After 11 months of surpluses, Ottawa still says 2015 will end with an annual deficit. March will have to be a horrible month.
Federal budget lock-up in Ottawa March 22, 2016. Photograph by Blair Gable
The January Fiscal Monitor was released along with the budget, and the Department of Finance is still sticking to its story for the 2014-15 budget balance. (See here, here and here for earlier analysis.) Although the budget balance over the first 10 months of the fiscal year (April 2015-January 2016) is a surplus of $4.3 billion, and even though Finance anticipates another surplus for February, the budget is calling for a deficit of $5.4 billion dollars for fiscal year 2014-15. The government usually runs a deficit in March as year-end bills come due, but a $10 billion swing would be exceptional; the March 2015 deficit was only $3 billion.