The New Democratic Party’s plan that includes creating a national pharmacare system, increasing the availability of dental care and building 500,000 new affordable homes would lead to a government deficit of between $28 billion and $33 billion in the first year of their mandate, their platform costed by the independent Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO) projects.

A Liberal government’s deficit next year would be $27 billion, according to their earlier announced platform. Overall, the NDP’s platform includes $35,004 in new spending and $30,543 in new revenues in the first year.

The NDP’s expected deficit shrinks to between $18 billion and $13 billion in 2021-22, between $16 billion and $11 billion in 2022-23, and between $16 billion and $11 billion in 2023-24.

The variance in the NDP’s deficit projections are due to a contingency fund they’ve included in their costed platform, which is a 15 per cent buffer fund to account for any revenue shortfall or to account for an unforeseen economic downturn. The NDP’s contingency fund is $4.6 billion in 2020-21. The Liberals allocated $3 billion next year in their last budget, for a similar purpose.

The baseline budgetary balance — which is what the next government will inherit, prior to any new spending, revenue generation or cuts — is $23 billion next year. In 2021-22 the baseline is $15 billion; in 2022-23 the baseline is $13 billion; in 2023-24 the baseline is $11 billion.

READ MORE: Singh lays out the NDP’s priorities for next Parliament

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh wouldn’t speculate about how many years it would take for a government led by him to balance the budget. Instead, he pointed to the party’s projection of how Canada’s debt-to-GDP ratio — which is a comparison of a government’s debt to what it produces — would gradually shrink over the next four years, under an NDP plan.

Marquee NDP promises carry heavy first-year costs, including their promise to build 500,000 affordable homes ($5 billion in the 2020-21 before dropping to $3 billion annually), their pledge to create a national pharmacare system ($10.2 billion in 2020-21, gradually increasing to $11.4 billion in 2023-24) and their promise to offer taxpayer-funded dental care to low and middle income Canadians ($1.9 billion in 2020-21 before dropping to about $800 million annually).

The New Democratic Party is planning for its tax hikes on corporate incomes and capital gains as well as funds created by cracking down on money kept in tax havens and implementing a tax targeting Canada’s most wealthy to cover the costs of three-quarters of the new investments they would make if elected as Canada’s next government.

The party’s biggest revenue-generator is their plan to return the capital gains tax rate to early 2000s levels. Currently, 50 per cent of capital gains (such as revenues generated on stocks) are taxed at the rate of the individual’s tax bracket. An NDP government would make Canadians pay taxes on 75 per cent of their capital gains.

The NDP would also increase the federal corporate income tax rate by three per cent to 18 per cent, as it was in 2010. It’s been gradually lowered since 2007 when it was just above 22 per cent. The party expects the hike to generate $6.3 billion in revenue in the first year. Revenue generated by increasing the tax rate would grow to $7.4 billion by 2023-24, according to the PBO’s analysis.

By cracking down on tax havens, which the NDP plan to do by implementing several measures suggested by the intergovernmental Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development on how to counter offshore tax evasion, would generate $5.8 billion in the first year. Revenue from this measure shrinks to $5 billion in 2023-24, accounting for a change in the habits of Canadians’ who use tax havens.

The NDP expects its much-hyped “super wealth” tax of one per cent on individuals’ wealth of more than $20 million to create $5.6 billion in revenue in the first year. By 2023-24, the NDP are budgeting to collect $6.8 billion through their wealth tax.

Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren has pitched a similar idea to the NDP in the U.S., proposing to tax individuals’ wealth over $50 million at a rate of two per cent, and to impose a levy of three per cent on the wealth of individuals’ surpassing $1 billion.

The $26 billion the NDP plans to raise with its top four highest generating fiscal measures account for 84 per cent of total revenues in the party’s platform, in 2020-21. If the party’s next-largest tax-generating measure is included — their plan to impose a three per cent tax on e-commerce companies who generate more than $1 billion in revenue, including $40 million in revenue in Canada — then the New Democrat’s five largest new tax measures account for 90 per cent of the revenue the party plans to raise to pay for new government services.

The PBO’s projections of how much revenue the NDP’s taxes are reported in the platform as the middle figure in a 60 per cent variance, which suggests revenues could be as much as 30 per cent higher or lower than expected.

The former Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page, who is now the lead of the team of economists at the Institute of Fiscal Studies and Democracy (IFSD) at the University of Ottawa, released a credibility assessment of the NDP’s costed platform shortly after it was released, giving it a “pass.”

The IFSD gave the platform passing scores on two of the principles that it’s been grading the party’s fiscal platforms on – for using realistic and credible economic and fiscal projections, and for exercising fiscal management – but a failing grade in terms of transparency. It failed in terms of transparency because it lacks details, doesn’t outline priorities or timelines for objectives and because it was made public only after the commissioned debate and on the same day as the start of advanced polling.

Page’s institute’s verdict on the NDP’s platform is similar to his review of the Greens’ second attempt at a costed platform, which it gave a pass (the first costed platform the Greens released was given a failing grade), but was not as well received as the Liberals partial platform that they had costed, which received a grading of “good.”

The Conservatives will be the last of the major political parties to release their costed platform, which they plan on doing on Friday afternoon. Conservative Party Leader Andrew Scheer has said a government led by him would return the budget to balanced in five years. The Green party is projecting a $41 billion deficit in the first year of being in government and say they can return to a balanced budget by 2024-25.

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