Steve MacLellan

Trying to sift through the federal budget documents is an exercise in frustration. It’s always surprised me that we spend so much time covering a document that details what governments say they are going to spend and so little time looking at what they actually spend.

Governments will almost never hit the targets they say they will. If the economy is performing better than expected, they find new goodies to spend money on and taxpayers are left never knowing whether all the hyped-up economic news is telling the full story. Is the economy doing well or not? Is the federal government cash strapped or not? Is there enough money to pay for new massive government programs promised during an election or not?

There is one source I use as my go-to for an easy reference for how the federal government is doing managing our tax dollars. If you want to do your own analysis, bookmark this link to the Fiscal Reference Tables on the Department of Finance website.