Roundup: The fiscal stance is tight

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The Parliamentary Budget Officer was doing his actual job of providing alternative fiscal forecasts for Parliamentarians, and his projection of the economic situation is that growth will slow over the second half of this year, which isn’t a bad thing because it will help to tackle inflation, particularly as the Bank of Canada continues to raise rates. The deficit continues to shrink, as does the federal debt-to-GDP ratio, which shows our fiscal stance is not too loose.

Here’s economist Kevin Milligan putting things into more context, but the bottom line is that the Conservatives’ assertion that government spending is fuelling inflation is not true, and they need to come up with some more credible talking points. (Yeah, yeah, good luck with that one, I know).

https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/1580598737906597894

https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/1580602979140632576

https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/1580605473476476929

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 232:

It was another day of Russian strikes against civilian targets, including by Iranian-built kamikaze drones, while Volodymyr Zelenskyy continues to request more air defence systems to protect the country. Ukrainian forces boasted that they took down four Russian helicopters in the space of eighteen minutes.

Good reads:

  • Public hearings for the Emergencies Act public inquiry began yesterday, with the commissioner warning that this is not an adversarial trial. (Timeline here).
  • Mélanie Joly is touting forthcoming LNG exports to Japan and South Korea by 2025.
  • Steven Guilbeault has mused that some communities may need to relocate because of climate-related disasters (which will be very costly for governments).
  • Harjit Sajjan is likening Russian strikes on civilian targets in Ukraine to the Holodomor, where Stalin starved Ukrainians.
  • The federal government has announced more sanctions on Iranians.
  • Having rejected the idea of bilingual bonuses for federal employees who speak Indigenous languages on the job, Treasury Board has no idea how many there are.
  • The CRA is taking as long as a year to complete audits of small businesses because of continued effects of the pandemic on their operations.
  • Canada’s ambassador in Washington says that the Americans are holding the Nexus programme “hostage” because their employees want “special protections.”
  • Several Alberta First Nations are filing complaints at the Human Rights Commission because the federal government doesn’t provide adequate adult disability supports.
  • Ontario police chiefs say they’re not ready to investigate military sexual assaults and want a “framework” (but one suspects it’s because they just don’t want to do it).
  • An Australian rare earth mining company is pulling out of Quebec because of First Nations opposition, which is a reminder of the need for these relationships.
  • That Canadian delegation of parliamentarians has arrived in Taiwan as they have bene planning for a couple of months now.
  • It looks like Tim Houston has managed to bully the Speaker of the Nova Scotia legislature into an agreement to resign by next April.
  • New Brunswick’s education minister resigned from Cabinet and released a blistering letter about the premier’s behaviour that prompted his move.
  • Economist Trevor Tombe has panned the Saskatchewan White Paper’s numbers, saying they are not credible because of several false assumptions therein.
  • Susan Delacourt sets the mood for the Emergencies Act public inquiry.

Odds and ends:

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