Federal government consistently spends beyond high spending targets

Post-pandemic, the Liberals raised annual spending by nearly $100 billion versus their pre-pandemic fiscal plan.

As budget season approaches, one thing is clear. If the Trudeau government is notable for planning astonishingly high levels of spending, it’s equally notable for overspending beyond its original plans. At all times—when they first took office in 2015, in the pre-pandemic years, and now—the Liberals have consistently raised their spending targets, then spent more than targeted.

Begin at the beginning. Inheriting a projected balanced budget in 2015, the Liberals proceeded to spend federal finances into deficit in the 2015-16 fiscal year (ended March 31, 2016) before presenting the first budget of their own in the spring of 2016. That budget called for $1,219 billion in program spending over the next four years. What the government actually ended up spending was $1,269 billion for the 2016-17 to 2019-20 fiscal years, blowing past their initial plan by a cumulative $50 billion.

Even worse, they set government spending on a higher trajectory—while cumulative spending in the Liberals’ first four full fiscal years in office was 4.1 per cent more than initially planned, the spending level for fiscal year 2019-20 alone was actually 11.1 per cent above the original target. So not only did the Liberals overspend their Budget 2016 fiscal plan by $50 billion over four years, they significantly weakened the fiscal outlook by permanently raising baseline spending for future years.

That federal program spending exploded to $624 billion in 2020-21 from $349 billion in 2019-20 is not surprising given the onetime expenses during the pandemic, and the $479 billion in spending in 2021-22 also included pandemic-related costs. But while some COVID spending was justifiable, much of the new spending was not. According to an analysis by Fraser Institute economists, $360 billion in pandemic-related spending, at least 25 per cent was unnecessary waste.

What about after the pandemic? In post-pandemic fiscal year 2022-23, program spending was $448 billion and debt interest expenses $35 billion, for a total of $483 billion. Compare that to what the Liberals initially planned in Budget 2018, the earliest fiscal plan to project out to 2022-23. Budget 2018, itself no model of fiscal responsibility, planned $350 billion in program spending and $33 billion in debt interest costs for a total of $383 billion (excluding a $3 billion “adjustment for risk”) in 2022-23.

So post-pandemic, the Liberals raised annual spending by nearly $100 billion versus their pre-pandemic fiscal plan. Comparing expected spending for 2023-24 with the plan in Budget 2019 shows a similar discrepancy. The 2023 Fall Economic Statement projects $450 billion in program spending and $496 billion in total spending versus $369 billion in program spending and $402 billion in total spending for 2023-24 in the Liberals’ 2019 fiscal plan (which itself contained material upward spending revisions from Budget 2018).

Speaking of the Fall Economic Statement, it also revised the spending trajectory upward from what the Liberals budgeted in the spring. In Budget 2023, the Liberals projected $2,395 billion in program spending over the next five fiscal years—or $2,630 billion including interest expenses. Because of new spending commitments and higher borrowing costs, five-year program spending is now expected to be $2,422 billion ($28 billion higher) and total spending $2,688 billion ($58 billion higher).

That’s a significant spending plan increase in only half a year. However, given the Trudeau government’s track record of missing its targets, don’t be surprised if actual spending comes in even higher than the latest forecast.

Author:

Matthew Lau

Adjunct Scholar, Fraser Institute

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Business

Land use will be British Columbia’s biggest issue in 2026

Published on December 28, 2025

Duane Rolheiser

By Resource Works

By Geoff Russ

British Columbia will talk about Donald Trump’s tariffs in 2026, and it will keep grinding through affordability. But the issue that will decide whether the province can build, invest, and govern is land use.

The warning signs were there in 2024. Land based industries still generate 12 per cent of B.C.’s GDP, and the province controls more than 90 per cent of the land base, and land policy was already being remade through opaque processes, including government to government tables. When rules for access to land feel unsettled, money flows slow into a trickle.

The Cowichan ruling sends shockwaves

In August 2025, the Cowichan ruling turned that unease into a live wire. The court recognized the Cowichan’s Aboriginal title over roughly 800 acres within Richmond, including lands held by governments and unnamed third parties. It found that grants of fee simple and other interests unjustifiably infringed that title, and declared certain Canada and Richmond titles and interests “defective and invalid,” with those invalidity declarations suspended for 18 months to give governments time to make arrangements.

The reaction has been split. Supporters see a reminder that constitutional rights do not evaporate because land changed hands. Critics see a precedent that leaves private owners exposed, especially because unnamed owners in the claim area were not parties to the case and did not receive formal notice. Even the idea of “coexistence” has become contentious, because both Aboriginal title and fee simple convey exclusive rights to decide land use and capture benefits.

Market chill sets in

McLTAikins translated the risk into advice that landowners and lenders can act on: registered ownership is not immune from constitutional scrutiny, and the land title system cannot cure a constitutional defect where Aboriginal title is established. Their explanation of fee simple reads less like theory than a due diligence checklist that now reaches beyond the registry.

By December, the market was answering. National Post columnist Adam Pankratz reported that an industrial landowner within the Cowichan title area lost a lender and a prospective tenant after a $35 million construction loan was pulled. He also described a separate Richmond hotel deal where a buyer withdrew after citing precedent risk, even though the hotel was not within the declared title lands. His case that uncertainty is already changing behaviour is laid out in Montrose.

Caroline Elliott captured how quickly court language moved into daily life after a City Richmond letter warned some owners that their title might be compromised. Whatever one thinks of that wording, it pushed land law out of the courtroom and into the mortgage conversation.

Mining and exploration stall

The same fault line runs through the critical minerals push. A new mineral claims regime now requires consultation before claims are approved, and critics argue it slows early stage exploration and forces prospectors to reveal targets before they can secure rights. Pankratz made that critique earlier, in his argument about mineral staking.

Resource Works, summarising AME feedback on Mineral Tenure Act modernisation, reported that 69.5 per cent of respondents lacked confidence in proposed changes, and that more than three quarters reported increased uncertainty about doing business in B.C. The theme is not anti consultation. It is that process, capacity, and timelines decide whether consultation produces partnership or paralysis.

The legal layer

Layered on top is the widening fight over UNDRIP implementation and DRIPA. Geoffrey Moyse, KC, called for repeal in a Northern Beat essay on DRIPA, arguing that Section 35 already provides the constitutional framework and that trying to operationalise UNDRIP invites litigation and uncertainty.

Tariffs and housing will still dominate headlines. But they are downstream of land. Until B.C. offers a stable bargain over who can do what, where, and on what foundation, every other promise will be hostage to the same uncertainty. For a province still built on land based wealth, Resource Works argues in its institutional history that the resource economy cannot be separated from land rules. In 2026, that is the main stage.

Resource Works News

Business

Socialism vs. Capitalism

Published on December 26, 2025

Todayville

By John Stossel

People criticize capitalism. A recent Axios-Generation poll says, “College students prefer socialism to capitalism.”

Why?

Because they believe absurd myths. Like the claim that the Soviet Union “wasn’t real socialism.”

Socialism guru Noam Chomsky tells students that. He says the Soviet Union “was about as remote from socialism as you could imagine.”

Give me a break.

The Soviets made private business illegal.

If that’s not socialism, I’m not sure what is.

“Socialism means abolishing private property and … replacing it with some form of collective ownership,” explains economist Ben Powell. “The Soviet Union had an abundance of that.”

Socialism always fails. Look at Venezuela, the richest country in Latin America about 40 years ago. Now people there face food shortages, poverty, misery and election outcomes the regime ignores.

But Al Jazeera claims Venezuela’s failure has “little to do with socialism, and a lot to do with poor governance … economic policies have failed to adjust to reality.”

“That’s the nature of socialism!” exclaims Powell. “Economic policies fail to adjust to reality. Economic reality evolves every day. Millions of decentralized entrepreneurs and consumers make fine tuning adjustments.”

Political leaders can’t keep up with that.

Still, pundits and politicians tell people, socialism does work — in Scandinavia.

“Mad Money’s Jim Cramer calls Norway “as socialist as they come!”

This too is nonsense.

“Sweden isn’t socialist,” says Powell. “Volvo is a private company. Restaurants, hotels, they’re privately owned.”

Norway, Denmark and Sweden are all free market economies.

Denmark’s former prime minister was so annoyed with economically ignorant Americans like Bernie Sanders calling Scandanavia “socialist,” he came to America to tell Harvard students that his country “is far from a socialist planned economy. Denmark is a market economy.”

Powell says young people “hear the preaching of socialism, about equality, but they don’t look on what it actually delivers: poverty, starvation, early death.”

For thousands of years, the world had almost no wealth creation. Then, some countries tried capitalism. That changed everything.

“In the last 20 years, we’ve seen more humans escape extreme poverty than any other time in human history, and that’s because of markets,” says Powell.

Capitalism makes poor people richer.

Former Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) calls capitalism “slavery by another name.”

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) claims, “No one ever makes a billion dollars. You take a billion dollars.”

That’s another myth.

People think there’s a fixed amount of money. So when someone gets rich, others lose.

But it’s not true. In a free market, the only way entrepreneurs can get rich is by creating new wealth.

Yes, Steve Jobs pocketed billions, but by creating Apple, he gave the rest of us even more. He invented technology that makes all of us better off.

“I hope that we get 100 new super billionaires,” says economist Dan Mitchell, “because that means 100 new people figured out ways to make the rest of our lives better off.”

Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich advocates the opposite: “Let’s abolish billionaires,” he says.

He misses the most important fact about capitalism: it’s voluntary.

“I’m not giving Jeff Bezos any money unless he’s selling me something that I value more than that money,” says Mitchell.

It’s why under capitalism, the poor and middle class get richer, too.

“The economic pie grows,” says Mitchell. “We are much richer than our grandparents.”

When the media say the “middle class is in decline,” they’re technically right, but they don’t understand why it’s shrinking.

“It’s shrinking because more and more people are moving into upper income quintiles,” says Mitchell. “The rich get richer in a capitalist society. But guess what? The rest of us get richer as well.”

I cover more myths about socialism and capitalism in my new video.