After scrutinizing the government's spending plans, Canada's federal budget watchdog says promised job cuts alone won't be enough to meet the savings goals set by Finance Minister Jim Flaherty.
In his latest report published Tuesday, Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page said plans to slash 6,000 full-time, public service jobs in the next three years will only net one-third of the $1.8 billion Flaherty has said he hopes to save by then.
In his 2010 budget, Flaherty froze operating budgets in order to meet his goals.
But in his report, Page notes that the government's latest spending plans call for an additional $1.7 billion to be paid for personnel next year.
"Given the apparent difference in direction between the freeze targets established in Budget 2010 and the authorities being sought in the 2011-12 Estimates, parliamentarians may wish to seek additional information from the government on the strategy and plans to achieve the operational savings along with implications by department," the report states.
Other areas Page suggests warrant Parliamentarians attention include:
- "details of the assumptions and reasonableness" of the government's spending plans
- "confirmation that the planned decreases in capital spending are sustainable" and will not wind up saddling the government with a pile of deteriorating assets
- the rise in government spending through "tax expenditures" which fund programs by means of tax credits, deductions or exemptions that never make it into the accounting for, or scrutiny of overall expenditures
The collection of reports published Monday also included the PBO's first-ever independent medium-term economic outlook.
In its analysis, the PBO projects real gross domestic product (GDP) to grow by 2.2 in 2012, 2.3 per cent in 2013 and an average of 2.8 per cent annually between 2014 and 2016.
"Relative to PBO's economic projection, the average private sector forecast of real GDP growth presented in the March 2011 budget suggests a more rapid recovery," the report states.
Similarly, the PBO diverges from Finance Canada on the subject of budgetary deficits.
"On a cumulative basis, PBO projects budgetary deficits totalling $128.2 billion over the period 2010-11 to 2015-16, which is significantly higher than the $93.6 billion projected by Finance Canada over the same period," the report states, attributing the discrepancy to its own higher projected operating expenses.
In light of those figures, the report pegs the chance of balancing the budget by 2014-15 at just 20 per cent, rising to 35 per cent the following year.
In his latest budget, Flaherty pledged to find $4 billion of annual savings as he works to balance the budget in four years.
With files from The Canadian Press
