Ottawa's deficit promise may be too rosy

STEVEN CHASE

Globe and Mail Update

February 5, 2009 at 10:03 AM EST

The federal government's projections of an economic rebound that refills Ottawa's coffers over the next few years are too rosy, MPs were warned Thursday.

Canada's parliamentary budget watchdog Kevin Page delivered the warning in an appearance at House of Commons finance committee.

He added that there is ”significant risk” that Ottawa it will fail to climb of out deficit within half a decade as promised.

The Conservatives under Prime Minister Stephen Harper have overseen a return to deficits this year for the first time in more than a decade. They have in part defended their plunge into $83-billion of deficits over the next five years by forecasting a return to balanced budgets in 2013-14.

Mr. Page cautioned, however, that the forecast may be too optimistic.

”There is ... a significant risk that the government's budgetary balance will not return to a surplus position by 2013-2014,” he told the finance committee.

The parliamentary budget officer warned that the 2009 budget has pushed Ottawa to the edge of a structural deficit – one that persists over the long term even when the economic is healthy.

Mr. Page's hypothetical projection of what Ottawa's finances would look like over the next four years if the economy were strong rather than weakened – as it is now – shows that the federal government would still be on the verge of deficit.

He cautioned that Ottawa could fall into a structural deficit if the Tories fail to end all the temporary spending they introduced in their stimulus budget.

His office also echoed private-sector economists this week who have already warned that the Conservatives have overestimated the impact their Jan. 27 stimulus package will have on jobs and growth.

IHS-Global Insight Canada's Dale Orr had cautioned on MOnday that the Tories have overstated the economic benefits and jobs created by one-third. Today, Mr. Page said his Parliamentary Budget Office estimates the real stimulus could be 20 per cent lower than advertised.

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Ottawa Mens Centre.com, from Ottawa Capital of male gender apartheid, Canada) wrote: Now is the time that the Canadian Government needs to do some "brain storming" on how to improve the Canadian economy.
Our politicians can start with the biggest problem first and look at its root cause. that is, Canada's Declining Birth Rate, the main reason being, Canada fails to have a Legal Presumption of Equal Parenting After Separation, that is, men are treated as "Sperm Donors" "Support Payers" that festers and promotes the one of the worst most serious forms of child abuse known as, "Parental Alienation Syndrome'.
Canadian Children grow up in homes run by Malicious Mothers, use feminist lawyers to fabricate evidence , and our politicians arrange for feminist judges to be appointed to the Judiciary where they flagrantly abuse their judicial Power with "Sheffield orders" "Power orders" to prevent children from ever knowing their father while the same children end up being raised in man hating homes with a mother who engages in endless litigation that costs our society billions.
As our population decreases, the cost of caring for the elderly will increase on those who are still working. Our courts are increasingly destroying legal rights of men, and our society , in family court is absent the rule of law, its run by judges with a pathological hatred towards those they don't approve of, who use their personal anger to exact vengeance on they don't like. Our society is crumbling and the primary cause is Dead Beat Family Court Judges who are only too willing to habitually obstruct justice and leave a trail of wrongfully convicted fathers who could not even get a trial to answer quadruple hearsay evidence simply because he was male and the complainant was female. Each example costs society hundreds of thousands of dollars that could otherwise be used for children's education, child care, and encouraging in appropriate parenting. www.OttawaMensCentre.com (who -sic correction)