John Ivison: Carney Liberals need to save Canada, not the world

Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne holds up a copy of the spring economic update in the House of Commons in Ottawa on April 28, 2026. Photo by Blair Gable/Postmedia

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It is a time-honoured parliamentary tradition for finance ministers to congratulate themselves on making more progress than can possibly be justified by the facts.

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François-Philippe Champagne was no exception, as he presented his government’s spring fiscal update in the House of Commons on Tuesday.

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He said his government is spending less, so that it can invest more, and added that deficits would be lower than projected in the fall budget, over the fiscal horizon.

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He received a standing ovation, as his colleagues congratulated him on “a great job” — as if he, not Donald Trump, was responsible for attacking Iran and creating a multi-billion-dollar oil revenue windfall.

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The deficit in the last fiscal year will indeed be $11 billion lower than was forecast in the budget at $66.9 billion.

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But the combination of surging oil prices and unexpected strength in personal and corporate income taxes has produced $60 billion in unexpected revenues that could have reduced deficits even more across the horizon.

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Instead, Champagne has chosen to spend the bulk of the cash — $37.4 billion in net fiscal measures in the new document alone.

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In total, policy actions taken since the budget amount to $54.5 billion of fresh spending.

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Some of it can be classified as genuine investment — such as the $2 billion over five years to encourage younger workers to enter the skilled trades by removing barriers to completing training. Many apprentices fail to complete their certification and the new program will provide income during in-class training.

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The $6 billion that will be invested in a fund to help build and modernize ports, railways, airports, bridges and highways is the kind of classic infrastructure spending with which few will quibble.

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But much of it smacked of the Trudeau government redux.

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The multi-year cost of bringing down the cost of groceries is pegged at $14.2 billion.

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The $3.7-billion, five-year conservation strategy — A Force of Nature — is well-meaning but hardly the type of investment Canadians might have envisaged during last year’s election.

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The document commits $755 million to get more Canadians involved in sport and $160 million to protect Canada’s whales.

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The Conservatives will no doubt wonder whether we can afford $3 billion in climate-related support for vulnerable countries or the $2 billion to help mobilize private capital into climate-related businesses in emerging markets.

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The answer is that, while Canada is doing better than many of its peers, it is sitting on a $1.4 trillion national debt that the government forecasts will grow by more than $50 billion a year as far out as it prepared to look. This year, Ottawa will spend $58.7 billion on interest; more than it will transfer to the provinces for health care.

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That’s bad enough. But by 2030, public debt charges will rise to $80.9 billion, according to the fiscal document, “due to projected increase in the stock of debt and higher interest rates.”