It will take the federal government at least 20 years to balance the budget, judging by its current state and only if granted a generous forecast, says the Canadian Taxpayers Foundation (CTF).
Using supplementary data from Fiscal Sustainability Report 2022 published by Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO) Yves Giroux on July 28, the CTF compared Canada’s year-by-year projections of total revenue, total spending, budgetary balance, and interest charges from 2022 to 2041.
The CTF report’s comparisons show that the country’s revenue and spending would become even by 2041, but that it would take until 2061 to pay down the national debt.
This timeline for balancing the budget will only work if there is “uninterrupted nominal GDP growth of 4 percent per year and steady real GDP growth of 2 percent per year,” said the CTF in an Aug. 3 news release announcing its report….