Finances of the Nation is a new effort to assemble Canadian public finance data, analysis, and commentary and make it available to researchers, journalists, students, and the general public. In partnership with the Canadian Tax Foundation.

Latest Commentary and Analysis

Recent Posts

The Fiscal Rationale for Meaningful Federal Intervention in Child Care

To finally make a national child-care program a reality, Ottawa would need to budget between $7 billion and $9 billion a year. Since child care is a provincial jurisdiction, it’s important to explicitly consider the scale of federal fiscal intervention that would be necessary to incentivize all provinces, including those…

The Case for a GST Cut as Fiscal Stimulus

The government should temporarily reduce the GST rate to two per cent from five per cent to support the economy until the recovery is well underway. My research shows that sales tax cuts have been passed onto consumers in the past, and they do lead to a surge in consumer…

More Federal Debt Can Help Build a Better Canada

Rather than wringing our hands about if and when the federal government plans to balance the budget or about the lack of a fiscal anchor to discipline federal spending, we should take the opportunity to assess the costs of decades of austerity light and have the long overdue debate about…

A New Tool to Understand Equalization Payments in Canada

Canada’s equalization program is one of the most important federal transfers — and one of the most misunderstood. A new tool from Finances of the Nation opens the black box and understand how it works, how it doesn’t, and what the future might hold.

Debt Aversion in Canada Since the 1980s: Are things about to change?

For the past 35 years, debt aversion has been an organizing principle of Canada’s federal fiscal policy. This commentary demonstrates the fact of fiscal policy continuity focused on debt aversion since the 1980s and asks whether the current surge in debt is simply an emergency response to the COVID-19 pandemic…

Featured Data

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Finance of the Nation’s REAL Dataset

Comprehensive historical data on provincial and federal government finances in Canada.


Featured Tool

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Finance of the Nation’s Equalization Simulator

Explore one of the most important — though least understood — federal transfer programs with this interactive simulator.