News Analysis Economic forecasters say that Canada’s provinces and other levels of government below the federal level are spending unsustainably and will face a debt crisis unless they change course. The Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO) provided this finding in a recent fiscal sustainability report updating the assessment it made in February 2020. The report projected the debt levels of the federal, provincial, territorial, local, and indigenous governments over a 75-year period from 2020 to 2094. Fiscal sustainability means that government debt doesn’t grow continuously relative to the size of the economy, or the gross domestic product (GDP). This assessment involves projecting government net debt relative to the GDP over the long term while assuming that the government maintains its current fiscal policy. The report found that, collectively, the subnational governments must permanently raise taxes or cut spending—or do some combination of both—by an amount equal to 0.5 percent of GDP in order …