The Liberal government’s audited books for the year that ended March 31 show a $39.3 billion deficit, yet the Treasury Board release announcing the Public Accounts of Canada never uses the word. Revenues came to $526.4 billion and spending to $565.7 billion.
The detailed tables behind the release show what else it left out: $12.7 billion in debts written off or forgiven, a refugee health bill past $1 billion, and a $105.1 million pandemic-era loss at the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) that is still on the books.
Treasury Board President Shafqat Ali tabled the Public Accounts in the House of Commons on November 6, one day after Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne’s budget. The release lists revenue sources and spending categories in detail, with growth rates for each, and leaves readers to do the math. Annex 1 of Champagne’s budget shows the same deficit, listed as a budgetary balance of minus $39.3 billion for 2025-26.
The final number is far smaller than Finance Canada’s preliminary count. The March Fiscal Monitor, published before the books were closed, reported “a budgetary deficit of $55.3 billion for the April 2025 to March 2026 period” on revenues of $500.0 billion.
Audited revenue is $26.4 billion higher than that tally, and the release does not explain the gap beyond noting higher customs import duties and personal income tax of $247.7 billion, or 47.1 per cent of all revenue, up from 45.9 per cent the year before.
Interest on the debt cost $53.5 billion, or 9.5 per cent of all spending. That is more than the $51.8 billion Ottawa collected in GST (goods and services tax) in the same year.
Canadian Taxpayers Federation president Franco Terrazzano called debt interest the budget’s biggest waste in an interview with Ezra Levant, saying it costs Canadians more than $1 billion every week.
