In late May, two months after the 2009-10 fiscal year ended, Jim Flaherty told Canadians that we were going to come in at a $47.0 billion deficit. Today he announced the figure would be $55.6 billion, but instead of comparing to his last estimate he compares to an earlier estimate from Budget 2010. When you make so many projections that are all over the map, you can't just pick one that is closest and suggest that your projections were close. The final(?) figure is $8.6 billion higher than he was projecting two months after the fiscal year ended, that is over 15% higher. Note that the budget deficit came in 65% higher than Jim Flaherty was projecting at the start of fiscal year 2009-10.
Date of projection | Source | Amount |
February 26, 2008 | Budget 2008 | $1.3 billion surplus |
January 27, 2009 | Budget 2009 | $33.7 billion deficit |
June 11, 2009 | Canada's Economic Action Plan - 2nd Report - June 2009 | $50.2 billion deficit |
September 10, 2009 | Update of Economic and Fiscal Projections - September 2009 | $55.9 billion deficit |
March 4, 2010 | Budget 2010 | $53.8 billion deficit |
May 28, 2010 | Fiscal Monitor - March 2010 | $47.0 billion deficit |
October 12, 2010 | Update of Economic and Fiscal Projections - October 2010 | $55.6 billion deficit |
FYI, the March fiscal Monitor is not a forecast, it is an accounting document which says
ReplyDelete"While the results to date—particularly for budgetary revenues—are stronger than
anticipated in the 2010 budget, given the potential for further adjustments referred to above, as well
as ongoing global economic uncertainty, the Government judges that the fiscal projection set out in
the 2010 budget remains broadly on track."
More info on why the Fiscal Monitor is not a forecast and why year-end results were expected to be different is provided on page 5.
You are correct that the March Fiscal Monitor is not a forecast. It was actually issued on May 28th 2010, about 2 months after the year-end so it is more of an estimate. One would hope that at that late date it would be much more accurate than any previous forecast as they should have had much more complete information available at that time.
ReplyDeleteThere were members of the government using it's figures for about 5 weeks, and then they suddenly started changing their tune in early July. I guess they realized that it was a very bad estimate, because they started referencing earlier figures. It seems they wanted to sweep that one under the rug quickly.