Takeaways from the Liberals’ first economic update as a majority
4/29/202623 min
The Liberals’ spring economic update lays out $54-billion in new spending over six years, including $6-billion towards boosting employment in the trades and more money for sports. The update also shows an estimated deficit of $66.9-billion for the 2025-26 fiscal year, an $11.5-billion improvement over what the government had projected in the Nov. 4 budget.
Campbell Clark, The Globe’s chief political writer, joins the show to break down what the Carney government’s first piece of fiscal policy as a majority government tells us about how they’re wielding their newfound power.
Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email us at thedecibel@globeandmail.com
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Transcript preview
First 90 secondsCheryl Sutherland· Host0:00
[chime] We now have a sense of how Prime Minister Mark Carney plans to keep Canada's economy going. [upbeat music] The government tabled their spring economic update yesterday. This is the first fiscal outlook we've gotten since Mark Carney secured his majority government. So how is he wielding that newfound power? Campbell Clark is The Globe's Chief Political Writer. He's here to break down the big beats of the spring economic update, from affordability measures to the creation of a new sovereign wealth fund, to the billions they plan to spend on skilled trades. I'm Cheryl Sutherland, and this is The Decibel from The Globe and Mail. Hi, Campbell, great to have you back on the show.
Campbell Clark· Guest0:46
Thanks for having me.
Cheryl Sutherland· Host0:48
So Campbell, before we get into the highlights of this update, on a scale of bold to blah, [chuckles] how would you rate this economic update? Did this give us the generational transformation that Carney talks about?
Campbell Clark· Guest1:00
No. It was more blah.
Cheryl Sutherland· Host1:02
Ah.
Campbell Clark· Guest1:03
It was a lot more blah than bold. It's kinda the right question in some ways because, you know, they now have a majority government, and so Mark Carney and his finance minister, François-Philippe Champagne, last fall when they presented their first budget, they were talking in those terms, transformational, generational. They were gonna change the structure of the economy to deal with all these troubles ahead. This statement, uh, you know, there's still some troubles ahead. Now they've got a majority