OTTAWA—Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is challenging the government to disclose details about federal finances that are late to arrive this year, suggesting the Liberal administration is hiding bad news about the deficit.
Poilievre stopped in front of a cluster of reporters Wednesday morning to say his party will carve out a two-hour window of time in the House of Commons on Monday so that Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland can deliver a fiscal update — a suggestion that several Liberal cabinet ministers quickly dismissed.
“Why won’t the finance minister tell us the true number? What’s she hiding? Is she hiding that Trudeau lost control of the deficit this year, just like every year?” Poilievre said, before refusing to take questions.
“Stand on your feet Monday at 4 p.m. We’ll clear the deck so you can do it, and tell us how badly you’ve lost control of the nation’s finances and the inflation and taxes Canadians pay as a result.”
The Liberal government is unusually late this year in publishing annual reports that included audited results from the previous fiscal year, sparking concerns from the current and former parliamentary budget watchdogs about a lack of spending transparency.
Asked about the concerns on Tuesday, Freeland dodged questions about why they are delayed, saying only that the Liberal government would release the reports and present a mid-year fiscal update “this year.”
Freeland has insisted the federal government’s fiscal standing is strong, with lower debt compared to peer countries in the Group of Seven.
On Wednesday morning, Liberal House Leader Karina Gould dismissed Poilievre’s demand as a political game. Treasury Board President Anita Anand said Freeland is working “extremely hard” on providing a fall economic statement, and that Poilievre’s demand will not dictate when she presents it.
“I’ll leave it to her to decide when to do that in the House of Commons,” Anand said. “She’ll do it when she’s ready.”
Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne said he would take Poilievre’s demand with a “grain of salt” and noted the Conservatives have gummed up the House for more than two months through a filibuster. The Tories say they are pressuring the Liberal government to hand over unredacted documents relating to alleged corruption at an arms-length green technology agency.
“Unlock the Parliament. There are serious things to be done,” Champagne said.
Last year, after a huge spike in federal spending during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Liberal government set itself a series of fiscal targets to keep government debt in check. Those targets included a pledge to cap Ottawa’s budget deficit at $40 billion and ensure federal debt declines in proportion to the size of the national economy.
But it’s not clear whether the government has managed to hit that target. Reports that are published each year, typically before the end of October, show the audited results of the 2023-24 fiscal year, which ended in October, including the final size of the deficit. Neither of those reports has been published.
The government also usually presents a fall economic statement before the end of November, but so far the Liberal government has not done so.
In October, Parliamentary Budget Officer Yves Giroux published a report that estimated the government blew past its promise to limit the deficit with a $46.8-billion shortfall last fiscal year.
At a parliamentary committee on Tuesday, Giroux said it’s “very uncomfortable” for parliamentarians to be asked to vote on new government spending when they still have no access to the precise financial standing of the government.
In recent days, the Liberals have proposed almost $6 billion in new spending to pay for a two-month GST holiday on a host of consumer goods — from Christmas trees and video games to beer and food — and to hand out $250 in one-time payouts to millions of Canadians who earned less than $150,000 in income last year.
With files from Tonda MacCharles and Ryan Tumilty
