Spend Less, Invest More

A New Approach to Fiscal Management and Growth for Canada — We need a government that spends less, so Canada can invest more. In recent years, the federal government has been spending too much. Total spending has increased by around 9% per year on average over the past decade1, and the federal workforce has grown over 40% in total since 2015.2 Moreover, the federal government has consistently missed its spending targets and breached its fiscal guardrails. At the same time, Canada is investing too little, both relative to the past and compared to the enormous opportunities ahead. For example, Canada must invest $2 trillion by 2050—about $80 billion per year—to become carbon competitive and achieve Net Zero. However, investments in decarbonisation currently run between $10–20 billion annually.3 Canada's available compute resources—including its data centres, cloud, AI systems and supercomputers—are notably behind leaders such as the United States, Japan, and China, constraining the criti

saved by

• Sanjana Shah