The budgeting process in the past was a foreign country; they did things differently back then.
In my memory at least, Canada’s Department of Finance pushed back against Liberal and Conservative governments. And if budgets produced surprises, they were generally on the positive side: more revenue or lower expenses than had been laid down in what was considered a hallowed tablet of stone.
No longer. A presentation on the upcoming budget by the Business Council of Canada included a table that showed the various spending projections that appeared in Budget 2022, the fall economic statement of 2022 and the fall economic statement of 2023.
