On Parliament Hill

Justin Trudeau’s Liberals campaigned on a promise to be open and transparent. However, the independent Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) recently released a report questioning the government’s figures and why they hadn’t subjected their analysis to peer review.

The PBO’s report is a scathing review of Trudeau’s first six months in office. It details how the Liberals have failed on budgeting, transparency, openness, and economic forecasts.

The PBO ran their own projections and found the government’s growth and jobs impacts to be exaggerated.

Bank economists and think-tanks have been even less charitable. The CD Howe Institute, for instance, says the GDP boost will only be 0.2% this year and 0.3% next year-less than half of what the government outlines in its budget.

Under the previous Conservative Government, Canada’s economy continually outperformed its peers. This success took place under a policy framework of low taxes, minimal red tape, free trade, expanded transfers to provinces, and modest, but sustained investments in infrastructure, skill development and innovation.

Amid the global financial crisis, the Conservative Government offered a stimulus package to help weather the storm and used outside experts to vet the estimate of 220,000 jobs created or maintained. In the end the target was actually exceeded by 28,000.

The Parliamentary Budget Officer says the Liberals over-estimated the number of jobs their measures would create by 57,000 jobs – which doesn’t even include the number of jobs that will disappear with policies like raising taxes on small businesses.

Canadians need to trust that our finances are in order and they need the proper information to be able to see how much the government is spending and where that money is going.

Canadians should be concerned with the PBO’s findings that this government has not been transparent in its reporting of Canada’s finances.