Posthaste: Scotiabank economist issues warnings for Canada's tardy fiscal update

financialpost.com:

Canada’s fall fiscal calendar has a significant event missing from it.

All the provinces released their fiscal updates, sticking with the established timing of refreshing their finances in the fall, but the federal Liberal government has been so silent on the subject that one economist is suggesting Canadians might have to wait until after Christmas for a national update.

“It’s not clear when — or even if — it will come before the holidays, but the writing is mostly on the wall,” Rebekah Young, an economist at the Bank of Nova Scotia, said in a note on Wednesday, adding there are even rumours “swirling” that there won’t be a fiscal update at all.

“But don’t discount it yet even if the finance minister remains mum,” she said, noting that the 2019 election and the pandemic pushed the federal fiscal update into December instead of the usual November release.

Young nonetheless took a swing at what she thinks the statement might contain.

“More spending is clearly in the offing,” she said, referring to the Liberals’ recently announced GST holiday and $250 rebate cheques for working Canadians.

The GST portion of that $6.3-billion fiscal stimulus package passed in the House of Commons on Nov. 28.

“The balance and then some is expected before long to keep Canadians from the polls a bit longer,” she said.

The stimulus package is the price the Liberals are paying to retain the support of the New Democratic Party and avert losing a no-confidence vote. But Young thinks the NDP is pushing for even more spending.

She said the Liberals may add $15 billion in net new spending in the fiscal update while “mostly” adhering to the fiscal guardrails it erected in the spring budget.

“We would find it incredulous if the government were to blow