Ministers also expected to take scissors to office budgets in spending review

The challenge in cutting ministers’ budgets is ensuring their offices ‘can still do what they need to do, and only they can do,’ says former chief of staff David McLaughlin.
Any new industrial strategy must be an innovation strategy

Canada’s capacity for technological progress and scaling the industries of the future will be critical for our future growth prospects and much-needed gains in productivity.
Ottawa must include small businesses in open banking from day one

Canada cannot afford another half-built system. In order to call this framework “open banking,” it must immediately apply to business accounts. Anything less is branding.
Transport Canada projects 1,000 fewer jobs by 2027-28, with green programs on the chopping block

A 41-per-cent drop in planned spending by 2028 is largely due to limited-time funding for certain projects coming to a close, but the department says it will seek to renew ‘sunset funding’ for ‘critical activities’ in upcoming budgets.
Air Canada mess is a lesson for government

The government’s goal of reducing spending across the board is too much like Air Canada cutting all of its flights overnight without due process. Budgeting is both about money and effectiveness. When the focus is only on the money, the link to the end user’s satisfaction is broken.
Shoring up supports for people and communities in a turbulent trade climate

The fall budget should aim to reduce the cost of essentials, modernize EI, and create place-based transition tools.
The feds have the tools they need to reshape the country. Will they use them?

The transition required in the months ahead will be disruptive, requiring an unprecedented level of leadership. Without such leadership, it will fail.
Cuts to Indigenous Services Canada sparking concerns of return to ‘Band-Aid solutions,’ and ‘mistakes of the past’

Métis National Council president Victoria Pruden says Indigenous governments are ready to oversee the delivery of some services themselves—‘a win-win’ for a department that could reduce ‘administrative bloat.’
Time is ripe to revamp federal budgeting processes

Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne’s post-election announcement that no federal budget would be tabled this spring, and would instead be delivered in the fall, set tongues wagging this past May. Criticisms came from all corners of the House, but subsequent opposition attempts to force Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government to table a spring spending plan came […]
Carney’s budget expected to be ‘consequential,’ as Canada faces unprecedented challenges from a volatile Trump, say politicos

Perrin Beatty, former president of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, says the government needs to give a clear indication to businesses what its plans are, and expects there will be some pretty tough news, as Canada’s fights a trade war with the U.S.