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Next: The next monthly Fiscal Monitor, the Parliamentary Budget Officer's analysis of Budget 2026, and the next quarterly government-finance release.
Budget 2026 keeps the deficit near the spring path: $62.3 billion for fiscal 2026–27. The forecast under it improved by $158.3 billion over five years, and new commitments use $151.5 billion.
The answer
Budget 2026, tabled November 5, projects a deficit of $62.3 billion for fiscal 2026–27 and $52.9 billion for fiscal 2030–31. The Spring Economic Update had $65.3 billion and $53.2 billion. From 2026–27 to 2030–31, new data and a new economic forecast improved the balance by $158.3 billion before any new decision. Decisions since April, including the budget, cost $151.5 billion. These are the government's projections on the Public Accounts basis, and the totals are sums of published rounded figures.
Two parts of the improvement need care. About $119.3 billion is higher revenue, in a forecast where the economy is larger in dollars mainly because prices are higher. About $62.0 billion is a lower estimate of direct program spending, which the budget says "does not change approved funding". That line also includes pension-valuation effects that the budget says are "broadly offset" in other lines. The audited fiscal 2025–26 deficit of $39.316 billion, tabled November 6, matches the preliminary result the budget starts from.
The budget shows the operating anchor met in fiscal 2027–28, one year early. That result includes $16.8 billion of estimated forgone tax revenue, which the budget says is "not observed directly". The cash the government must raise from 2026–27 to 2030–31 is $764.7 billion, against deficits of $288.7 billion. The audited settlement and every earlier reading remain on the record.
| Share, earlier window | 5.9% |
|---|---|
| Share, later window | 10.0% |
| Change in share (percentage points) | 4.1 percentage points |
| Later window as a multiple of the earlier window | 1.7 ratio (current / prior) |
Federal public debt charges divided by federal revenue (both National Accounts basis, quarterly seasonally-adjusted-at-annual-rates), each averaged over its own fiscal year's four quarters (April, July, October, and the following January), then compared as a share in each of two fiscal-year windows.
What this means for the decision
Read the budget's deficit figures together with the forecast change under them. Two parts of that change need care: higher revenue, and a lower estimate of direct program spending. The audited fiscal 2025–26 result is the last settled year. Every later figure is a projection.
The key uncertainty
This record cannot say whether the federal fiscal position is sustainable over the long run. It cannot measure the government's operating-balance anchor against an audited series, because one line of that calculation is an estimate the budget says is not observed directly. Each Finance update splits its change in the deficit into new decisions and all other changes. The other changes include economic forecasts, actual results, a spending-forecast adjustment and accounting effects. Finance does not split them further, and this Brief does not attempt to. The quarterly National Accounts track uses a different accounting basis from the Finance Canada projections, and this Brief never scores one against the other.
What would settle it
The next monthly Fiscal Monitor, the Parliamentary Budget Officer's analysis of Budget 2026, and the next quarterly government-finance release.
Where the budget lands: the federal fiscal position, the promises against it, and what the audited record settles
The federal government projected four different deficits for the same fiscal year before it ended, and the audited number that settles it arrives months after anyone stops arguing about it. What does the record actually show about where the budget lands, what interest now takes from revenue, and which of the competing debt and deficit numbers means what it appears to mean?
A single headline deficit or debt figure is being used to close arguments that a closer look shows are being fought on different accounting bases, different vintages, and different assurance levels entirely. Reading a government's successive fiscal statements, its own unaudited in-year tally, an independent statistical agency's separate measurement, and the audited settlement that eventually arrives, apart -- with every formula and figure disclosed -- is what turns a set of headline numbers into a decision-usable answer.
Evidence reviewed through 2026-11-11 · 14 cited sources · 4 member Resolutions · 8 chapters
Resolution lineages behind this Brief: Canada's federal debt, on three accounting concepts, at their own closest available dates → · The federal fiscal year month by month: the path to the 2025-26 in-year deficit, and its reconciliation to the… → · Federal annual balance: dated projections and audited settlement → · The federal deficit for fiscal 2026–27, as each official document projected it →
Refreshed on quarterly government finance statistics releases and Finance Canada fiscal updates; the Public Accounts tabling is the standing settlement event. The August 28, 2026 GFS release is incorporated in this reading.
Earlier readings
These answers are preserved as originally written. Their dates and statements about missing or upcoming evidence belong to that earlier reading.
Public Accounts of Canada 2026, tabled November 6, reports an audited annual operating deficit of $39.316 billion for fiscal 2025–26. This includes net actuarial losses and excludes separately reported remeasurement gains and losses. It is the annual balance on the Public Accounts basis, not the National Accounts estimate or an operating-spending anchor.
The audited deficit is $27.584 billion smaller than the Spring Economic Update’s latest qualified pre-settlement estimate of a $66.9 billion deficit, and $15.961 billion smaller than the unaudited March Fiscal Monitor deficit. These are differences between dated publications, not a ranking of forecasts or an explanation of what caused the change. Earlier projections and the unaudited observation remain visible.
The separate April–July monthly panel retains its October review date and original source edition. The audited settlement does not update that new fiscal year, resolve long-run sustainability, or turn a National Accounts figure into a Public Accounts figure. Budget 2026 is a separate successor publication whose projections still require qualification here.
Earlier interpretation: Compare the audited annual balance with the earlier Public Accounts projections on the same fiscal-year basis. Keep the separate monthly and National Accounts readings dated; this settlement does not explain the change or establish long-run sustainability.
Earlier limits: This record cannot say whether the federal fiscal position is sustainable over the long run (a model property, not a record property, and outside what this Brief attempts); cannot measure the government's own operating-balance anchor against any official series (a published evidence gap, not bridged by a proxy here); and cannot attribute any vintage-to-vintage movement in the projected deficit to policy choices, the economy, or restatement -- no decomposition source exists for that split, and none is claimed. The quarterly National Accounts track is a different accounting basis from the four Finance Canada projections; this Brief never scores one against the other, and the settlement chapter scores the audited annual outcome against the four projections on the promise's own Public Accounts basis only.
Next evidence at that reading: Qualification of Budget 2026, the next monthly Fiscal Monitor and central-government tables, or the next quarterly government-finance release.
Review due at that reading: 2026-12-10
Method at that reading: Every figure on this Brief is either a value extracted from a hash-verified source under a disclosed calculation, a Resolution-pinned value (read from an archived, hash-verified source), a Resolution comparison (a disclosed numeric difference between two same-basis pinned values, with issuer differences disclosed), or a Scenario computed here under a named, whitelisted formula from those same pinned or already-published inputs -- never a bare literal typed into prose. Two formulas compose this Brief's own arithmetic beyond a bare Resolution citation: window_ratio_compare ( a window-average numerator divided by a window-average denominator, in each of two named quarterly windows, for the interest-wedge era comparisons) and the existing window_share_of_gdp (a pinned dollar level divided by Statistics Canada's own nominal GDP, averaged over the concept's own reference year's four quarters, for the debt-concept table). Fiscal-year aggregates from quarterly seasonally-adjusted-at-annual-rate series are the average of the year's four published quarters, not a sum -- summing four already-annualized quarters would quadruple the effective annual rate, the same SAAR-annualization artifact this Brief names explicitly (a single recent quarter's print, at roughly negative seven per cent of GDP, is the case study, carried as a labelled artifact, never as a fiscal-year figure). The National Accounts quarterly track (Statistics Canada) and the four Finance Canada projections are never scored against each other -- they are different accounting bases (National Accounts vs. Public Accounts) for the same government; the settlement chapter scores the audited annual outcome against the four projections on the promise's own Public Accounts basis only. No figure on this Brief asserts that a projection change reflects a specific policy choice, the economy, or a restatement -- no decomposition source exists to make that attribution, and none is claimed.
Earlier section — The year on the record: The audited annual balance alongside the earlier dated Public Accounts projections and unaudited observation. Differences are disclosed arithmetic, not forecast rankings or causal explanations.
Earlier section — The interest wedge: How much of the government's own revenue federal interest costs now take, and how fast that changed: a same-basis, same-issuer ratio, public debt charges over revenue, both National Accounts basis, computed here across two era windows and set beside the record's own detected level shift and longest deficit run -- a burden measure, not a forecast of where the rate goes next.
Earlier section — How the year accumulates: The same fiscal year read month by month rather than as one annual figure: twelve monthly budgetary balances from the Department of Finance's own monthly data, summing exactly to the annual deficit already on this Brief, with more than half of that deficit appearing in the final month alone -- a property of when the federal accounts recognise year-end amounts, shown as the record shows it and not attributed to any spending decision.
Earlier section — Why two published numbers differ: A worked reconciliation between two federal program-expense figures for the same twelve months that differ by about thirteen and a half billion dollars: the monthly series summed, and the Fiscal Monitor's own presentation, which reports net actuarial losses on a separate line. Adding the separately published line closes the gap to one million dollars of rounding -- so a reader meeting the two numbers apart from each other can see that neither is wrong.
Earlier section — Which debt number: The historically held debt concepts and denominator vintages, retained on their original bases. This section is a dated comparison, not a claim that these are the latest audited stocks.
Earlier section — The anchors as stated: What the government committed to, on what basis, and what can actually be checked against public data: a declining deficit-to-GDP path, measurable on the National Accounts basis against a Public Accounts-basis anchor (a pace read, not literal compliance), and a same-year operating-balance target that no official series isolates at all -- carried here as a registered commitment with its own published gap, not a synthesized proxy.
Earlier section — What the Public Accounts settled: The audited annual balance alongside the earlier dated Public Accounts projections and unaudited observation. Differences are disclosed arithmetic, not forecast rankings or causal explanations.
The federal government recorded a $5.138 billion deficit in April–July 2026, compared with $7.788 billion in the same four months of 2025 in Statistics Canada’s monthly series. Revenue rose by $12.026 billion and expenses by $9.376 billion, narrowing the deficit by $2.650 billion. These are nominal, unaudited monthly amounts, summed without annualizing. Finance Canada’s cumulative comparison differs by $1 million in the prior year; the source difference is shown rather than forced to disappear.
That new fiscal year does not settle the old one. The record still holds no audited Public Accounts outcome for fiscal 2025–26. The government’s deficit projections for that year moved from $38.9 billion in Budget 2024 to $42.2 billion in the 2024 Fall Economic Statement, $78.3 billion in Budget 2025 and $66.9 billion in the Spring Economic Update 2026. Its unaudited year-end Fiscal Monitor tally was $55.3 billion. Tax accruals, valuations and other year-end adjustments can change the eventual settlement.
Statistics Canada’s August 28 National Accounts release gives a separate estimate: a $47.636 billion deficit for fiscal 2025–26, revised from $44.823 billion. This is a different accounting basis, not the audited result against which to score Finance Canada’s promises. The historical chapters retain the dated projections, revisions and source definitions so the eventual comparison can be made on a consistent basis.
Interest remains a substantial claim on revenue. The National Accounts series puts the fiscal-year share at 10.0% in 2025–26, compared with 5.9% four years earlier. The newer monthly account records $19.979 billion of debt charges in April–July 2026, up $1.382 billion from the matched prior-year window. The two periods and accounting tracks remain separate.
Debt has a slower clock than the monthly budget flows. The newly checked monthly debt table supplies numeric values through March 2026; its April–July entries are unavailable. Those missing cells do not imply unchanged debt. Gross debt, net debt and accumulated deficit remain different concepts, and none should be substituted for another without its date and definition.
Earlier interpretation: A reader pricing any federal commitment -- defence, transfers, a tax change -- should read it against the interest wedge's growth and the government's own anchor path, and should treat any single 'the deficit is X' or 'the debt is Y' sentence as basis-unstated until the accounting concept, vintage, and date are named. The autumn Public Accounts is the next event that converts the government's own promise into a settled, audited figure -- and this record will publish the comparison whichever way it lands.
Earlier limits: This record cannot say whether the federal fiscal position is sustainable over the long run (a model property, not a record property, and outside what this Brief attempts); cannot measure the government's own operating-balance anchor against any official series (a published evidence gap, not bridged by a proxy here); and cannot attribute any vintage-to-vintage movement in the projected deficit to policy choices, the economy, or restatement -- no decomposition source exists for that split, and none is claimed. The quarterly National Accounts track is a different accounting basis from the four Finance Canada projections; this Brief never scores one against the other, and the settlement chapter scores the eventual audited outcome against the four projections on the promise's own Public Accounts basis only.
Next evidence at that reading: The next monthly Fiscal Monitor and central-government tables, a quarterly government-finance release, or the audited Public Accounts. The exact Public Accounts tabling date is not confirmed in this record.
Review due at that reading: 2026-10-20
Method at that reading: Every figure on this Brief is either a value extracted from a hash-verified source under a disclosed calculation, a Resolution-pinned value (read from an archived, hash-verified source), a Resolution comparison (a disclosed numeric difference between two same-issuer, same-basis pinned values), or a Scenario computed here under a named, whitelisted formula from those same pinned or already-published inputs -- never a bare literal typed into prose. Two formulas compose this Brief's own arithmetic beyond a bare Resolution citation: window_ratio_compare ( a window-average numerator divided by a window-average denominator, in each of two named quarterly windows, for the interest-wedge era comparisons) and the existing window_share_of_gdp (a pinned dollar level divided by Statistics Canada's own nominal GDP, averaged over the concept's own reference year's four quarters, for the debt-concept table). Fiscal-year aggregates from quarterly seasonally-adjusted-at-annual-rate series are the average of the year's four published quarters, not a sum -- summing four already-annualized quarters would quadruple the effective annual rate, the same SAAR-annualization artifact this Brief names explicitly (a single recent quarter's print, at roughly negative seven per cent of GDP, is the case study, carried as a labelled artifact, never as a fiscal-year figure). The National Accounts quarterly track (Statistics Canada) and the four Finance Canada projections are never scored against each other -- they are different accounting bases (National Accounts vs. Public Accounts) for the same government; the settlement chapter scores the eventual audited outcome against the four projections on the promise's own Public Accounts basis only. No figure on this Brief asserts that a projection change reflects a specific policy choice, the economy, or a restatement -- no decomposition source exists to make that attribution, and none is claimed.
Earlier section — The year on the record: What the government said the year's deficit would be, at each moment it spoke, against what two separate measuring systems show for the same year now: dated Finance Canada projections, the government's own unaudited year-end tally, and Statistics Canada's separate National Accounts measurement -- a settlement ledger with one row still empty, because no audited figure exists yet.
Earlier section — The interest wedge: How much of the government's own revenue federal interest costs now take, and how fast that changed: a same-basis, same-issuer ratio, public debt charges over revenue, both National Accounts basis, computed here across two era windows and set beside the record's own detected level shift and longest deficit run -- a burden measure, not a forecast of where the rate goes next.
Earlier section — How the year accumulates: The same fiscal year read month by month rather than as one annual figure: twelve monthly budgetary balances from the Department of Finance's own monthly data, summing exactly to the annual deficit already on this Brief, with more than half of that deficit appearing in the final month alone -- a property of when the federal accounts recognise year-end amounts, shown as the record shows it and not attributed to any spending decision.
Earlier section — Why two published numbers differ: A worked reconciliation between two federal program-expense figures for the same twelve months that differ by about thirteen and a half billion dollars: the monthly series summed, and the Fiscal Monitor's own presentation, which reports net actuarial losses on a separate line. Adding the separately published line closes the gap to one million dollars of rounding -- so a reader meeting the two numbers apart from each other can see that neither is wrong.
Earlier section — Which debt number: Four figures are each publicly cited as 'the federal debt': two Canadian Government Finance Statistics balance-sheet concepts (gross liabilities, net financial worth) and two Public Accounts-basis concepts from the unaudited Fiscal Monitor (net debt, the accumulated deficit the government's own anchor path tracks). Pinned at each concept's own latest available date, with that date printed, and set against Statistics Canada's own nominal GDP -- never interpolated, never blended into one number, and not asserted to be compositionally reconcilable with each other.
Earlier section — The anchors as stated: What the government committed to, on what basis, and what can actually be checked against public data: a declining deficit-to-GDP path, measurable on the National Accounts basis against a Public Accounts-basis anchor (a pace read, not literal compliance), and a same-year operating-balance target that no official series isolates at all -- carried here as a registered commitment with its own published gap, not a synthesized proxy.
Earlier section — What the Public Accounts will settle: What happens when the Public Accounts of Canada are tabled this autumn, what exactly gets settled, and what would count as this year's promise having landed: the audited outcome will settle the Public Accounts-basis balance and accumulated deficit against every pinned projection vintage and the final estimate's own accrual history -- it will not settle the National Accounts reading, the operating-balance anchor, or any sustainability question, and this record publishes the comparison whichever way it lands.
No audited outcome exists yet for fiscal 2025-26 -- the Public Accounts of Canada settle it this autumn.
What the record already shows: the government's own projection of that year's deficit moved from $38.9 billion (Budget 2024) to $42.2 billion (the 2024 Fall Economic Statement) to $78.3 billion (Budget 2025), before narrowing to $66.9 billion at its final pre-settlement estimate (the Spring Economic Update 2026) -- the promised deficit for this one year roughly doubled and then partly retreated across four successive statements from the same issuer.
The government's own unaudited year-end tally (the Fiscal Monitor, cumulative through March 2026) shows a $55.3 billion deficit -- a figure that still precedes the post-March tax accruals, valuation changes, and other adjustments recorded before the Public Accounts settle a year. The Fiscal Monitor states what those adjustments did to the three preceding years: the final deficit decreased by $6.8 billion in 2024-25, grew by $10.9 billion in 2023-24, and decreased by $6.0 billion in 2022-23 -- movements large enough to matter, and not reliably in one direction.
Statistics Canada's August 28 release revises the federal deficit for fiscal 2025-26 on the National Accounts basis from $44.823 billion to $47.636 billion, an increase of $2.813 billion. The revised annual estimate is 1.5 per cent of the GDP measure for the same four quarters. Separately, April-June 2026, the first quarter of fiscal 2026-27, records net borrowing at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $57.964 billion, narrower than the revised $61.700 billion in January-March 2026, the last quarter of fiscal 2025-26. That new quarter is outside the year being revised. None of these is an audited Public Accounts settlement. These are three differently defined figures for one year, published by two institutions on two accounting bases; none is necessarily inconsistent with another once accounting basis and timing are taken into account, and none is the audited outcome.
Federal interest costs now take roughly one dollar in ten of federal revenue -- 10.0 per cent in fiscal 2025-26, up from 5.9 per cent four fiscal years earlier, with a detected level shift around 2023 Q3. The share remains well below the record's own peak of 34.4 per cent, reached in 1995 Q2: this is a fast-rising claim on revenue, not a return to early-1990s conditions.
'Federal debt' itself spans roughly twenty-six points of GDP depending on which concept is cited: gross liabilities measure 60.0 per cent of GDP (Canadian Government Finance Statistics basis, 2024, the most recent available vintage); net financial worth measures negative 34.2 per cent of GDP on the same basis and date (a net-liability position); Public Accounts net debt measures 44.8 per cent of GDP on the unaudited Fiscal Monitor's balance sheet as of March 31, 2026 (this read 44.9 per cent until Statistics Canada restated the January-March 2026 quarter of nominal GDP on 2026-08-28, which raised the denominator; the debt figure itself did not move); and the accumulated deficit -- the concept the government's own debt-to-GDP anchor path tracks -- stands at 40.4 per cent of GDP on the same unaudited basis and date (each concept divided by its own reference year's nominal GDP; the accumulated-deficit figure sits just below the government's own published 41-42 per cent path because the government uses its own internal GDP forecast for the fiscal year while this figure uses Statistics Canada's later actual annual GDP -- a denominator-vintage difference, an instance of the comparability problem this Brief documents, not an error in either figure). Which concept survives a definition switch is part of the reading, not a footnote.
This Brief answers the Big Question Does the federal budget land where it was promised? · How this Brief was made — sources, method and limits →
Chapter 1§
The year on the record
The audited annual balance alongside the earlier dated Public Accounts projections and unaudited observation. Differences are disclosed arithmetic, not forecast rankings or causal explanations.
| Period | Value | Role | Assurance | Basis |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fiscal year 2025-26 | -38.9 billions of Canadian dollars | projection | unaudited | Federal budgetary balance (surplus/deficit) for fiscal year 2025-26, in billions of dollars, as projected by Finance Canada in Budget 2024's summary fiscal… |
| Fiscal year 2025-26 | -42.2 billions of Canadian dollars | projection | unaudited | Federal budgetary balance (surplus/deficit) for fiscal year 2025-26, in billions of dollars, as projected by Finance Canada in the 2024 Fall Economic… |
| Fiscal year 2025-26 | -78.3 billions of Canadian dollars | projection | unaudited | Federal budgetary balance (surplus/deficit) for fiscal year 2025-26, in billions of dollars, as projected by Finance Canada in Budget 2025's summary fiscal… |
| Fiscal year 2025-26 | -66.9 billions of Canadian dollars | projection | unaudited | Federal budgetary balance (surplus/deficit) for fiscal year 2025-26, in billions of dollars, as projected by Finance Canada in the Spring Economic Update… |
| Fiscal year 2025-26 | -55.3 billions of Canadian dollars | preliminary observation | unaudited | Federal budgetary balance (deficit/surplus) for fiscal year 2025-26, in billions of dollars, as reported by the Fiscal Monitor's cumulative April-to-March… |
| Fiscal year 2025-26 | -39.3 billions of Canadian dollars | audited outcome | audited | Consolidated Statement of Operations and Accumulated Operating Deficit, line Annual operating deficit, fiscal 2025–26; includes net actuarial losses, excludes… |
| Comparison | Movement | Convention |
|---|---|---|
| Fiscal 2025-26: Budget 2024 projection vs. FES 2024 projection | -3.3 billions of Canadian dollars | Numeric difference: the later publication's projected value minus the earlier one's, for the same fiscal year (2025-26), in billions of Canadian dollars. A negative number means the later projection is a larger deficit… |
| Fiscal 2025-26: FES 2024 projection vs. Budget 2025 projection | -36.1 billions of Canadian dollars | Numeric difference: the later publication's projected value minus the earlier one's, for the same fiscal year (2025-26), in billions of Canadian dollars. Same-issuer vintage comparison; no audited outcome exists yet.… |
| Fiscal 2025-26: Budget 2025 projection vs. SEU 2026 projection | +11.4 billions of Canadian dollars | Numeric difference: the later publication's projected value minus the earlier one's, for the same fiscal year (2025-26), in billions of Canadian dollars. A positive number means the later projection is a smaller deficit… |
| Fiscal 2025-26: first projection (Budget 2024) vs. latest captured projection (SEU 2026) | -28.0 billions of Canadian dollars | Numeric difference: the latest captured projected value minus the first projected value, for fiscal 2025-26, in billions of Canadian dollars (the cumulative movement across all three re-projections). This is the entry's… |
| Fiscal 2025-26: SEU 2026 projection vs. Fiscal Monitor unaudited year-end observation | +11.6 billions of Canadian dollars | Numeric difference: the Fiscal Monitor's unaudited year-end observation minus Finance Canada's final pre-settlement projection, for fiscal 2025-26, in billions of Canadian dollars. A positive number means the observed… |
| Fiscal 2025-26: projection (budget-2024) vs. audited Public Accounts outcome | -0.4 billions of Canadian dollars | Audited outcome minus the earlier published figure, in billions of Canadian dollars for fiscal 2025–26 on the Public Accounts annual balance basis. Differences retain the rounding of historical published projections; no… |
| Fiscal 2025-26: projection (fes-2024) vs. audited Public Accounts outcome | +2.9 billions of Canadian dollars | Audited outcome minus the earlier published figure, in billions of Canadian dollars for fiscal 2025–26 on the Public Accounts annual balance basis. Differences retain the rounding of historical published projections; no… |
| Fiscal 2025-26: projection (budget-2025) vs. audited Public Accounts outcome | +39.0 billions of Canadian dollars | Audited outcome minus the earlier published figure, in billions of Canadian dollars for fiscal 2025–26 on the Public Accounts annual balance basis. Differences retain the rounding of historical published projections; no… |
| Fiscal 2025-26: projection (seu-2026) vs. audited Public Accounts outcome | +27.6 billions of Canadian dollars | Audited outcome minus the earlier published figure, in billions of Canadian dollars for fiscal 2025–26 on the Public Accounts annual balance basis. Differences retain the rounding of historical published projections; no… |
| Fiscal 2025-26: preliminary observation (fiscal-monitor-2026-03) vs. audited Public Accounts outcome | +16.0 billions of Canadian dollars | Audited outcome minus the earlier published figure, in billions of Canadian dollars for fiscal 2025–26 on the Public Accounts annual balance basis. Differences retain the rounding of historical published projections; no… |
The evidence behind this chapter: Federal annual balance: dated projections and audited settlement →
Chapter 2§
The next year on the record
The latest federal budget beside the earlier same-issuer projections for the next fiscal year and the one after it, with the Parliamentary Budget Officer's October outlook shown separately and never merged. No audited result exists yet; differences are disclosed arithmetic, not forecast rankings.
| Period | Value | Role | Assurance | Basis |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fiscal year 2026-27 | -65.4 billions of Canadian dollars | projection | — | Federal budgetary balance for fiscal year 2026-27, Public Accounts basis, as the publication's own table states it. |
| Fiscal year 2026-27 | -65.3 billions of Canadian dollars | projection | — | Federal budgetary balance for fiscal year 2026-27, Public Accounts basis, as the publication's own table states it. |
| Fiscal year 2026-27 | -62.3 billions of Canadian dollars | projection | — | Federal budgetary balance for fiscal year 2026-27, Public Accounts basis, as the publication's own table states it. |
| Fiscal year 2026-27 | -63.3 billions of Canadian dollars | institutional estimate | — | Federal budgetary balance for fiscal year 2026-27, Public Accounts basis, as the publication's own table states it. |
| Fiscal year 2027-28 | -63.5 billions of Canadian dollars | projection | — | Federal budgetary balance for fiscal year 2027-28, Public Accounts basis, as the publication's own table states it. |
| Fiscal year 2027-28 | -63.1 billions of Canadian dollars | projection | — | Federal budgetary balance for fiscal year 2027-28, Public Accounts basis, as the publication's own table states it. |
| Fiscal year 2027-28 | -62.5 billions of Canadian dollars | projection | — | Federal budgetary balance for fiscal year 2027-28, Public Accounts basis, as the publication's own table states it. |
| Fiscal year 2027-28 | -70.2 billions of Canadian dollars | institutional estimate | — | Federal budgetary balance for fiscal year 2027-28, Public Accounts basis, as the publication's own table states it. |
| Comparison | Movement | Convention |
|---|---|---|
| Fiscal year 2026-27: Budget 2025 vs. Spring Economic Update 2026 | +0.1 billions of Canadian dollars | Later published figure minus the earlier one, in billions of Canadian dollars, same issuer, same Public Accounts basis and fiscal year. No forecast ranking or causal inference. |
| Fiscal year 2026-27: Spring Economic Update 2026 vs. Budget 2026 | +3.0 billions of Canadian dollars | Later published figure minus the earlier one, in billions of Canadian dollars, same issuer, same Public Accounts basis and fiscal year. No forecast ranking or causal inference. |
| Fiscal year 2026-27: PBO October 2026 shown beside Budget 2026 | not comparable — The October 2026 PBO outlook excludes Budget 2026 measures and predates the audited fiscal 2025-26 result; it is a different issuer on a different information set, shown beside the government's… | Shown side by side only; never differenced, averaged or merged. |
| Fiscal year 2027-28: Budget 2025 vs. Spring Economic Update 2026 | +0.4 billions of Canadian dollars | Later published figure minus the earlier one, in billions of Canadian dollars, same issuer, same Public Accounts basis and fiscal year. No forecast ranking or causal inference. |
| Fiscal year 2027-28: Spring Economic Update 2026 vs. Budget 2026 | +0.6 billions of Canadian dollars | Later published figure minus the earlier one, in billions of Canadian dollars, same issuer, same Public Accounts basis and fiscal year. No forecast ranking or causal inference. |
| Fiscal year 2027-28: PBO October 2026 shown beside Budget 2026 | not comparable — The October 2026 PBO outlook excludes Budget 2026 measures and predates the audited fiscal 2025-26 result; it is a different issuer on a different information set, shown beside the government's… | Shown side by side only; never differenced, averaged or merged. |
The evidence behind this chapter: The federal deficit for fiscal 2026–27, as each official document projected it →
Chapter 3§
The interest wedge
How much of the government's own revenue federal interest costs now take, and how fast that changed: a same-basis, same-issuer ratio, public debt charges over revenue, both National Accounts basis, computed here across two era windows and set beside the record's own detected level shift and longest deficit run -- a burden measure, not a forecast of where the rate goes next.
Federal interest on debt, % of revenue (National Accounts basis): different averages either side of 2023 Q3
A two-segment mean-shift scan over the last 40 quarters selects a split in Federal interest on debt, % of revenue (National Accounts basis) at 2023 Q3: mean 6.85 before vs 10.05 after (difference = 4.8× pooled variability). The selected date divides two sets of observations; it does not establish when a change began. This descriptive comparison is not a significance test and does not attribute a cause. Window choice and seasonal patterns can affect it.
Federal budgetary balance (National Accounts basis, SAAR): 13 consecutive quarters at a negative level
Federal budgetary balance (National Accounts basis, SAAR) has been negative for 13 consecutive quarters, beginning in 2023 Q2. The latest reading is −$57,964,000,000 in 2026 Q2. A streak counts consecutive periods in one direction; it carries no causal claim and does not imply the run will continue.
Chapter 4§
How the year accumulates
The same fiscal year read month by month rather than as one annual figure: twelve monthly budgetary balances from the Department of Finance's own monthly data, summing exactly to the annual deficit already on this Brief, with more than half of that deficit appearing in the final month alone -- a property of when the federal accounts recognise year-end amounts, shown as the record shows it and not attributed to any spending decision.
| Period | Value | Role | Assurance | Basis |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fiscal 2025-26 (April 2025 through March 2026), twelve monthly observations summed | -55,277.0 CAD millions | preliminary observation | unaudited | The sum of the twelve monthly budgetary balances for April 2025 through March 2026, table 10-10-0133-01 member 1 (Budgetary balance, deficit (-) / surplus… |
| April 2025 through February 2026, the eleven months before the fiscal year's last | -25,550.0 CAD millions | preliminary observation | unaudited | The sum of the eleven monthly budgetary balances for April 2025 through February 2026, table 10-10-0133-01 member 1, Canada, in millions of Canadian dollars.… |
| March 2026 alone (the final month of fiscal 2025-26) | -29,727.0 CAD millions | preliminary observation | unaudited | The single monthly budgetary balance for March 2026, table 10-10-0133-01 member 1, Canada, in millions of Canadian dollars, read directly from the archived… |
| Fiscal 2024-25 (April 2024 through March 2025), twelve monthly observations summed | -43,154.0 CAD millions | preliminary observation | unaudited | The sum of the twelve monthly budgetary balances for April 2024 through March 2025, table 10-10-0133-01 member 1, Canada, in millions of Canadian dollars.… |
| March 2025 alone (the final month of fiscal 2024-25) | -23,880.0 CAD millions | preliminary observation | unaudited | The single monthly budgetary balance for March 2025, table 10-10-0133-01 member 1, Canada, in millions of Canadian dollars, read directly from the archived… |
| Comparison | Movement | Convention |
|---|---|---|
| Fiscal 2025-26: the final month set beside the eleven months before it | not comparable — The horizons differ by construction -- one month against eleven -- so the two figures are complements that add to the year, not measures of the same thing on the same span. The numeric difference is… | Numeric difference: the March 2026 budgetary balance minus the April 2025 to February 2026 balance, in millions of Canadian dollars, both from the same monthly series on one accounting basis. The two figures are… |
| The final month's share of its own fiscal year, 2024-25 and 2025-26 | -5,847.0 CAD millions | Numeric difference: the March 2026 budgetary balance minus the March 2025 budgetary balance, in millions of Canadian dollars, both from the same monthly series. Set beside the two annual totals also pinned here, the… |
The evidence behind this chapter: The federal fiscal year month by month: the path to the 2025-26 in-year deficit, and its reconciliation to the… →
Chapter 5§
Why two published numbers differ
A worked reconciliation between two federal program-expense figures for the same twelve months that differ by about thirteen and a half billion dollars: the monthly series summed, and the Fiscal Monitor's own presentation, which reports net actuarial losses on a separate line. Adding the separately published line closes the gap to one million dollars of rounding -- so a reader meeting the two numbers apart from each other can see that neither is wrong.
| Period | Value | Role | Assurance | Basis |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fiscal 2025-26 program expenses, twelve monthly observations summed | 501,588.0 CAD millions | preliminary observation | unaudited | The sum of the twelve monthly program expenses for April 2025 through March 2026, table 10-10-0133-01 member 4, Canada, in millions of Canadian dollars. This… |
| Fiscal 2025-26 program expenses excluding net actuarial losses, as published | 487,892.0 CAD millions | preliminary observation | unaudited | The Fiscal Monitor March 2026 Table 1 line 'Program expenses, excluding net actuarial losses', April to March 2025-26 column, in millions of Canadian dollars,… |
| Fiscal 2025-26 net actuarial losses, as published | 13,695.0 CAD millions | preliminary observation | unaudited | The Fiscal Monitor March 2026 Table 1 line 'Net actuarial losses', April to March 2025-26 column, in millions of Canadian dollars, reported as a positive… |
| Fiscal 2025-26 public debt charges, twelve monthly observations summed | 53,707.0 CAD millions | preliminary observation | unaudited | The sum of the twelve monthly public debt charges for April 2025 through March 2026, table 10-10-0133-01 member 5, Canada, in millions of Canadian dollars.… |
| Comparison | Movement | Convention |
|---|---|---|
| Fiscal 2025-26 program expenses: the monthly series summed, against the Fiscal Monitor's published presentation | +13,696.0 CAD millions | Numeric difference: the twelve-month sum of table 10-10-0133-01's program expenses minus the Fiscal Monitor's published 'program expenses, excluding net actuarial losses', in millions of Canadian dollars. The difference… |
How does Canada's actual federal debt-to-GDP ratio compare with Finance Canada's and PBO's projected paths?
What is missing: The only StatsCan machine-readable federal balance-sheet series (table 10-10-0016, Canadian Government Finance Statistics basis) lags materially behind the projection vintages: its cube metadata reports a latest reference year of 2024, roughly two fiscal years behind the 2025-26 starting point of both institutions' projection paths. It is also conceptually distinct from the Public Accounts 'federal debt' (accumulated deficit) concept both Finance Canada and PBO use in their own tables — CGFS liabilities and Public Accounts federal debt are not confirmed to be composed identically.
Consequence: Countability cannot publish a same-basis, current-vintage compliance comparison of actual federal debt-to-GDP against either institution's projected path. The two projected paths are published side by side as modelled benchmarks (never merged); Countability's own StatsCan-sourced debt figure is shown separately as clearly-dated context, not blended with either projection.
The evidence behind this chapter: The federal fiscal year month by month: the path to the 2025-26 in-year deficit, and its reconciliation to the… →
Chapter 6§
Which debt number
The historically held debt concepts and denominator vintages, retained on their original bases. This section is a dated comparison, not a claim that these are the latest audited stocks.
| Period | Value | Role | Assurance | Basis |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Calendar year 2024 (CGFS annual stock) | 1,864,209.0 CAD millions | final observation | unaudited | Federal general government gross liabilities, Canadian Government Finance Statistics (CGFS) basis, calendar year 2024, in millions of Canadian dollars --… |
| Calendar year 2024 (CGFS annual stock) | -1,061,969.0 CAD millions | final observation | unaudited | Federal general government net financial worth, Canadian Government Finance Statistics (CGFS) basis, calendar year 2024, in millions of Canadian dollars --… |
| As of March 31, 2026 (fiscal year-end 2025-26) | 1,467,135.0 CAD millions | preliminary observation | unaudited | Federal net debt, Public Accounts basis, as of March 31, 2026, in millions of Canadian dollars -- total liabilities minus total financial assets, the Fiscal… |
| As of March 31, 2026 (fiscal year-end 2025-26) | 1,322,004.0 CAD millions | preliminary observation | unaudited | Federal debt (accumulated deficit), Public Accounts basis, as of March 31, 2026, in millions of Canadian dollars -- net debt minus non-financial assets, the… |
| Federal debt, as of March 31, 2026 (fiscal year-end 2025-26), as stated in Budget 2026 | 1,306.1 billions of Canadian dollars | preliminary observation | unaudited | Budget 2026, Annex 1, Table A1.8 (Summary statement of transactions, financial position), billions of dollars, as published. |
| Federal debt, as of March 31, 2026 (fiscal year-end 2025-26), as stated in Budget 2026 | 40.20 % of GDP | preliminary observation | unaudited | Budget 2026, Annex 1, Table A1.8 (Summary statement of transactions, financial position), billions of dollars, as published. |
| Federal debt, as of March 31, 2031 (fiscal year-end 2030-31), Budget 2026 projection | 1,593.0 billions of Canadian dollars | projection | — | Budget 2026, Annex 1, Table A1.8 (Summary statement of transactions, financial position), billions of dollars, as published. |
| Federal debt, as of March 31, 2031 (fiscal year-end 2030-31), Budget 2026 projection | 40.10 % of GDP | projection | — | Budget 2026, Annex 1, Table A1.8 (Summary statement of transactions, financial position), billions of dollars, as published. |
| Net debt, as of March 31, 2031 (fiscal year-end 2030-31), Budget 2026 projection | 1,917.6 billions of Canadian dollars | projection | — | Budget 2026, Annex 1, Table A1.8 (Summary statement of transactions, financial position), billions of dollars, as published. |
| Total liabilities, as of March 31, 2031 (fiscal year-end 2030-31), Budget 2026 projection | 3,151.7 billions of Canadian dollars | projection | — | Budget 2026, Annex 1, Table A1.8 (Summary statement of transactions, financial position), billions of dollars, as published. |
| Financial assets, as of March 31, 2031 (fiscal year-end 2030-31), Budget 2026 projection | 1,234.1 billions of Canadian dollars | projection | — | Budget 2026, Annex 1, Table A1.8 (Summary statement of transactions, financial position), billions of dollars, as published. |
| Non-financial assets, as of March 31, 2031 (fiscal year-end 2030-31), Budget 2026 projection | 324.6 billions of Canadian dollars | projection | — | Budget 2026, Annex 1, Table A1.8 (Summary statement of transactions, financial position), billions of dollars, as published. |
| Comparison | Movement | Convention |
|---|---|---|
| CGFS basis, same date: gross liabilities vs. net financial worth | -2,926,178.0 CAD millions | Numeric difference: net financial worth minus gross liabilities, same date, in millions of Canadian dollars. Not a disagreement between sources -- both are Statistics Canada's own CGFS compilation, same date; the… |
| Public Accounts basis, same date: net debt vs. federal debt (accumulated deficit) | -145,131.0 CAD millions | Numeric difference: federal debt (accumulated deficit) minus net debt, same date, in millions of Canadian dollars. Both are Public-Accounts-basis concepts from the same unaudited Fiscal Monitor publication; the… |
The evidence behind this chapter: Canada's federal debt, on three accounting concepts, at their own closest available dates →
Chapter 7§
The anchors as stated
What the government committed to, on what basis, and what can actually be checked against public data: a declining deficit-to-GDP path, measurable on the National Accounts basis against a Public Accounts-basis anchor (a pace read, not literal compliance), and a same-year operating-balance target that no official series isolates at all -- carried here as a registered commitment with its own published gap, not a synthesized proxy.
Maintain a declining deficit-to-GDP ratio over the projection horizon (fiscal anchor announced in Budget 2025, reaffirmed in the Spring Economic Update 2026)
Issuer: Government of Canada (Department of Finance). Stated in Spring Economic Update 2026, reaffirming Budget 2025.
Latest observed: -1.48 % of GDP (federal budgetary balance) (four quarters ending 2026 Q2) against target -1.4 (% of GDP (federal budgetary balance)).
Added 2026-11-11: Budget 2026 projects the deficit at 1.8% of GDP in 2026–27, 1.8% in 2027–28, 1.6% in 2028–29, 1.4% in 2029–30 and 1.3% in 2030–31 (Annex 1, Table A1.4). The endpoint is now a deficit of 1.3% of GDP. The audited deficit for fiscal 2025–26 was 1.2% of GDP (Public Accounts of Canada 2026). Source: Budget 2026, Annex 1: Details of economic and fiscal projections
Added 2026-11-11: On this record's year-over-year convention, 2026–27 is a rise from 2025–26. The budget describes the ratio as projected to decline "over the budget planning horizon". Source: Budget 2026, Annex 1: Details of economic and fiscal projections
Target deadline: 2031-03-31. Original statement: 2026-04-28.
Balance day-to-day operating spending with revenues by fiscal year 2028-29 (fiscal anchor announced in Budget 2025, reaffirmed in the Spring Economic Update 2026)
Issuer: Government of Canada (Department of Finance). Stated in Spring Economic Update 2026, reaffirming Budget 2025.
Latest observed: No matched observation.
Original stated target: 0 (CAD billions, operating balance (day-to-day spending less revenues, Budget accounting basis)).
PBO’s October 20, 2026 outlook projects a $6.2 billion operating surplus in 2028-29 on the government’s operating/capital classification, under PBO’s stated policy and economic assumptions. This is a forecast, not observed compliance.
Forecast source: Economic and Fiscal Outlook – October 2026 (RP-2627-011-S), published 2026-10-20. PBO's fiscal-year Public Accounts projections on its own nominal-GDP assumptions. Only explicitly verified points are retained; missing intermediate values are not interpolated.
Added 2026-11-11: Budget 2026 (tabled November 5, 2026) projects a day-to-day operating balance of $11.2 billion in 2027–28, "one year ahead of the target set in Budget 2025". The deadline recorded here is unchanged. Source: Budget 2026, Annex 1: Details of economic and fiscal projections
Added 2026-11-11: Basis: the projected balance includes row E of Table A1.6, estimated forgone revenue: $16.8 billion in 2027–28, against $4.7 billion for the same year in Budget 2025 and $6.7 billion in the Spring Economic Update. Recorded revenue minus day-to-day spending is -$5.6 billion in 2027–28 and +$3.3 billion in 2028–29 (Countability calculation from the published rows). Source: Budget 2026, Annex 1: Details of economic and fiscal projections
Measurement status: PBO now publishes an operating-budget assessment and October 2026 projection on the government's operating/capital classification. What remains missing here is a matched observed, continuously updated operating-balance series on that classification; the National Accounts split is not interchangeable.
Target deadline: 2029-03-31. Original statement: 2026-04-28.
Is the federal government on track to balance day-to-day operating spending with revenues by fiscal year 2028-29?
What is missing: Budget 2026 shows the operating balance met in 2027–28. One line of that calculation is estimated forgone tax revenue ($16.8 billion in 2027–28). The budget states that it 'is not recorded in the government's financial statements and is therefore not observed directly.' No audited statement reports that line or the capital classification the anchor uses.
Consequence: The anchor's outcome will rest partly on the government's own estimate. Countability shows the published calculation and the recorded-revenue figure side by side and makes no compliance finding.
November 11, 2026: scope updated with Budget 2026, tabled November 5. October 27, 2026: scope updated using the October PBO outlook. Earlier wording is shown below.
Wording replaced on 11 November 2026.
What was missing: PBO now publishes an operating-budget assessment and October 2026 projection on the government's operating/capital classification. What remains missing here is a matched observed, continuously updated operating-balance series on that classification; the National Accounts split is not interchangeable.
Consequence: The October PBO model projects a $6.2 billion operating surplus in 2028-29 under its assumptions. That forecast is shown beside the commitment; it is not an observed compliance finding and does not justify manufacturing an operating balance from unmatched National Accounts components.
What would close it: A published government or StatsCan methodology mapping the Budget's operating/capital expenditure split onto a continuously updated machine-readable series.
Wording replaced on 27 October 2026.
What was missing: No official machine-readable series isolates 'day-to-day operating spending' from capital investment on the same accounting basis the government uses for this anchor. Statistics Canada's National Accounts federal expenditure series (table 36-10-0477) separates final consumption expenditure from non-financial capital acquisition, but does not reproduce the Budget's own operating/capital split — the two decompositions are not confirmed to be identical.
Consequence: This commitment is published as a registered commitment without a compliance claim. Countability will not construct a proxy operating-balance measure by subtracting StatsCan capital-acquisition from federal expenditure absent confirmation that this matches the Budget's own definition.
What would close it: A published government or StatsCan methodology mapping the Budget's operating/capital expenditure split onto a continuously updated machine-readable series.
Chapter 8§
What the Public Accounts settled
The audited annual balance alongside the earlier dated Public Accounts projections and unaudited observation. Differences are disclosed arithmetic, not forecast rankings or causal explanations.
| Period | Value | Role | Assurance | Basis |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fiscal year 2025-26 | -39.3 billions of Canadian dollars | audited outcome | audited | Consolidated Statement of Operations and Accumulated Operating Deficit, line Annual operating deficit, fiscal 2025–26; includes net actuarial losses, excludes… |
| Comparison | Movement | Convention |
|---|---|---|
| Fiscal 2025-26: projection (budget-2024) vs. audited Public Accounts outcome | -0.4 billions of Canadian dollars | Audited outcome minus the earlier published figure, in billions of Canadian dollars for fiscal 2025–26 on the Public Accounts annual balance basis. Differences retain the rounding of historical published projections; no… |
| Fiscal 2025-26: projection (fes-2024) vs. audited Public Accounts outcome | +2.9 billions of Canadian dollars | Audited outcome minus the earlier published figure, in billions of Canadian dollars for fiscal 2025–26 on the Public Accounts annual balance basis. Differences retain the rounding of historical published projections; no… |
| Fiscal 2025-26: projection (budget-2025) vs. audited Public Accounts outcome | +39.0 billions of Canadian dollars | Audited outcome minus the earlier published figure, in billions of Canadian dollars for fiscal 2025–26 on the Public Accounts annual balance basis. Differences retain the rounding of historical published projections; no… |
| Fiscal 2025-26: projection (seu-2026) vs. audited Public Accounts outcome | +27.6 billions of Canadian dollars | Audited outcome minus the earlier published figure, in billions of Canadian dollars for fiscal 2025–26 on the Public Accounts annual balance basis. Differences retain the rounding of historical published projections; no… |
| Fiscal 2025-26: preliminary observation (fiscal-monitor-2026-03) vs. audited Public Accounts outcome | +16.0 billions of Canadian dollars | Audited outcome minus the earlier published figure, in billions of Canadian dollars for fiscal 2025–26 on the Public Accounts annual balance basis. Differences retain the rounding of historical published projections; no… |
The evidence behind this chapter: Federal annual balance: dated projections and audited settlement →
The new fiscal year, through July
The federal government recorded a $5.138 billion deficit from April to July 2026. On the same monthly Statistics Canada series, the balance was $2.650 billion higher than in the same four months of 2025. Four months do not determine the full-year result.
| Measure | 2025–26, current monthly series | 2026–27, current monthly series | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Budgetary balance | -7,788 | -5,138 | 2,650 |
| Revenue | 163,443 | 175,469 | 12,026 |
| Expenses | 171,231 | 180,607 | 9,376 |
| Program expenses | 152,634 | 160,628 | 7,994 |
| Public debt charges | 18,597 | 19,979 | 1,382 |
| Reference month | 2026 balance | Matched 2025 balance, current series | 2025 balance held in July reading |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-04 | -1,046 | -7,709 | -7,711 |
| 2026-05 | -313 | -2,196 | -2,194 |
| 2026-06 | 989 | 3,629 | 3,629 |
| 2026-07 | -4,768 | -1,512 | -1,512 |
These observations use the Public Accounts basis and are unaudited. The comparison uses April–July in each fiscal year; it is neither seasonally adjusted nor annualized. Historical reading records keep their original source editions.
| Concept | Month | Held July 2026 capture | October 2026 capture |
|---|---|---|---|
| Budgetary balance | 2025-04 | -7,711 | -7,709 |
| Budgetary balance | 2025-05 | -2,194 | -2,196 |
| Revenue | 2025-04 | 38,782 | 38,784 |
| Revenue | 2025-05 | 37,246 | 37,244 |
The July Fiscal Monitor independently reports the current four-month balance as -5,138 million dollars. Its prior-year cumulative balance is -7,787 million, compared with -7,788 million from adding the published Statistics Canada monthly cells. This 1 million dollar difference is retained; the two source presentations are not silently made to agree.
Sources: Statistics Canada, table 10-10-0133-01 (July observations released September 28, 2026); Department of Finance, July 2026 Fiscal Monitor (published September 25, 2026). Rechecked October 4. Adapted from Statistics Canada; this does not constitute an endorsement by Statistics Canada of this product.
A new CPP scenario sits beside the older valuation
The Chief Actuary’s 33rd report, published June 8, 2026, supplements the revised 32nd report on the same December 31, 2024 valuation date. It tests the base-CPP contribution-rate reduction proposed in Bill C-30. It is a separate conditional scenario, not a replacement of every projection in the earlier valuation.
| Measure | Rate | Period |
|---|---|---|
| Statutory rate in the report’s scenario | 9.9% | Calendar years 2025 and 2026 |
| Proposed statutory rate in the scenario | 9.5% | Calendar year 2027 onwards |
| Minimum rate estimated by the Chief Actuary | 9.22% | Calendar years 2028–2033 |
| Minimum rate estimated by the Chief Actuary | 9.20% | Calendar year 2034 onwards |
The report finds the proposed rate sufficient to finance the base CPP over the long term under its assumptions. The lower rate reduces projected contributions, investment income and assets; contributory earnings and expenditures retain the earlier report’s assumptions. The revised 32nd report remains visible as its original valuation.
This is the report’s assessment of a proposed amendment. This source qualification does not establish the bill’s legislative status or say the reduction has taken effect. The base CPP is a contribution-financed pension plan; these rates are not federal budget balances or additional-CPP rates.
Source: Office of the Chief Actuary, 33rd CPP Actuarial Report, highlights and sections 2–3.
The debt series stops earlier
| Measure | Reference month | Published amount | Subsequent unavailable months |
|---|---|---|---|
| Federal debt (accumulated deficit) | 2026-03 | 1,322,004 | 2026-04, 2026-05, 2026-06, 2026-07 |
| Gross debt (liabilities) | 2026-03 | 2,315,487 | 2026-04, 2026-05, 2026-06, 2026-07 |
| Net debt | 2026-03 | 1,467,135 | 2026-04, 2026-05, 2026-06, 2026-07 |
April–July 2026 cells in this debt table have no published numeric value (source status 1). They are not zero and March’s stocks are not carried forward. The three debt concepts describe different accounting quantities; they are not interchangeable or added together. These unaudited observations do not settle the earlier fiscal-year reading.
Source: Statistics Canada, table 10-10-0002-01. Adapted from Statistics Canada; this does not constitute an endorsement by Statistics Canada of this product.
Scenarios
Interest's share of federal revenue: FY2021-22 vs FY2025-26
How much more of federal revenue does interest now take than it did four fiscal years earlier?
Federal public debt charges divided by federal revenue (both National Accounts basis, quarterly seasonally-adjusted-at-annual-rates), each averaged over its own fiscal year's four quarters (April, July, October, and the following January), then compared as a share in each of two fiscal-year windows.
| Share, earlier window | 5.9% |
| Share, later window | 10.0% |
| Change in share (percentage points) | 4.1 percentage points |
| Later window as a multiple of the earlier window | 1.7 ratio (current / prior) |
Assumptions:
- Both series are the same issuer's same-basis quarterly flows; averaging four SAAR quarters approximates the fiscal year's own average annualized share, not a fiscal-year total in dollars.
- No adjustment is made for one-time items within either window; a single quarter's artifact would only move this figure if it persisted across the whole four-quarter window.
Interest's share of federal revenue: the 1995 peak vs the latest quarter
How does today's interest burden compare with the record's historical peak?
The same federal interest-to-revenue ratio, computed at a single quarter in each of two windows: the record's own historical peak quarter, and the latest published quarter.
| Share, earlier window | 34.4% |
| Share, later window | 9.9% |
| Change in share (percentage points) | -24.5 percentage points |
| Later window as a multiple of the earlier window | 0.3 ratio (current / prior) |
Assumptions:
- Single-quarter SAAR values, not fiscal-year averages -- the comparison is point-to-point against the record's own historical extreme, not era-to-era.
- No claim is made that the current level is trending toward, or away from, the 1995 peak; the comparison states levels only.
Gross liabilities, % of GDP (CGFS basis, 2024)
What share of GDP do federal gross liabilities represent, on the widest balance-sheet concept?
Federal gross liabilities (Canadian Government Finance Statistics basis, 2024) divided by Statistics Canada's own nominal GDP for calendar year 2024 -- the average of that year's four seasonally-adjusted-at-annual-rate quarters, the same annual-GDP basis every other window_share_of_gdp scenario on this platform uses and the basis the government's own published debt-to-GDP ratios are computed on.
| Share of GDP | 60.0% |
| Matched GDP denominator | 3,108,551.0 CAD millions |
Assumptions:
- The CGFS stock (calendar 2024) is divided by calendar-2024 nominal GDP -- the average of that year's four SAAR quarters, not a single quarter; no interpolation is performed.
Net financial worth, % of GDP (CGFS basis, 2024)
What share of GDP does the federal government's net financial position represent, on the same balance-sheet basis?
Federal net financial worth (Canadian Government Finance Statistics basis, 2024; a negative figure denotes a net-liability position) divided by the same calendar-2024 nominal GDP average (that year's four SAAR quarters).
| Share of GDP | -34.2% |
| Matched GDP denominator | 3,108,551.0 CAD millions |
Assumptions:
- The result is a signed percentage: a negative share denotes a net-liability position on this basis, not a positive debt figure restated -- the sign is preserved exactly as published, never flipped.
Net debt, % of GDP (Public Accounts basis, 2026-03-31)
What share of GDP does the government's Public Accounts-basis net debt represent, on the government's own latest unaudited balance sheet?
The Fiscal Monitor's unaudited Public Accounts-basis net debt (as of March 31, 2026) divided by Statistics Canada's nominal GDP for fiscal year 2025-26 -- the average of that fiscal year's four SAAR quarters (April 2025 through January 2026).
| Share of GDP | 44.8% |
| Matched GDP denominator | 3,271,267.0 CAD millions |
Assumptions:
- The balance-sheet date (2026-03-31) is the end of fiscal year 2025-26; it is divided by that fiscal year's own nominal GDP (the four-quarter average), the same annual-GDP basis the government's own published debt-to-GDP ratios use.
- Historical March Fiscal Monitor value retained on its original unaudited basis. The November settlement does not silently replace this dated debt-stock comparison.
Federal debt (accumulated deficit), % of GDP (Public Accounts basis, 2026-03-31)
What share of GDP does the accumulated deficit represent -- the concept the government's own debt-to-GDP anchor path tracks?
The Fiscal Monitor's unaudited federal debt (accumulated deficit), Public Accounts basis, as of March 31, 2026, divided by the same fiscal-year-2025-26 nominal GDP average (that fiscal year's four SAAR quarters).
| Share of GDP | 40.4% |
| Matched GDP denominator | 3,271,267.0 CAD millions |
Assumptions:
- This is the narrowest of the four concepts pinned in the federal-debt entry, and the one the government's own debt-to-GDP anchor path tracks. Both this figure and the government's own ratio use annual GDP; the small remaining gap is a denominator-vintage difference -- the government uses its own internal GDP forecast for the fiscal year, while this figure uses Statistics Canada's later actual annual GDP for the same year -- expected, part of the reading, not an error in either.
- Historical unaudited March Fiscal Monitor stock, retained as its original dated comparison; it is not the newly audited accumulated deficit.
Directly observed
- Fiscal year 2025-26
Estimated, projected, or otherwise not yet an audited outcome
- Fiscal year 2025-26
- Fiscal year 2025-26
- Fiscal year 2025-26
- Fiscal year 2025-26
- Fiscal year 2025-26
- Fiscal 2025-26: Budget 2024 projection vs. FES 2024 projection
- Fiscal 2025-26: FES 2024 projection vs. Budget 2025 projection
- Fiscal 2025-26: Budget 2025 projection vs. SEU 2026 projection
- Fiscal 2025-26: first projection (Budget 2024) vs. latest captured projection (SEU 2026)
- Fiscal 2025-26: SEU 2026 projection vs. Fiscal Monitor unaudited year-end observation
- Fiscal 2025-26: projection (budget-2024) vs. audited Public Accounts outcome
- Fiscal 2025-26: projection (fes-2024) vs. audited Public Accounts outcome
- Fiscal 2025-26: projection (budget-2025) vs. audited Public Accounts outcome
- Fiscal 2025-26: projection (seu-2026) vs. audited Public Accounts outcome
- Fiscal 2025-26: preliminary observation (fiscal-monitor-2026-03) vs. audited Public Accounts outcome
- Fiscal year 2026-27
- Fiscal year 2026-27
- Fiscal year 2026-27
- Fiscal year 2026-27
- Fiscal year 2027-28
- Fiscal year 2027-28
- Fiscal year 2027-28
- Fiscal year 2027-28
- Fiscal year 2026-27: Budget 2025 vs. Spring Economic Update 2026
- Fiscal year 2026-27: Spring Economic Update 2026 vs. Budget 2026
- Fiscal year 2027-28: Budget 2025 vs. Spring Economic Update 2026
- Fiscal year 2027-28: Spring Economic Update 2026 vs. Budget 2026
- Fiscal 2025-26 (April 2025 through March 2026), twelve monthly observations summed
- April 2025 through February 2026, the eleven months before the fiscal year's last
- March 2026 alone (the final month of fiscal 2025-26)
- Fiscal 2024-25 (April 2024 through March 2025), twelve monthly observations summed
- March 2025 alone (the final month of fiscal 2024-25)
- The final month's share of its own fiscal year, 2024-25 and 2025-26
- Fiscal 2025-26 program expenses, twelve monthly observations summed
- Fiscal 2025-26 program expenses excluding net actuarial losses, as published
- Fiscal 2025-26 net actuarial losses, as published
- Fiscal 2025-26 public debt charges, twelve monthly observations summed
- Fiscal 2025-26 program expenses: the monthly series summed, against the Fiscal Monitor's published presentation
- Calendar year 2024 (CGFS annual stock)
- Calendar year 2024 (CGFS annual stock)
- As of March 31, 2026 (fiscal year-end 2025-26)
- As of March 31, 2026 (fiscal year-end 2025-26)
- Federal debt, as of March 31, 2026 (fiscal year-end 2025-26), as stated in Budget 2026
- Federal debt, as of March 31, 2026 (fiscal year-end 2025-26), as stated in Budget 2026
- Federal debt, as of March 31, 2031 (fiscal year-end 2030-31), Budget 2026 projection
- Federal debt, as of March 31, 2031 (fiscal year-end 2030-31), Budget 2026 projection
- Net debt, as of March 31, 2031 (fiscal year-end 2030-31), Budget 2026 projection
- Total liabilities, as of March 31, 2031 (fiscal year-end 2030-31), Budget 2026 projection
- Financial assets, as of March 31, 2031 (fiscal year-end 2030-31), Budget 2026 projection
- Non-financial assets, as of March 31, 2031 (fiscal year-end 2030-31), Budget 2026 projection
- CGFS basis, same date: gross liabilities vs. net financial worth
- Public Accounts basis, same date: net debt vs. federal debt (accumulated deficit)
Unresolved
- Fiscal year 2026-27: PBO October 2026 shown beside Budget 2026
- Fiscal year 2027-28: PBO October 2026 shown beside Budget 2026
- Fiscal 2025-26: the final month set beside the eleven months before it
- The only StatsCan machine-readable federal balance-sheet series (table 10-10-0016, Canadian Government Finance Statistics basis) lags materially behind the projection vintages: its cube metadata reports a latest reference year of 2024, roughly two fiscal years behind the 2025-26 starting point of both institutions' projection paths. It is also conceptually distinct from the Public Accounts 'federal debt' (accumulated deficit) concept both Finance Canada and PBO use in their own tables — CGFS liabilities and Public Accounts federal debt are not confirmed to be composed identically.
- Budget 2026 shows the operating balance met in 2027–28. One line of that calculation is estimated forgone tax revenue ($16.8 billion in 2027–28). The budget states that it 'is not recorded in the government's financial statements and is therefore not observed directly.' No audited statement reports that line or the capital classification the anchor uses.
- Balance day-to-day operating spending with revenues by fiscal year 2028-29 (fiscal anchor announced in Budget 2025, reaffirmed in the Spring Economic Update 2026) — no on-pace assessment is published for this target.
Key evidence
| Issuer | Publication | Published | Vintage | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Statistics Canada | Canadian government finance statistics (CGFS), statement of operations and balance sheet by public sector component, tab | 2025-09-26 | 2024 reference year (CGFS annual, published 2025) | Source → |
| Statistics Canada | Canadian government finance statistics (CGFS), statement of operations and balance sheet by public sector component, tab | 2025-09-26 | 2024 reference year (CGFS annual, published 2025) | Source → |
| Department of Finance Canada | The Fiscal Monitor, March 2026 (Table 7, 'Condensed statement of assets and liabilities') -- 'Net debt&#x | 2026-06-15 | Fiscal Monitor, March 2026 (balance sheet as of 2026-03-31) | Source → |
| Department of Finance Canada | The Fiscal Monitor, March 2026 (Table 7, 'Condensed statement of assets and liabilities') -- 'Federal deb | 2026-06-15 | Fiscal Monitor, March 2026 (balance sheet as of 2026-03-31) | Source → |
| Department of Finance Canada | Budget 2026, Annex 1, Table A1.8 ('Summary statement of transactions', financial position) | 2026-11-05 | Budget 2026 | Source → |
| Statistics Canada | Central government operations: budgetary balance, non-budgetary transactions, and financial source/requirement, monthly, | 2026-07-26 | The series as published at capture, reference periods 2009-0 | Source → |
| Department of Finance Canada | The Fiscal Monitor, March 2026, Table 1 (summary statement of transactions) -- the April 2025 to March 2026 cumulative c | 2026-06-15 | March 2026 edition (the twelfth and final monthly edition co | Source → |
| Statistics Canada | Central government operations: budgetary balance, non-budgetary transactions, and financial source/requirement, monthly, | 2026-07-26 | The series as published at capture, reference periods 2009-0 | Source → |
| Statistics Canada | Central government operations: budgetary balance, non-budgetary transactions, and financial source/requirement, monthly, | 2026-07-26 | The series as published at capture, reference periods 2009-0 | Source → |
| Department of Finance Canada | The Fiscal Monitor, March 2026, Table 1 (summary statement of transactions) -- Table 1 line "Net actuarial losses&q | 2026-06-15 | March 2026 edition (the twelfth and final monthly edition co | Source → |
| Finance Canada | Federal Budget 2024, summary fiscal outlook (Overview table 1, 'Budgetary balance') | 2024-04-16 | Budget 2024 | Source → |
| Finance Canada | 2024 Fall Economic Statement, summary fiscal outlook (Overview table 3, 'Budgetary balance') | 2024-12-16 | FES 2024 | Source → |
| Finance Canada | Federal Budget 2025, summary fiscal outlook (Overview table 1, 'Budgetary balance') | 2025-11-04 | Budget 2025 | Source → |
| Finance Canada | Spring Economic Update 2026, summary fiscal outlook (Overview table 1, 'Budgetary balance') | 2026-04-28 | SEU 2026 | Source → |
| Department of Finance Canada | The Fiscal Monitor, March 2026 (Table 1, 'Budgetary balance (deficit/surplus)', April to March 2025-26 cumulat | 2026-06-15 | Fiscal Monitor, March 2026 | Source → |
| Receiver General for Canada / Public Services and Procurement Canada | Public Accounts of Canada 2026: Consolidated Statement of Operations and Accumulated Operating Deficit | 2026-11-06 | Public Accounts of Canada 2026 | Source → |
| Department of Finance Canada | Budget 2025, Annex 1, Table A1.3 ('Budgetary balance') | 2025-11-04 | Budget 2025 | Source → |
| Department of Finance Canada | Spring Economic Update 2026, Annex 1, Table A1.3 ('Budgetary balance') | 2026-04-28 | Spring Economic Update 2026 | Source → |
| Department of Finance Canada | Budget 2026, Annex 1, Table A1.4 ('Budgetary balance') | 2026-11-05 | Budget 2026 | Source → |
| Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer | Economic and Fiscal Outlook – October 2026 (RP-2627-011-S), Table 3 ('Budgetary balance') | 2026-10-20 | PBO outlook, October 2026 | Source → |
Method and limitations
- Every figure on this Brief is either a value extracted from a hash-verified source under a disclosed calculation, a Resolution-pinned value (read from an archived, hash-verified source), a Resolution comparison (a disclosed numeric difference between two same-basis pinned values, with issuer differences disclosed), or a Scenario computed here under a named, whitelisted formula from those same pinned or already-published inputs -- never a bare literal typed into prose. Two formulas compose this Brief's own arithmetic beyond a bare Resolution citation: window_ratio_compare ( a window-average numerator divided by a window-average denominator, in each of two named quarterly windows, for the interest-wedge era comparisons) and the existing window_share_of_gdp (a pinned dollar level divided by Statistics Canada's own nominal GDP, averaged over the concept's own reference year's four quarters, for the debt-concept table). Fiscal-year aggregates from quarterly seasonally-adjusted-at-annual-rate series are the average of the year's four published quarters, not a sum -- summing four already-annualized quarters would quadruple the effective annual rate, the same SAAR-annualization artifact this Brief names explicitly (a single recent quarter's print, at roughly negative seven per cent of GDP, is the case study, carried as a labelled artifact, never as a fiscal-year figure). The National Accounts quarterly track (Statistics Canada) and the four Finance Canada projections are never scored against each other -- they are different accounting bases (National Accounts vs. Public Accounts) for the same government; the settlement chapter scores the audited annual outcome against the four projections on the promise's own Public Accounts basis only. Finance's own tables split each change in its deficit forecast into new decisions and all other changes. This Brief reports that split as Finance's. It does not split the other changes further.
- The current monthly federal panel covers April–July 2026 and the same months of 2025. Values are nominal, unadjusted monthly amounts, not seasonally adjusted annual rates; the four-month total is not a full-year forecast.
- The source table and Fiscal Monitor differ by $1 million in the prior-year cumulative balance. The displayed difference is retained rather than silently reconciled.
- The monthly debt table has numeric values through March 2026 and unavailable April–July cells. It neither updates those later stocks nor establishes that they were unchanged.
- These four values are never combined, netted, or averaged into a single 'federal debt' figure. Each is pinned at its own concept, basis, date, and issuer; the Fiscal Position and Settlement Brief presents them side by side, with a stated read of when each is the right number to cite -- it does not adjudicate which is 'the' federal debt.
- The two CGFS values (calendar 2024) and the two Public Accounts-basis values (2026-03-31) are roughly two years apart -- CGFS is an annual compilation that lags the current quarter by about two years, while the Fiscal Monitor is current to the latest month. No interpolation or vintage-blending is performed to bring them to a common date; each concept is presented at its own latest available date, with that date printed beside it; a published evidence gap states why.
- Percentage-of-GDP figures for these four concepts are computed by the Brief's own window_share_of_gdp scenarios against Statistics Canada's nominal GDP series (already-grandfathered statcan:36-10-0104-01), dividing each concept by the average of its own reference year's four SAAR quarters of nominal GDP (calendar 2024 for the CGFS pair, fiscal year 2025-26 for the Public Accounts pair) -- the standard annual-GDP denominator, not computed or stored inside this Resolution, which pins dollar levels only.
- Net financial worth is a signed figure (a negative number denotes a net-liability position); it is never sign-flipped in this entry's own values[] array. Where the Brief's prose treats its magnitude as a debt-equivalent read for a concept-spread comparison, that transformation happens in the Brief's own composed text, not in this Resolution.
- None of these four values is the audited outcome of anything: the CGFS pair carries Statistics Canada's own statistical-compilation status (a final statistical observation, not an external financial audit), and the Public Accounts-basis pair is explicitly unaudited pending the Public Accounts of Canada 2026, which is expected to carry an audited federal debt (accumulated deficit) figure for fiscal 2025-26. When it is tabled, a later reading records the audited outcome alongside these -- nothing here is edited in place.
- This entry does not attempt to reconcile the CGFS and Public Accounts bases into one compositional bridge (the published evidence gap on this basis mismatch states why: different accounting frameworks, different asset/liability perimeters, no official crosswalk at the grain this record would need). It presents both, dated and labelled, and stops there.
- Budget 2026 values (added November 11, 2026): the budget states federal debt for March 31, 2026 at $1,306.1 billion (40.2% of GDP), the same figures Public Accounts of Canada 2026 reports. The budget presents its fiscal 2025-26 figures as preliminary results, so they are labelled unaudited here. Its 2030-31 values are projections. No ratio the budget does not publish is computed in this entry; the Budget 2026 analysis states its own calculated shares with their formulas.
- Every figure in this entry is unaudited. The source cube says so in its own footnote, and the Fiscal Monitor's HTML page says so in its own words. The audited outcome for fiscal 2025-26 is the Public Accounts of Canada, which had not been tabled when this entry was registered.
- The monthly series restates its own recent history. The cube's footnote states that changes in accounting policies, methodologies for estimating monthly balances, and the classification of balances between financial components are applied retroactively to monthly results for the fiscal year immediately preceding. No vintage archive of this series is published by anyone, so a figure pinned here cannot later be compared against what the same series said today unless these bytes are kept -- which is why they are archived with their hash.
- The monthly sums are addition and nothing else. No seasonal adjustment, annualisation, interpolation, or estimation is applied at any point. Where a sum differs from a published annual figure by one million dollars, the residual is the rounding carried by monthly values each stated to the nearest million, and it is reported rather than absorbed.
- March's share of the year is a property of the record, not an explanation of it. Federal accounts recognise year-end accruals, valuation adjustments, and other amounts in the final month; the record shows the concentration and does not attribute it to any spending decision, policy, or department.
- The 10-10-0133-01 program-expenses member and the Fiscal Monitor's 'program expenses, excluding net actuarial losses' are different lines. They are reconciled here explicitly rather than presented as alternatives, and neither is restated into the other's form.
- Original pre-settlement caveat, retained as history: No audited outcome exists yet. This entry is a pinned projection lineage, not a projection-vs-outturn resolution: every value is one of Finance Canada's own successive projections for fiscal 2025-26, and none is an observed or audited result. The Public Accounts of Canada for 2025-26 (expected autumn 2026, issued by the Receiver General) will settle this fiscal year; when it does, a later reading records the audited outcome and the projection-vs-outturn resolution steps -- nothing here is edited in place. The entry is registered now so the four first-published projections are on the record, hash-pinned, before the outcome that would otherwise reframe them exists.
- Original pre-settlement caveat, retained as history: Every value is restated exactly as Finance Canada first published it and none has been attested by an independent auditor. These two provenance axes are carried on every value so that, when the audited Public Accounts outcome is added, its own assurance and its own basis are stated on the same two axes and never silently conflated with these projections.
- Original pre-settlement caveat, retained as history: This entry compares Finance Canada against itself: the same headline quantity, the same fiscal year, four successive projection vintages of the same summary fiscal outlook. It is a projection-drift record, not a disagreement between institutions -- the pace and direction at which one issuer's own projection for a single year moved as it re-forecast. No direction of movement is described as more or less sound; the signed difference in billions is the disclosed comparison.
- The percentage difference is deliberately not computed on any step. The base quantity is a projected budgetary balance -- a negative number (a deficit) in each vintage -- so a percentage change would divide by a negative deficit and invert the intuitive sign (a deeper deficit reading as a 'smaller' percentage move, or vice versa), producing a figure that is neither stable nor meaningful. The absolute movement in billions of dollars is the honest comparison, and it is the only one published.
- Original pre-settlement caveat, retained as history: This example was not chosen for a dramatic swing. The four-vintage path for fiscal 2025-26 (-38.9 -> -42.2 -> -78.3 -> -66.9) is shown in full, including the step where the projected deficit narrowed (Budget 2025 to SEU 2026, +11.4), rather than selected for or against any direction. The headline cumulative movement (first to latest, -28.0) is stated alongside the intermediate steps, not in place of them.
- Each value is read from its own publication's headline fiscal table, not from a later document's comparison row -- so Budget 2024's -38.9 is Budget 2024's own 'Budgetary balance' line, not the '-38.9' that the 2024 Fall Economic Statement independently reprints beside its own path (the two agree, which is a cross-instrument corroboration, not the source used).
- Original pre-settlement caveat, retained as history: This entry is filed under the fiscal domain, the closest existing one; it concerns the aggregate federal budgetary balance, not a specific fiscal-anchor compliance measure, and no new domain is created to hold it. Its reading frame is the platform's standing forecast-record question -- a projection lineage held open for the outcome that will one day answer it for this year.
- Original pre-settlement caveat, retained as history: Fiscal Position and Settlement flagship, 2026-07-20: extended additively (design S7 item 7a) with the Fiscal Monitor's own unaudited year-end observation of the same fiscal year (recorded as a preliminary observation) and one new comparison against the final pre-settlement projection. Nothing in the four original publications, values, or resolution steps above was edited. This entry is now the spine of the Fiscal Position and Settlement Brief; it remains a member of the other public questions it already served, unchanged. The audited Public Accounts of Canada 2026 outcome, when tabled, will be appended the same way -- a new publication, a new audited outcome value, and new resolution steps comparing it against every vintage above and against this Fiscal Monitor observation -- never in place of what is here now.
- Extended 2026-08-24 with a caveat citing the Spring Economic Update 2026's Annex 1 (a distinct, narrative page from the numeric-data-table publication listed above, which carries the numeric budgetary-balance data table this Resolution's values pin; sha256 e897f8f643f11de99159c33886784b70ae330e12d7e308993532c0a87a05767e, archived and hash-pinned per this record's own archive-at-citation method) -- cited here as evidence for this caveat, not registered as a publication of this Resolution's own value lineage, because it restates no numeric budgetary-balance figure and is not a further vintage of the quantity this entry's five publications and values pin. Quoted verbatim from the page's own text: 'The economic forecast reported here is based on a survey conducted in March 2026' and 'In the March survey, private sector forecasters incorporated the most recent tariff measures, trade policy developments, and their expectations regarding potential tariff de-escalation. Economists generally expected current U.S. tariffs on trading partners, including Canada, to remain in place over the forecast horizon, with no return to broadly open, low-tariff global trade.' The same Annex states, on its fiscal-projections page and also quoted verbatim: 'The fiscal outlook presented in the Spring Economic Update is based on the economic projections from the March 2026 survey of private sector forecasters' -- the sentence that connects the economic survey basis above to the fiscal projections this Resolution's values pin. The operative United States tariff schedule applied to Canadian goods changed materially after that survey closed: three new Section 338 proclamations state an effective date of August 22, 2026, imposing an additional 50 percent ad valorem duty on certain products of Canada set forth in each proclamation's own Annex II, on a discrimination predicate specific to each proclamation, pinned in full in this record's companion 2026 tariff-actions Resolution -- a different shape of action from anything the March 2026 survey could have incorporated. Separately, and not the schedule change above: the same Annex 1 page also states, of Canada's OWN retaliatory countermeasures (a different, Canadian instrument): 'The revenue projections assume these countermeasures will remain in place through 2026-27' and 'The continued application of the countermeasures is subject to outcomes of discussions with the United States to resolve U.S. tariffs applied on Canadian exports of steel, aluminum and motor vehicles' -- quoted here because it is the Annex's own stated tariff assumption on the Canadian side, distinct from the U.S.-schedule divergence above, and because the companion Resolution separately pins the Prime Minister's 2026-08-21 statement suspending trade negotiations. This caveat states only these divergences in kind, timing, and (for the countermeasures) continuation assumption; it does not estimate, forecast, or restate any deficit or GDP figure as a result, and no value in this Resolution is changed by it.
- Extended 2026-08-25 with the counter-tariff/support concretization -- a divergence observation only, no deficit or GDP arithmetic, no forecast. On 2026-08-25 the Department of Finance Canada announced Canada's own retaliatory counter-tariff schedule (15, 25, and 50 per cent rates, matching the corresponding U.S. rate for each product, applying to 'products covering $27.6 billion in imports from the U.S.', effective 2026-09-08) and, the same day, 'a $7.5 billion package of new and enhanced measures to protect Canadian workers and businesses, building on the nearly $25 billion in supports the government has implemented over the past 18 months' -- both quoted verbatim from the Department's own news release and backgrounder, pinned in full (as publications and values) in this record's companion Resolution on the 2026 U.S. tariff escalation and Canada's own retaliation. These two documents are cited here, in prose, for this caveat's own divergence observation, and are NOT registered as a new publication entry of this Resolution's own value lineage: they restate no figure this Resolution's five publications and values pin, and adding them here would inflate the vintage/publication count against what the entry actually carries, the same discipline the prior Annex 1 citation above already follows. The divergence: the March 2026 survey behind the Spring Economic Update 2026's fiscal projections (see the prior caveat) could not have incorporated a $7.5 billion spending package or a 27.6-billion-dollar counter-tariff schedule that did not exist until 2026-08-25 -- a further material development on both the revenue side (Canada's own countermeasures, whose continuation the survey's own assumption already covers only through 2026-27, per the prior caveat) and the spending side (new announced expenditure) beyond what that caveat already states for the U.S. tariff schedule alone. No deficit or GDP estimate is stated as a result of this further divergence, per this item's own standing constraint. GDP/growth linkage: none of the documents this record has captured for either the U.S. tariff escalation or Canada's own counter-tariff and support announcement -- the four proclamations, the Prime Minister's two statements, the Department of Finance Canada's news release, backgrounder, and programs pages -- states a GDP or economic-growth figure or assumption of its own; the Spring Economic Update 2026 Annex 1 citation already pinned above states only the survey's tariff-persistence assumption, not a growth figure attached to this specific episode. This record therefore states no GDP-growth linkage: not because none was sought, but because no captured issuer document supplies one, and a model estimate produced by a third party is not a fact this record publishes as one.
- November 10, 2026 dated settlement addition: the original title, subject, caveats and earlier step conventions and basis notes describe the pre-settlement record at their original dates. An audited outcome now exists and is appended here. Earlier publications, values and comparisons retain their original content; the one existing field changed is the Fiscal Monitor publication’s successor link. The new value’s basis names the audited statement; its vintage is the figure as first published. The three-year post-March adjustment range is historical context, not a predictive interval. The outcome is outside that range but within the range of four held projections; neither position establishes causality or relative forecast accuracy.
- Caveat closure, November 11, 2026, for the August 25, 2026 tariff-divergence caveat above (whose text is unchanged): Budget 2026 now carries the tariff measures in its plan. Annex 1, Table A1.19 lists "Surtax revenues and countermeasures" among policy actions; customs import duties are forecast at $11.1 billion for 2026-27; and "countermeasures are assumed to remain in place into 2027-28".
- These are projections, not outcomes. Same-issuer differences are disclosed arithmetic between dated publications on the Public Accounts basis; they rank no forecast and explain no change.
- The Parliamentary Budget Officer's October 2026 outlook was published before Budget 2026 and excludes Budget 2026 measures. It is shown beside the government's projections and is never averaged, merged or compared as if it were the same information set.
- Public Accounts of Canada 2027 will settle fiscal 2026-27; this record will add that audited value when it is tabled, expected in the fall of 2027.
- Values are taken from Budget 2025 Annex 1 and Spring Economic Update 2026 Annex 1 (Table A1.3), Budget 2026 Annex 1 (Table A1.4), and the PBO outlook (Table 3), each checked against a saved copy of the source.
- Both series are the same issuer's same-basis quarterly flows; averaging four SAAR quarters approximates the fiscal year's own average annualized share, not a fiscal-year total in dollars.
- No adjustment is made for one-time items within either window; a single quarter's artifact would only move this figure if it persisted across the whole four-quarter window.
- Single-quarter SAAR values, not fiscal-year averages -- the comparison is point-to-point against the record's own historical extreme, not era-to-era.
- No claim is made that the current level is trending toward, or away from, the 1995 peak; the comparison states levels only.
- The CGFS stock (calendar 2024) is divided by calendar-2024 nominal GDP -- the average of that year's four SAAR quarters, not a single quarter; no interpolation is performed.
- The result is a signed percentage: a negative share denotes a net-liability position on this basis, not a positive debt figure restated -- the sign is preserved exactly as published, never flipped.
- The balance-sheet date (2026-03-31) is the end of fiscal year 2025-26; it is divided by that fiscal year's own nominal GDP (the four-quarter average), the same annual-GDP basis the government's own published debt-to-GDP ratios use.
- Historical March Fiscal Monitor value retained on its original unaudited basis. The November settlement does not silently replace this dated debt-stock comparison.
- This is the narrowest of the four concepts pinned in the federal-debt entry, and the one the government's own debt-to-GDP anchor path tracks. Both this figure and the government's own ratio use annual GDP; the small remaining gap is a denominator-vintage difference -- the government uses its own internal GDP forecast for the fiscal year, while this figure uses Statistics Canada's later actual annual GDP for the same year -- expected, part of the reading, not an error in either.
- Historical unaudited March Fiscal Monitor stock, retained as its original dated comparison; it is not the newly audited accumulated deficit.
This Brief and its cited evidence are free to read. A related commissioned Brief can address a different question, scope or agreed update schedule.
Commission a related Brief.