Carney promises to balance the budget in three years... after spending more money

Mark Carney intends to borrow an unspecified amount over the next three years before promising to balance the budget. 'There will be a deficit,' he told CBC News.

Alex Dhaliwal
  |   February 18, 2025   |   News Analysis   |   2 Comments

 

 

Liberal leadership hopeful Mark Carney promised to balance the budget in three years in an exclusive interview with CBC News.

“Will you balance the budget and how quickly?” asked host Rosemary Barton. “One of the things we're going to do later this week is go through our new fiscal rules,” replied Carney.

Though light on details, he says they will mitigate Canada’s indebtedness by borrowing more money to “invest and grow this economy.” 

The Liberal government has not balanced the budget once during its nine consecutive years in office. Trudeau infamously stated that budgets "balance themselves," a remark that has since been widely criticized as a failure to acknowledge the reality of fiscal management. 

“Core to that is to reduce spending of the government,” said Carney, though he admits the government would borrow over the next three years. “There will be a deficit,” he openly admitted. “It is a fundamental difference between the approach the government has taken up until now."

The Conservative Party, in a statement to the National Post, criticized the central banker for overseeing deficit after deficit as Trudeau’s advisor, in both official and unofficial capacities.

“Carney … used weasel words like ‘spending budget’ or ‘operating budget’” … to [try and] trick Canadians into believing that he will balance the budget when he really has no intention to do so at all,” claimed Conservative finance critic Jasraj Hallan.

The central banker advised Trudeau on the economy in an official capacity through last September, when the Conservatives dubbed him a “phantom minister.”

“For Carney to write a fall economic update full of poison pills and then put it on Freeland's desk, then knock her and Mr. Trudeau [out] of the game and employing himself [as] prime minister is about the most undemocratic political maneuver we've ever witnessed in this country's history,” Tory Leader Pierre Poilievre said months later.

“The Canadian people deserve to choose who should be their next prime Minister,” he added. “Let's put our faith in them.”

Parliament is currently prorogued through March 24, though deliberations on its legality remain before the courts.

Carney, meanwhile, laid out his economic vision at a Kelowna campaign rally last week, pledging to use “emergency powers” in a trade war with the Trump administration. “We need a government that spends less, but gets the country to invest more,” he told supporters.

Outgoing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau relied on the central banker for advice amid recent fallout from finance ministers Bill Morneau and Chrystia Freeland.

Morneau earlier told CTV News that the federal government splurged too much on pandemic aid. “Was there too much?” he said. “Probably.”

Similarly, Freeland resigned from cabinet over “costly political gimmicks” last December 16, noting it created a wedge between her and the prime minister.

The pledge comes two months after Freeland tabled a $62 billion deficit in the most recent Fall Economic Statement, despite sporting a spending cap at $40 billion.

A new Budget Office report criticized her concealment of deficit spending records, citing government transparency “reached a new low.”

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Alex Dhaliwal

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Alex Dhaliwal is a Political Science graduate from the University of Calgary. He has actively written on relevant Canadian issues with several prominent interviews under his belt.

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  • Bernhard Jatzezck
    commented 2025-02-18 22:23:46 -0500
    “In the event” he becomes Liberal leader? He’s been all but crowned, but the dog and pony show continues to convey the impression that it’s actually some sort of race.

    By the way, Mr. Carnivore, whatever happened to the budget balancing itself?
  • Bruce Atchison
    commented 2025-02-18 21:01:24 -0500
    I suspect that Carney plotted Trudeau’s downfall long before it happened. And it wouldn’t shock me if becoming prime minister was always part of his scammy scheme. He ruined Britain by printing money and he’ll do the same here in the event he becomes Liberal candidate.