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Adjournment Proceedings

In adjournment proceedings, a Conservative member asked whether the government will balance the budget by 2028-29, citing the Parliamentary Budget Officer’s projection that the date will slip and questioning the practice of separating operating and capital spending. A Liberal member defended the budgeting framework as sound fiscal planning, pointed to economic growth and wage gains, and said the government plans to balance day-to-day spending while cutting spending over five years. The Conservative member pressed again on who was right, the PBO or the Prime Minister; the Liberal member said the PBO does not have the government’s latest numbers and pointed to the upcoming fall budget.Written by AI from the debate. Updated .

Official text

2 statements

Grant Jackson

Conservative
“The government is splitting its budget into different types of spending to hide how much debt it has. The Parliamentary Budget Officer says the budget will not be balanced until a year later than promised, but the Prime Minister claims they are ahead of schedule. Will the government still balance the budget by 2028-29, or is the Prime Minister wrong?”
Official Hansard

Madam Speaker, when the Liberals first announced their costly credit card budget last fall, Conservatives asked where their platform commitment to spend less and invest more went. Then, when the Prime Minister announced that he planned to split operating and capital spending in the Liberal budget, the alarm bells started to go off. Canadians do not get to split their credit card spending into different categories and pretend they owe less money. The Prime Minister should not get to do that either. Since then, the Parliamentary Budget Officer has found contradictions in how the Liberals classify spending, making it harder to determine whether they are actually meeting their own fiscal targets. The Prime Minister claims that they are ahead of their targets, but the PBO projects that the Liberals will not balance their operating budget until 2029 or 2030, a year later than originally promised. The question is simple. Does the government still stand by its promise to balance the operating budget by 2028-29? If not, who is misinformed, the Prime Minister or the Parliamentary Budget Officer?

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Grant Jackson

Conservative
“The member did not answer my question. The Prime Minister and the budget watchdog say different things about the country's spending. I want to know who the member agrees with.”
Official Hansard

Madam Speaker, the member took a very long time to get to that answer. I do not need to address the litany of false things that he put on the record. He did not address the question about whether the Parliamentary Budget Officer or the Prime Minister is misinformed. They are saying two different things about the fiscal outlook for the government’s budget and spending habits. Which is it? Does the member disagree with the Prime Minister, or does he think the Parliamentary Budget Officer is wrong in the statements that he is putting out there about the financial path that the government is on?

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