Canadians will get a look at the federal finances when Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland tables her budget on April 16.
The government has been trying to rein in spending after years of big COVID-era budget deficits that more than doubled the national debt to roughly $1.2 trillion — a debt load that is costing Ottawa tens of billions of dollars a year to finance in an era of higher interest rates.
Freeland’s fall economic statement projected a budget deficit of $38.4 billion for the upcoming 2024-25 fiscal year. That number could move higher — or lower — depending on how the government has planned for the penultimate budget of its mandate.
The budget will give Canadians some insight on the government’s priorities in what could be one of the last spending documents before an expected 2025 election.
The NDP has agreed to prop up the Liberals until next year and a national vote could follow after the supply-and-confidence agreement comes to an end.
Freeland has been involved in months of formal pre-budget consultations with interested parties who are jockeying to get more federal cash.
While there has been a sustained push to cut spending — the main estimates tabled last week suggest the government wants to “refocus” or divert spending about $4.8 billion a year by 2026-27 and beyond — it’s likely the government will reveal some new funding for its priority files.
The government has tried to tackle the housing supply crunch with a series of initiatives, including the housing accelerator fund that sends extra money to cities that change their municipal planning laws to allow for more homes to be built.
The government also lifted the federal sales tax on new rental construction, a costly measure that some home builders say is already making a difference in the cost of construction.
Freeland could earmark more cash for programs that bolster the country’s housing stock at a time when the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) says the country needs 3.5 million more units by 2030 to restore housing affordability.
The government is facing the political heat from Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, who has made the country’s housing woes a key plank of his policy platform.
“The single biggest thing in a family’s budget is paying your mortgage or the rent. We just have to build more, faster. We are committed to that. We are doing it,” Freeland said at a news conference last week.
The Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM), the group that represents cities and towns, has also asked the government to renew some infrastructure programs that are due to expire — a cash injection they say they need to keep up with a booming population.
