Will Trudeau keep his promise to balance the budget?
The federal government can start now to make good on its promise to balance the budget by 2019-20. All it will take is relatively modest spending reductions in the budget to be delivered on Tuesday – and the will to make them happen.
During the 2015 federal election campaign, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised that his government would run modest budget deficits – no more than $10 billion annually – and balance the federal budget by the end of his mandate in 2019-20. He reaffirmed the balanced budget commitment shortly after taking office.
This promise has since been broken.
The government has run deficits nearly double the promised amount. And despite a growing economy, it has no apparent plan to balance the budget. In fact, according to projections by the Department of Finance, federal deficits could continue for the next 27 years.