responsible Conservative government plans to increase the eligibility age for public pensions to account for the ever-longer lifespans? A populist Liberal government scraps it.
We will accept no pain. We’ve bought into the notion that we can solve any problem with someone else’s money. Or that problems are all the fault of bad government - especially the party we hate. Can’t possibly be that our entitlements exceed our willingness to pay.
This is so true.
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The electorate has become so infantilized that we can’t even acknowledge that there are tradeoffs in public policy, let alone support politicians in making tough choices.
Demographic decline is real. Health care and pensions are already cannibalizing everything else in public budgets, and it will only get worse. Health care capacity is in a permanent code red status. And no government will take measures to address the unfolding crisis because it would involve pain for some part of the electorate who will howl.
A responsible Liberal government brings in the GST to assure reliable public revenue. A populist Conservative government rolls it back. A responsible Conservative government plans to increase the eligibility age for public pensions to account for the ever-longer lifespans? A populist Liberal government scraps it.
We will accept no pain. We’ve bought into the notion that we can solve any problem with someone else’s money. Or that problems are all the fault of bad government - especially the party we hate. Can’t possibly be that our entitlements exceed our willingness to pay.
Good post, Cliff. Agree on most.
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Not to be *that guy* as I agree with the point of your post... but... the GST was introduced by Brian Mulroney's Progressice Conservative government, not the Liberals.
I believe Chrétien campaigned on Axe the Tax but once elected did not. I could be mistaken on eliminating or just reducing though.
Yeah he campaigned on killing it, and when he got in he said the books were worse than expected and they were keeping it. (That’s my recollection, anyway)
