Posted by & filed under Accounting Principles, Canadian governments.

Description: This past week Justin Trudeau’s government released its first budget, showing a planned deficit of nearly $30 billion for the next fiscal year. While Finance Minister Bill Morneau spoke of “investments in the future of Canada,” the Opposition drew attention to the fact that the deficit far outstripped the $10 billion figure Mr. Trudeau had campaigned on. One of the big ‘investments’ is in the Canada Child Benefit, which sounds much more like an operating expenditure for a social program than what accountants would traditionally call an investment.

Date: March 22, 2016

Source: nationalpost.com

Link: http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/canadian-politics/john-ivison-with-federal-budget-liberals-have-consigned-canada-to-118-6-billion-deficits-into-next-decade

Discussion Points:

1) Did you follow any of the discussion surrounding the release of the budget this past week? What were your observations?

2) Given your accounting knowledge, what do you think of politicians using the word ‘investment’ to describe what are really expenditures?

3) Do you think the accounting profession could play a role around clarifying the language politicians use at budget time?

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *