Government Accounting

During Statements by Members, the topic of government accounting was raised. A Conservative member said the government had relabelled about $94 billion of regular spending as investments, using accounting definitions that she described as invented, inconsistent, and not used elsewhere, and called on the government to scrap this approach. No other parties’ statements on this topic were included in the sampled debate.Written by AI from the debate. Updated .

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1 statement

Sandra Cobena, Newmarket—Aurora

Conservative
“The government is using made-up accounting rules to make Canada's finances look better. They relabelled $94 billion of regular spending as investments, and experts say these rules are inconsistent and not used anywhere else. I want the government to scrap this accounting scheme.”
Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, if a CEO took control of a company and invented new financial definitions to make the books look better, shareholders would have questions, but if he could not even apply those definitions consistently, they would ask if he even understood his own definitions. This is exactly what is happening with Canada’s finances. The Prime Minister invented new definitions used nowhere else in the world. The PBO said that he relabelled $94 billion of operating expenses as investments. The IMF has called for greater alignment with international standards and independent verification. The new PBO says that classifications cannot be independently replicated and are being used inconsistently. In the financial world, this is completely unacceptable. I call on the Liberal government to scrap this fake accounting scheme.

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