Parliament's independent budget watchdog says the economy is in much worse shape [pdf] than Finance Minister Jim Flaherty predicted just weeks ago when he tabled the 2009 federal budget.
Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page told the House of Commons finance committee that the current recession will be “sharper” [pdf] than the one Flaherty spoke of when he tabled the budget on Jan. 27 and that means deficits that will be deeper and thousands more Canadians are likely to lose their jobs.
He also said Canada's economy has slowed more rapidly than during the recessions of the 1980s and 1990s.
“We think what we're seeing now is absolutely historic in terms of quarter-to-quarter declines,” Page told the finance committee Wednesday . . . [Read the rest of the story]
Technorati Tags: budget 2009, economy