Quarterly Government Finances Explorer

How much do Canada’s governments collect and spend, and how is that changing? This tool follows the revenue, spending and budget balances of the federal, provincial and territorial, and local governments and the Canada and Quebec Pension Plans every quarter from to . It opens on total spending by each order of government as a share of the economy (GDP). It can also show dollars, inflation-adjusted dollars or dollars per person, by quarter, calendar year or fiscal year, and changes or growth from a year earlier.

To use it, choose whether to compare governments (one item across several governments) or items (several items for one government), then pick from the sidebar. Over time follows the selection across the years, Composition breaks a total into its parts, and Snapshot compares one period with another. You can download every chart and table, as well as the full dataset. Definitions and sources are in the Notes.

Compare

Governments

Item

Units

Show

Frequency

Years

Over time and composition

From

Snapshot and headline figures

Period

Compare with

Four-quarter moving averageSmooths quarterly values by averaging each quarter with the three before it. Shade recessionsRecessions as dated by the C.D. Howe Institute Business Cycle Council.

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What the data are

The data are Statistics Canada’s quarterly estimates of government revenue, expenditure and budget balances, from the Canadian System of Macroeconomic Accounts (table 36-10-0477-01). They cover every quarter from to for:

Federal government
Provincial and territorial governments, all thirteen combined
Local governments, including municipalities and school boards
Canada Pension Plan and Quebec Pension Plan, which are recorded separately from the governments that run them
All governments (consolidated): every level together, with transfers between governments removed so that they aren’t counted twice. This total is therefore smaller than the sum of the levels.

Because the estimates follow national accounts concepts, they use the same definitions for every government. Their coverage, timing and treatment of some items differ from the budgets and public accounts that governments publish, so the totals will not match those documents exactly.

Annual rates, years and averages

Quarterly values are seasonally adjusted at annual rates: each one is what the amount would be over a full year if that quarter’s pace continued. A quarterly value can therefore be compared directly with an annual one, and the four quarters of a year average to that year’s total.

Calendar year values average January to December; fiscal year values average April to March (2025/26 runs from April 2025 to March 2026). A year appears only once all four of its quarters are available.
The four-quarter moving average averages each quarter with the three before it.
Change from a year earlier compares each quarter with the same quarter a year before, or each year with the year before. For shares of GDP, it is in percentage points. Growth from a year earlier is the percentage change. It is shown only when the earlier value is above zero.

Units

Per cent of GDP: divided by Canada’s nominal gross domestic product, also at annual rates. All governments are compared with the size of the whole Canadian economy.
Billions of dollars: nominal values.
Billions of dollars: deflated by Canada’s consumer price index, with as the base.
Dollars per person: divided by Canada’s population.
dollars per person: per-person values deflated by the consumer price index.

For a calendar or fiscal year, or a moving average, the shares of GDP and per-person values divide the average value by the average GDP or population over the same quarters.

Items

The items are grouped as totals, revenue and expenditure. The item list in the sidebar is indented where an item is part of the one above it, and greyed out where it isn’t available for the government chosen. Not every item exists for every government. Federal transfers such as the Canada Health Transfer, for example, are federal only.

Values of exactly zero are recorded as missing in the dataset, so they appear as gaps.

Composition

The Composition view stacks the parts of a total. Other is the total less the parts shown: items that the dataset doesn’t list separately.

Sources

Revenue and expenditure: Statistics Canada, table 36-10-0477-01, seasonally adjusted at annual rates. Program spending is calculated by Finances of the Nation as total expenditure less interest on debt.
GDP: Statistics Canada, table 36-10-0104-01 (current prices, seasonally adjusted at annual rates).
Population: Statistics Canada, table 17-10-0009-01.
Prices: Statistics Canada, table 18-10-0004-01 (all-items consumer price index).

Shaded recessions

Dated by the C.D. Howe Institute Business Cycle Council, to the nearest quarter:

How to cite

Questions or comments? Please email Trevor Tombe (University of Calgary) at .

Licence

This tool and its dataset are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence (CC BY 4.0). You may share and adapt them for any purpose, including commercially, as long as you give appropriate credit (see How to cite), link to the licence and say if you made changes. The underlying source data remain under the Statistics Canada Open Licence.