Tag: #bdgt13

PBO: On austerity, size of the civil service, and computers

With just a few weeks to go until the end of Ottawa’s current fiscal year (March 31), the Parliamentary Budget Officer’s latest review of the government’s latest spending plan [pdf] concludes the federal government will spend about $259.9 billion this year or just 0.3% more than it spent in fiscal 2013.

And yet, the PBO believes that spending should have been higher as the government made, but did not follow through on, several spending commitments: Continue reading PBO: On austerity, size of the civil service, and computers

The Ministerial handout: The scorecard on who in Harper's cabinet handed out how much

Denis Lebel hands out the cash
Minister Denis Lebel (left) is one of the pros in Stephen Harper’s cabinet when it comes to handing out federal cash. Here, the mayor of Saint-Edmond-les-Plaines, QC, Rodrigue Cantin gives Lebel a hug earlier this year after taxpayers across Canada chipped in $272,000 to help fix up the community centre in Cantin’s community. See bottom of this post for more info. (PHOTO COURTOISIE/LE POINT)

One of the most important jobs for any minister is handing out tax dollars. The federal government collects more than $245 billion dollars a year in taxes and fees paid by individuals and businesses and, more often than not, spends more than it collects. Some of that spending is unavoidable — think Old Age Security benefits or transfer payments to the province for health care and social services — but a good chunk every year is quite discretionary. And when there’s a political spending choice to be made, you can bet a government minister wants his or her name associated with this decision.

As I’ve written here before, I try to track as many press releases as I can detailing spending announcements through my “OttawaSpends” project and, so far, up until Monday’s cabinet shuffle, Continue reading The Ministerial handout: The scorecard on who in Harper's cabinet handed out how much

Ottawa's spending plan: Winners, losers, watchdogs – the highlights

 

For the fiscal year that begins on April 1, 2013, the federal government plans to spend $252.54 billion. The most recent estimate for what it will spend in the current fiscal year, which ends March 30, 2013, is $259 billion. Now, the federal budget for 2013-2014 has yet to be tabled — it likely won’t be published until late March — and there is highly likely that the budget will override the current spending plan of $252 billion. It could be less but it could be more.

In any event, if the government follows through and sticks to spending $252.5 billion next year, it will have reduced spending next year by $6.5 billion or about 2.5 per cent.

Here’s some other numbers found in the spending plan published yeterday (see the note at the bottom of this post about the source of these numbers): Continue reading Ottawa's spending plan: Winners, losers, watchdogs – the highlights