Back in 2015 Justin Trudeau and the Liberal Party ran on a long list of promises. Perhaps the most audacious one allowed that a Liberal government would not commit to the urgency of balancing the federal budget. That was at odds with the Conservatives and the NDP. It gave the Liberals breathing room to make promises, lots of promises. Canadians liked all the Liberal spending plans enough to give the Liberals a solid majority.
How much of an issue any party makes of the debt issue in this campaign remains to be seen. Today the Liberals can boast of overseeing the fastest growing economy in the G7. With revenues climbing, there seems to be no urgency to take on the growing Canadian debt. Last week the Fraser Institute warned, “This Trudeau government expresses no concern about the deficit, growing debt or historically high levels of spending.”
But will any of the other parties show their concern? Usually campaigns are quick to make promises and don’t let questions about paying for them get in the way of seducing voters. Over the next two weeks the parties will be doing just enough to try to get a headline or two and not tip their hands about the promises to come when the campaign formally starts.
One election campaign game in Canada is the bickering about the costing of party policies in the platforms. In the first weeks of the campaign each party, every day, sets up careful photo-friendly policy announcements. One of the first questions from reporters is “how much will it cost?” Often there is a release with numbers, lots of numbers. Then the party defends those numbers and the other parties launch attacks on the viability of the policy. In the past some parties have used economists to go over the program costs to support the integrity of the proposals and the costs.
That is likely to change for this campaign. For the first time an Act of Parliament has made the talents of the Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) available to all the parties and any independent candidates running for election. The party can volunteer to submit its estimates on a program to the PBO for review. That review allows for the PBO to request additional information from the party. At that point the idea is that the party will release its program and the estimate on that program will be posted by the PBO for all to see. There is no obligation to submit any program for a review.
The PBO will not provide an accounting of full party platforms. Those picture-filled glossy documents will stand on their own with the usual financial assumptions made by each party. But the PBO program estimates will be an added factor. Each estimate will be watched carefully and will probably be the subject of disputes during the campaign.
I reached out to the parties to see if they are using the PBO. The Conservative Party tells me it is "working with the PBO to cost platform commitments." The NDP and Green Party also confirmed their submissions to the PBO. The Liberal Party says, "We are working with the PBO on the costing of electoral proposals in the context of their enhanced mandate, a commitment we made in 2015 and that the Liberal government has now delivered."
