TORONTO (Reuters) -The Canadian government on Tuesday said its budget deficit for the 2025/26 fiscal year would almost double to C$78.3 billion from the C$42.2 billion it forecast last December. It blamed the deterioration on the damage done by U.S. tariffs and measures taken to counter them, while slashing growth forecasts for 2025 and 2026.
COMMENTS
RICHARD FORBES, PRINCIPAL ECONOMIST, CONFERENCE BOARD OF CANADA
"Broadly there weren't any big surprises ... There was a big emphasis on investment that
we've seen and then to balance some of that the government is aiming to increase efficiencies in the public sector. "
"At the Conference Board we've been saying that investment and investment competitiveness has been a big problem in the Canadian economy for a long time so the measures announced today ... we're optimistic it will help longer term, and ultimately it has to because the government is not projecting any return to balance or even a much shallower deficit than it currently has planned, rather they are just going to be hoping that the investments pay off and boost the economy longer term to help them return to balance."
VIVEK ASTVANSH, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF QUANTITATIVE MARKETING AND ANALYTICS, MCGILL UNIVERSITY
"I am pleased and a bit relieved that the government is not trying to borrow more than what it can earn as revenue.
I am pleasantly surprised (the deficit) is not too high because I was expecting they will move it into 100 billions of dollars."
JOY NOTT, PARTNER, TRADE AND CUSTOMS, KPMG
"The main focus of trade in this particular budget, unlike previous budgets, is the focus on diversifying markets.
This particular budget is making concrete moves to put trade missions in place with Global Affairs Canada, to bring Canadians to Europe (and) to use that huge trade agreement with Europe, which, in my view, is greatly underutilized."
(Reporting by Fergal Smith and Nivedita Balu; Editing by Caroline Stauffer)
