Report Archive

Consistent with the Parliamentary Budget Officer’s legislated mandate, this report provides PBO’s economic and fiscal outlook.

Recent changes to the Financial Administration Act require the Government of Canada to seek parliamentary approval to borrow in debt markets. The Government has done so with the Borrowing Authority Act, which came into force on 23 November 2017.

This report was prepared to address two areas of confusion that have arisen in committees and debates following Budget 2018:

1. How was this new debt aggregate calculated?
2. How should it be used to scrutinize government borrowing?

This report responds to a request of Mr. Pierre Poilievre (Carleton–CPC) to estimate the cost of establishing a guaranteed basic income program at the national level. PBO takes the policy parameters of Ontario’s basic income pilot project and applies them across the country to estimate the cost of a guaranteed basic income (GBI), and then compares the estimated cost to the current federal support for low income. The annual gross cost of expanding the Ontario Basic Income Pilot across the country would amount to an estimated $76.0 billion in 2018-2019. By 2022-2023, it would reach nearly $79.5 billion.

This report provides status report on Phase 1 of the Government’s New Infrastructure Plan, which was announced in Budget 2016 and intended to stimulate economic growth over the short-term.  

 

This report updates the Parliamentary Budget Officer’s estimates of the financial costs associated with offenders in federal custody. For this analysis the costs associated with correctional interventions and internal services are not included.

This report provides a long-term scenario analysis of the three largest federal transfers:  Equalization, the Canada Health Transfer and the Canada Social Transfer.

This report examines federal personnel spending, including: (i) recent trends in spending on federal personnel , (ii) PBO’s medium-term forecast for personnel spending  and (iii) analysis of important cost drivers underlying PBO’s personnel forecast.

To assist parliamentarians in their budget deliberations, this report highlights key issues arising from Budget 2018.

This note presents detailed analysis of the third supplement to the Government’s Main Estimates for the 2017-18 fiscal year.

Bill C-364 is a private member’s bill that seeks to amend the Canada Elections Act by reducing annual individual political contribution limits while reintroducing public funding for registered political parties through quarterly allowances.  There is also a consequential amendment to the Income Tax Act, impacting the amount individuals can claim as tax credits for political contributions. This report estimates the cost of Bill C-364.  

This report provides an in-year estimate of Canadian gross domestic product in 2017 and the Government of Canada’s budgetary balance in 2017 18, based on data released since our October 2017 Economic and Fiscal Outlook, up to and including 12 January 2018.

This report provides a comparison of long-term economic and fiscal projections prepared by Finance Canada and PBO in 2017.

The PBO examines provincial carbon pricing regimes to estimate the cost of excluding tax, duty or fee imposed by a province in respect of carbon from the calculation of the GST. 

This report responds to a request of Mr. Charlie Angus, the member for Timmins-James Bay, to estimate the costs of upgrading water and wastewater infrastructure on First Nations reserves, in order to eliminate long-term boil water advisories, and to compare these estimates with the actual and planned spending included the announced funding in Budget 2016. PBO estimates the minimum capital investment required to meet actual and future W&WW needs until 2020 at $3.2 billion. PBO’s estimate of the annual operating and maintenance (O&M) needs is $361 million. PBO analysis indicates that the estimated capital and O&M costs are considerably more than the total actual and planned funding.

 

Bill S-3 amends the Indian Act to address residual discrimination on the basis of sex with respect to eligibility for registration on the Indian Register. This report estimates the cost of Bill S-3.

On July 18, 2017, the Minister of Finance announced consultations on tax planning strategies involving the use of private corporations.  This report analyzes potential changes to the taxation of corporate passive investment income, one of the policy proposals put forth as part of the consultations. 

Approximately 3.2 million to 5.0 million Canadians have low income.

In 2016, the Government committed to developing a poverty reduction strategy.  To support parliamentarians in their deliberations regarding this strategy, the Parliamentary Budget Officer initiated a census of all existing federal support and services to low income Canadians and vulnerable groups.

Overall, we identified 75 federal initiatives that provide roughly $57 billion of financial support or services to people with low income and other vulnerable groups in 2017-18—55 programs with expenditures of $39.3 billion and 20 tax expenditures that provided $17.5 billion.