Tag Archives: Procurement

Budget Day 2026

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It was Budget Day, and of course, because it’s 1995 and will always be 1995, the headlines are always about the deficit. (Budget document here). It turns out that the deficit for the current fiscal year is about half of the earlier projection, thanks to increased revenues (in large part because of high oil prices), and it’s being kept steady for the next few years while the government once again took up the increased revenue to fund a bunch of things, most especially their Mega Deduction.

Budget 2026 in one graph

— Trevor Tombe (@trevortombe.bsky.social) 2026-11-05T22:18:11.388246+00:00

Budget 2026 sees federal debt dropping to 19% of GDP by 2060; I get ~48%. #cdnecon #cdnpoliTwo key differences: net debt doesn’t subtract non-financial assets (capital), and I assume we meet the new NATO target. Long-term fiscal challenges may be bigger than budget implies.

— Trevor Tombe (@trevortombe.bsky.social) 2026-11-06T00:55:34.329048+00:00

ok, here's what underlies the whole document. This is a HUGE windfall relative to the Spring Economic Update. Add up the extra and it is $186B. That's how they piled on so much extra spending AND lowered the deficit forecast.Easy to do with +$186B in your pocket!

— Kevin Milligan (@kevinmilligan.bsky.social) 2026-11-06T00:56:50.939Z

Some highlights of the coverage:

  • $52 billion to double electrical capacity by 2050—and considering this a climate plan
  • Plans to extend the open banking framework to other sectors, while still delaying the actual open banking implementation.
  • More tax breaks for tech CEOs, because “innovation.” Also, EDC and BDC are merging.
  • $400 million more for military drones, plus more funding for space launch capacity.
  • A few more details on the “Canada Strong” sovereign wealth fund.
  • New laws to “streamline” expropriations for the Alto high speed rail project.
  • The hope is for the tax breaks and incentives to create an “investment super-cycle”
  • There is $5 billion for culture, including CBC and journalism.
  • There is a promise of $6 billion for CSIS, possibly the largest increase in funding ever.
  • The budget aims to work with provinces to end homelessness in ten years. 
  • There is also $50 billion over ten years for Indigenous programmes and services.
  • The budget doesn’t give any clues as to the future of health transfers.
  • Immigration levels are to be kept largely the same, with plans to convert 200,000 temporary residents to permanent residents. 
  • There remain unanswered questions about the path to meeting NATO targets.

Reaction from the opposition has been pretty much as expected—Pierre Poilievre is howling that the deficits will fuel inflation (which is not what is happening with inflation), while Avi Lewis demands a wealth tax (that won’t generate the revenue he claims) and for it to be spent on “lowering the cost of groceries” (no, subsidizing a “public option” is not actually lowering the cost) and building more housing (for unrealistic amounts of money). 

https://twitter.com/coreyhoganyyc/status/2118466518858277166

Budget commentary includes:

  • Justin Ling delves into the promises for drone production.
  • Kevin Carmichael points to the signals the budget sends to the bond markets.
  • Susan Delacourt sees the government taking the cue about affordability.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2026-11-05T20:08:02.591Z

My Latest:

My column looks at all of Mark Carney’s talk about “values” in foreign policy and wonders when we might actually see some—other than “making money.”

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A starting line, not a finish line

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Amidst all of the jubilation over the midterm results, I feel the need to be something of a dark cloud for the silver linings, because I think that there is a lot of over-reading what happened (to say nothing of confirming one’s priors). I have seen clips floating around social media where people are declaring this to be the “effective end of the Trump era,” and oh sweet summer child, no. Not even close.

Congressional leaders are already trotting out lines like they don’t want to “get even, but get things done,” which is part of America’s problem—not excusing past misdeeds because the “pendulum swung back,” they don’t want the same to happen to them once they’re out of power, and they are allergic to holding the rich and powerful to account, because they all believe that they are temporarily displaced billionaires who don’t want to be held to any higher standard once their ship comes in. And frankly, the “getting things done” is going to be a problem is they want to focus on affordability because there’s not a lot that Congress can do about it, and it could be a trap for themselves if they allow it to become their fault by over-promising and being unable to deliver.

"The American people don't want us to get even; they want us to get things done on their behalf."House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who is now poised to become the next House Speaker, says that Democrats will focus on affordability concerns and not retribution after their midterm wins.

— MS NOW (@ms.now) 2026-11-04T13:01:08.240Z

https://bsky.app/profile/emmettmacfarlane.com/post/3mzih62wjvs2r

https://bsky.app/profile/emmettmacfarlane.com/post/3mziha5jegk2r

https://bsky.app/profile/smsaideman.bsky.social/post/3mzifcgwzk2sc

This notion that American democracy was not restored is extremely important, because too many people are taking a victory lap right now. This is just the beginning of the fight, as Anne Applebaum lays out in this video. America is structurally broken. And frankly, nobody trusts that your next election cycle, you won’t go back to MAGA because all the Democrats stayed home because their candidates didn’t pass their purity tests sufficiently. You know, like what happened in 2024. 

What was at stake – and what is at stake now www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofOn…

— Anne Applebaum (@anneapplebaum.wsocial.eu) 2026-11-04T11:18:49.443Z

Lots of Americans mistaking the starting line for a finish line today.

— Daniel Munro (@dkmunro.bsky.social) 2026-11-04T20:09:17.238Z

Are the kids out of cages?Have deportees been welcomed back?Are the people murdered in the Pacific resurrected?Is Venezuela’s oil returned?Is Russia’s diesel rejected?Is global aid restored?No? Put the party favours away and get back to work.

— Daniel Munro (@dkmunro.bsky.social) 2026-11-04T20:04:47.064Z

And then there are the voices in Canada, particularly conservative ones, who think that Carney’s whole Davos conception has now fallen apart, which is…frankly risible. Pierre Poilievre had a press conference where he essentially said that we just have to appeal to Americans’ better nature because they proved they hate tariffs, but that’s also nonsense because, well, they may say they hate tariffs, but they never seem to remove any. (He also doesn’t seem to understand that to Americans in this election, we were a punchline. That’s it). We’re not out of the woods yet. Not even close.

https://bsky.app/profile/stephaniecarvin.bsky.social/post/3mzism76t4s2j

Nor are the Democrats coming to save usEven in Progressive America, there is a fundamental underestimation of the damage done and global perception of the US. The world is way past ‘common ground’ solutions

— Lauren Dobson-Hughes (@ldobsonhughes.bsky.social) 2026-11-04T11:27:19.496Z

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2026-11-04T20:08:03.758Z

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QP: Returning to bad-math gas tax demands

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The PM was absent, preparing to depart for the Commonwealth meeting in Antigua and Barbuda. Pierre Poilievre was present, and he led off in French demanding that the government eliminate all gas taxes in the budget. Julie Dabrusin noted that the heat pump programme will help people save money from coast-to-coast-to-coast, and that bio diesel will help farmers in Poilievre’s riding. Poilievre suggested that heat pumps help Brookfield and biodiesel subsidies aid American companies, and repeated his demand. Dabrusin wonders why Poilievre can’t help farmers in his riding provide canola for biodiesel. Poilievre switched to English to make the same demand again, and Dabrusin repeated her same points about canola and biodiesel, which is supported by the clean fuel standard. Poilievre called her out of touch, and wailed about the cost of diesel for farmers, and this time Wayne Long stood up to recite some good news talking points about Thursday’s budget release. Poilievre mocked the government’s record, with particular attention to food banks and housing, and Long repeated his same praise for the upcoming budget. Poilievre repeated his same faulty math about gas taxes, and this time, Tim Hodgson listed government support programmes that Poilievre voted against.

Christine Normandin led for the Bloc, and she listed agenda items on the Canada-EU talks that were in areas of Quebec’s jurisdiction and demanded a seat at the table. Steven MacKinnon praised how good this agreement is for Quebec and Canada. Normandin demanded some transparency about these items rather than just leave everything in the PMO, and MacKinnon said that transparency was having a meeting in Montreal attended by six former Quebec premiers, which…missed the point. Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe demanded the doctrine that claims to allow Quebec a seat at the table, and MacKinnon insisted that they are engaging all provinces with discussions in areas of their jurisdiction. 

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Poor oversight and vague outlines

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It was Auditor General Day yesterday, and there were a bunch of reports released, including three from the Environment Commissioner, who is in her office. And so, this is what they found:

  • The CBSA’s new digital management software, CARM, is still glitchy two years later and they spend a lot of time on manual workarounds.
  • FINTRAC continues to be plagued by reporting backlogs that aren’t going to be cleared until next year at least.
  • National Defence didn’t manage their ammunition inventory effectively.
  • Ways to improve the dental care programme after it exceeded its budget.
  • The government still won’t outline their plan to meet their 2030 emissions targets.
  • The procurement process for new call centre technology has been a mess.
  • Health Canada isn’t following up on high-risk pesticides identified with monitoring.
  • PHAC has not effectively managed their emergency stockpiles.
  • The government stopped work on banning thermal coal exports without saying so.

There is a common theme about a lack of oversight in many of these reports, and while a lot of these issues are from the Trudeau era, I have observed that there was an issue with a lack of proper management of government departments, where the attitude seemed to be that these civil servants were left to manage their own affairs, which they didn’t necessarily do effectively. Whether that’s because ministers didn’t feel they were qualified to because they were constantly reporting to the Centre (meaning the chief of staff) was a possibility, or perhaps it was because they didn’t realise that it was their responsibility to do so. I wonder if it will get worse under Carney, however, as ministers are preoccupied with trying to use digital asbestos to “find efficiencies,” or because major projects and decisions are being shunted off to Crown corporations to manage them instead, which are more arm’s-length, and as a result get less scrutiny. We’ll have to see, but the trend is not encouraging.

The government also released their first National Security Strategy in twenty years, and it was a slim, high-level document that had very few details, but outlined five broad themes, including a focus on economic security. There is also concern outlined about “frontier” digital asbestos being a major threat. Philippe Lagassé considers the defence-related items, while Stephanie Carvin has her initial thoughts here.

Carney says we are "forging new partnerships with allies that are anchored in our common values."What are our "common values" with China, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Türkiye, and Modi's India? If the common value is making money, then he should just come out and say so.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-10-30T00:54:22.514Z

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2026-10-29T19:08:01.843Z

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QP: Questions about “hot meat markets”

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The PM was off to Türkiye to advance trade talks, while Pierre Poilievre was present. Poilievre led off in French, and cited that Statistics Canada says that they undercounted the people in the country by 300,000, and wondered how this could mean we need more immigration. Curiously, Jill McKnight got up to say that they have been working on immigration since the start of the “new government.” Poilievre then tried to needle that the PM was abroad again, got warned by the Speaker, and then went into a question about food bank use. François-Philippe Champagne retorted that Poilievre has been here for twenty years and done nothing to help people. Poilievre switched to English to lambaste that the PM was signing an “unenforceable” agreement while people in Canada go hungry and unfocused. Champagne repeated his same response. Poilievre then repeated the question about undercounting immigrants, and Champagne stated that they have been getting immigration “under control” before he went on a paean about people who want to choose Canada. Poilievre tried again, and Patty Hajdu suggested he speak to his caucus about not demonising immigration because immigrants are hard workers who build businesses, and his own caucus members keep asking for more temporary foreign workers in their ridings. Poilievre kept at it, and insisted the system was “out of control,” and demanded provinces get more powers over immigration. Hajdu said that they have been working closely with provinces and territories to ensure that they have the flexibility they need, before tearing into the Conservatives for demonising immigration.

Patty Hajdu lambasted the Conservatives for demonizing immigration, which was met by howls of “shame on you!” from the Conservative benches. #QP

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-10-22T18:31:44.846Z

Christine Normandin led for the Bloc, and she cited 59 scientists from the Royal Society of Canada against Bill C-39, and wondered if the government would listen to science. Joël Lightbound trotted out the talking points about building more in Canada. Normandin then quoted Steven Guilbeault’s criticism of the bill, and Lightbound raised Churchill Falls as a need for the bill. Patrick Bonin repeated Normandin’s quotes into a single question, and Julie Dabrusin insisted they are building clean energy projects with that bill.

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QP: Cutting and pasting the new food banks numbers

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The PM in the building, just down the hall, making an announcement with Doug Ford, but not in QP, and won’t be this week at all as he jets off to Türkiye later today. Pierre Poilievre was present, however, and he led off in French, and he raised Food Banks Canada’s latest report, and wondered what happened to Mark Carney saying people can judge him by the prices at the grocery store. Joël Lightbound thanked him for the question and recited how many Canadians benefit from programmes like dental care and the Canada Child Benefit. Poilievre complained that the government voted against their Supply Day motion that there is an affordability crisis, and Lightbound responded that Poilievre has spent twenty years voting against help for Canadians. Poilievre switched to English to repeat the question about the Food Banks Canada report, and Evan Solomon got up to first express his thanks for the work Poilievre did in Wainwrigth, before patting himself on the back for programmes the government delivers. Poilievre quoted a line from the Food Banks report, to which Solomon thundered about the benefits that they deliver to Canadians, and insisted that the Conservatives were all talk on because they opposed it. Poilievre took the bait, and listed the things that the government as all talk about (even though most of the items on that list were either torqued or out of context). Solomon got up to repeat his same points with added excitement. Poilievre insisted that the only thing the government was feeding was interest on the federal debt, and Solomon listed the statistics on growth and cherry-picked job numbers.

Christine Normandin led for the Bloc, and denounced Bill C-39 as conservative authoritarian overreach, that this exceeded the wildest dreams of Stephen Harper, and it was no surprise that Conservatives were crossing the floor to the Liberals. Sean Fraser disputed this and praised its goal of building more. Normandin listed groups that are against the bill, and said the only people in favour are the Conservatives. Julie Dabrusin patted herself on the back for all of the green projects that this legislation would support. Andréanne Larouche took over to decry that the same bill is an attack on labour rights, and wondered how the Liberals could be more anti-union than the Conservatives. Joël Lightbound insisted that they only want parties in labour negotiations to get along.

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QP: Commissionaires and deficit numbers

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The PM was in the building but not present, while Pierre Poilievre was in Calgary. After some tearful statements about Wainwright, it was Michael Barrett who led off, and he lamented that the CRA went with an American-linked security firm instead of the Canadian Commissionaires for a contract (ignoring that the Commissionaires are no longer a company that primarily hires veterans). Wayne Long reminded him that politicians are not involved with such decisions and the CRA operates independently, and that the CRA has a policy of prioritising Canadian procurement, and that this was a Canadian-owned firm. Barrett repeated the question, and got the same response. Melissa Lantsman took over and raised the PBO’s latest report and its dire warnings, and demanded the government rein in spending. François-Philippe Champagne replied with the “good news” of our growth figures and the fact that we have the lowest debt and deficit in the G7. Lantsman disputed this, and Champagne carried on with more good news, decrying the Conservatives talking down the economy. Luc Berthold took over to read the same script about the PBO en français, and Champagne listed some benefits available to Canadians. Berthold retorted that every new benefit means more Canadians at food banks (erm, correlation ≠ causation, my dude), and Champagne decried that the Conservatives only vote against supports for Canadians.

Yves-François Blanchet led for the Bloc, and he denounced Bill C-39 as an abuse of power, and Steven MacKinnon took the opportunity to thank Albertans for voting in favour of Canada, and then mouthed some platitudes about the bill. Blanchet listed ways that C-39 could be an attack on Quebec or national unity, and MacKinnon shrugged this off. Gabriel Ste-Marie listed the former employers of the Energy Regulator—all former oil executives, but Dominic LeBlanc gave him some bland assurances about valuing science and it only applying to federal bodies.

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QP: Resurrecting the economic record of Trudeau Senior

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The PM was away, having made a heat pump announcement in Sherbrooke, Quebec, while Pierre Poilievre was also absent, leaving it up to John Brassard to denounced that announcement as a conflict of interest with Brookfield. Steven MacKinnon took the opportunity to congratulate Ann Carson for her Nobel prize for literature. Brassard was snide about this, and again repeated the allegation of conflict. Nathalie Provost praised the announcement, and proclaimed how much it will save households and lower emissions. Jasraj Hallan recited talking  points about grocery prices and Thanksgiving, and François-Philippe Champagne took the opportunity to also praise the heat pump announcement while mumbling about stabilising prices. Hallan demanded that the government vote in favour of their supply day motion on there being an affordability crisis, and Champagne listed supports that they have offered Canadians. Dominique Vien also decried the cost of Thanksgiving dinner, but en français, and Provost again read the praise for the heat pump announcement. Vien also demanded support for their motion, and Provost noted how much was sent to Vien’s riding for the enhanced GST credit.

Christine Normandin led for the Bloc, and trolled that a backbench Liberal had concerns about C-39, and wondered who else was going to wake up. MacKinnon trotted out self-congratulating talking points about becoming a clean and conventional energy superpower, and implored the Bloc to support the bill in order to speed up Churchill Falls’ approvals. Normandin noted that most Liberals ran against this kind of thing, and Champagne claimed that the Bloc used to be in favour of building in Quebec, and he again raised Churchill Falls. Gabriel Ste-Marie took over and he too worried about the “Big Beautiful Bill.” MacKinnon listed more projects that the bill would benefit.

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QP: Diesel for Thanksgiving

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The PM was present for a second time this week, and on a Wednesday no less, which might actually be a first for this prime minister. Pierre Poilievre led off in French, and he wanted to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving, but for many families it won’t be happy for many families because the costs of a Thanksgiving dinner has gone up by ten percent, per Dalhousie University, and he wondered when Canadians would be able to have an “affordable Thanksgiving dinner.” Mark Carney echoed the well-wishes for Thanksgiving, and also made note of the previous members’ statement about the anniversary of October 7th, and closed by insisting that they have made life more affordable for families. Poilievre says the prime minister is disconnected from reality, not only with the cost of food but also housing, and cited a Habitat for Humanity study about Canadians being twice as likely as the average in 22 countries about giving up on the dream of buying a house. Carney pointed out that 12 million families received the enhanced GST benefit cheques, and that they are building affordable housing. Poilievre switched to English to again wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving, and repeated the same Dalhousie statistic. Carney repeated the well-wishes and that 12 million received the benefit, and that 22 million had their taxes cut, in addition to other government programmes. Poilievre insisted that Carney is out of touch  and “you are out of money,” sounding like he was directing that to the Speaker, before he repeated the Habitat for Humanity statistic. Carney tried to insist that he “just got here,” and after the uproar, corrected to say he’s only been here eighteen months compared to Poilievre’s 240 months, and patted himself on the back for announcements made. Poilievre derided this and insisted the government has done nothing, and Carney touted rent reductions and share of income spent on housing falling every single month. Poilievre insisted that nothing is actually getting built, to which Carney made another joke about just having got here, before he touted some economic good news statistics.

Yves-François Blanchet led for the Bloc, and he decried that the only priority of the government is the west coast pipeline as a sop to Alberta separatists, which might only fire up Quebec sovereigntists. Carney patted himself on the back for the Churchill Falls agreement, and insisted the pipeline was for Canada’s sovereignty and independence. Blanchet needled that the biggest project in Quebec is actually Newfoundland, and that the beneficiaries of the pipeline are American owners. Carney started that Churchill Falls contains $200 billion in investments for Quebec. Blanchet then pointed out that the government is starving the arts and not helping forestry or aluminium, but they have all kinds of money for this pipeline. Carney again insisted that they are investing in Quebec, and listed some additional projects including high speed rail.

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The thing about diesel prices…

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As you may have gathered, the Conservatives are demanding the government adopt their “emergency diesel price relief” Supply Day motion, whose key features are to extend the excise fuel tax relief until Canada Day next year (beyond where the Liberals are proposing to under C-38), and to kill the industrial carbon price (which has precious little bearing on the price of diesel), and ending the Clean Fuel Standard (which again, has nothing to do with the price, and the government points out is creating a market for biodiesel using canola from Canadian farms, with a production facility in Poilievre’s own riding). It’s pure theatre and is, by sheer coincidence, the same demands Poilievre makes for everything.

But it’s all so stupid. They should have an inkling of the diesel market in this country, and clearly, they have no idea. They’re more interested in rage-bait and fear-mongering than they are in facts, because of course they are. So here’s Andrew Leach with a few correctives:

https://twitter.com/andrew_leach/status/2103509626641915953

https://twitter.com/andrew_leach/status/2103514404348465165

Andrew Scheer is also not helping himself by making big pronouncements about the energy market that are decidedly false. Because Andrew Scheer.

https://twitter.com/andrew_leach/status/2106776520077533326

Conservatives demanding the National Energy Programme 2.0 will never not be absolutely hilarious.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2026-10-06T13:08:04.325Z

My Latest:

For Xtra Magazine, I get some reaction to the Canadian government’s curious silence about the LGBTQ+ crackdown in Türkiye, while they negotiate a trade deal.

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