Comment on the Canadian Federal Government Budget
Budget doesn't sufficiently acknowledge the fiscal deficit or inflation problem, I argue.
I was quoted on the Canadian federal government’s budget, which was delivered by Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland on April 7, 2022. Here is what I had to say to Reuters. The quoted text is copied below.
VIVEK DEHEJIA, PROFESSOR AT CARLETON UNIVERSITY’S DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS
"I get the sense that they (the government) really have a very uneasy balancing act, between the promises they made to the people of Canada to roll back the extraordinary support of the pandemic to get the fiscal house in order, and the commitments they've made to the NDP as part of their alliance."
"My biggest complaint is I did not really see a clear acknowledgement that the inflation problem is a made in Canada problem."
"The finance minister repeats the government's talking points that this is a global problem. But guess what? It's a problem that's also of our creation, with very high fiscal deficits, with a very loose monetary policy, high money creation by the Bank of Canada, and I didn't hear that acknowledgement."