Classifieds

OTTAWA—The government's Fall Economic Statement (FES) on Nov. 3 announced $30 billion in more spending, yet despite warning of an impending recession, its main projection shows an improving fiscal picture and a potential return to black ink.
The FES is the government's fall mini-budget. Under the government's base-case official projection, which assumes the economy narrowly avoids a recession, the deficit for the current fiscal year ending in March 2023 is $36.4 billion. The feds project deficits to continue shrinking until attaining a fiscal surplus of $4.5 billion in 2027-28. 
But given growing expectations of a recession as central banks raise interest rates aggressively, the feds provided a downside scenario which forecasts an economic contraction of 0.9 percent in 2023. Under this scenario, the deficit would be $49.1 billion in 2022-23 and it remains in the red, decreasing to $8.3 billion in 2027-28....