The federal government tabled its second budget on March 22, some 18 months after its electoral victory. As if to draw a sharp contrast with the practices of the previous governments, serious commitments were made in that election on open and transparent government, evidence-based policy and fiscal planning.

While many millennials supported the government’s desire for real change, a careful reading of Budget 2017 illustrates that the path towards change has largely been relegated to the future. Sadly, as the saying goes, “there’s never a right time to do a difficult thing.”

Budgets are important documents from different perspectives — fiscal, policy and political. According to Robert Marleau and Camille Montpetit, two Canadian experts on parliamentary procedure and practice, budgets are first and foremost “a comprehensive assessment of the financial standing of the government and an overview of the nation’s economic condition.” Have policy announcements and political strategies overtaken fiscal planning as the primary focus of budgets?

Our concern is that the quality of federal budget documents is deteriorating. Budgets are no longer simple, clear and transparent. Successive governments are tabling documents that are very difficult to read, even for well-informed voters, and are only providing a cursory assessment of the financial standing of the government. There is a trend towards less objective and substantive decision support analysis. The accountability gaps and faultlines in budgetary documents are getting bigger.

Do governments have strong incentives to produce “simple, clear and transparent budgets”? Two well-known international economists, Alberto Alesina and Enrico Perotti, say ‘no’. They argue that citizens suffer from a type of “fiscal illusion” — we tend to overestimate the benefits of increased public spending and underestimate the costs of taxation that often stem from higher debt. Furthermore, and perhaps more disconcerting, they and others have argued that government policymakers can strategically use confusion, ambiguity and lack of transparency to promote the use of budgetary deficits to achieve opportunistic political goals.

Take a closer look.

There is a disturbing trend in budget length and measures. Budget 2006 — the first budget of Prime Minister Harper’s government — weighed in at 306 pages with significant fiscal impacts in years one and two of about $15 billion annually. Budget 2015 weighed in at 528 pages, with less than $15 billion in new measures over a six-year period.

Is history repeating itself? The longer the political cycle, the longer the budget and the lower the value of new measures.

Budget 2016 — the first budget of Prime Minister Trudeau — weighed in at 269 pages. It introduced $11.6 billion in new measures in the first year, and about $14.9 billion in the second. We do not know the six-year cost of the measures because the cost was not provided — a significant planning and accountability gap, particularly given the platform commitment to provide “costing analysis for each government bill.”

By comparison, Budget 2017 weighed in about 10 pages heavier. According to budgetary documents, the cost of policy actions undertaken since the Fall Economic Statement 2016 update and the measures proposed in Budget 2017 added up to about $5.7 billion dollars over six years. Sound familiar?

Are lengthy budgets a deliberate strategy to confuse voters? It’s not easy for citizens to wade through 300 or 500 pages.

And lengthy budgets have not always been the norm in Canada. Liberal Finance Minister Allan MacEachen’s 1980 budget, for example, was only 50 pages including annexes. Progressive Conservative Finance Minister Michael Wilson’s 1987 budget was only 43 pages, including the fiscal reference tables.

Parliament and Canadians have no idea where these funds are coming from. They cannot hold the government to account. This is a practice that was started under the previous government. Parliament and Canadians have no idea where these funds are coming from. They cannot hold the government to account. This is a practice that was started under the previous government.

In fact, all of the federal budgets tabled up to the mid 1990s were under 200 pages in length; most were under 100 pages.

Once, it was the practice in this country to separate the federal budget (the fiscal plan) from policy documents. According to the Library of Parliament, 20 white (policy) papers were released between 2000 and 2010. Only two have been released since 2010.

Should the Liberal government release white papers on major long-term issues related to income distribution and the middle class, infrastructure, health care, First Nations, innovation and skills? Could well-articulated white papers promote the government’s commitment to open and transparent government and evidence-based policy — while making budgets shorter and more readable?

Another disturbing trend in budget documents is the weak analysis in the fiscal plan itself. Key budget numbers on the economic and fiscal outlook have now been relegated to the budget annex. Yes … we did say annex.

The government’s electoral platform promised better financial oversight of taxpayer dollars. (“Canadians understand the importance of saving, spending and borrowing responsibly. Our government should hold itself to the same standard.”) The platform also identified two fiscal anchors — reduction of the debt-to-GDP ratio to 27 per cent and a balanced budget — guiding the overall fiscal framework to maintain a sustainable fiscal position.

However, the lack of analysis and discussion around the two fiscal anchors and the government’s revised fiscal strategy runs counter to better financial oversight and accountability. A very small number of the 278 pages of the budget were dedicated to the government’s overall fiscal position — primarily in the form of tables, with little (or no) analysis.

Unlike the case of the Liberal governments of the 1990s, there are no annual budget balance targets. The use of contingency reserves has changed three times over the past year with little or no rationale offered.

Unlike governments in the European Union and the U.S., there is no analysis on the cyclical and structural nature of budgetary deficits. There is no systematic analysis of debt sustainability, despite the large increases in spending and the projected run-up in federal debt. The addition of gender-based analysis is a welcome development but it should not come at the expense of other critical analysis.

Clearly the federal government has strayed far from the noble intentions stated in its 2015 electoral platform, where the Liberals provided a timely costing of their proposed initiatives and made strong commitments to evidence-based policy.

Yet another disturbing trend in the fiscal documents throughout the financial cycle relates to weak accountability.

The primary source of funds in Budget 2017 for new initiatives is described as “less funds existing in the fiscal framework, sourced from department resources or projected revenues.” Total gross investments in Budget 2017 over six years total $31.8 billion. As noted, we have 278 pages providing some level of detail on these new measures. Funds extracted from the framework with absolutely no pages or details total $27.1 billion.

Parliament and Canadians have no idea where these funds are coming from. They cannot hold the government to account. This is a practice that was started under the previous government.

The government should be commended for tackling difficult issues, like strengthening the middle class and reducing the infrastructure deficit. It should be noted, however, that there is no plan — no performance indicators backed up by a needs assessment. In areas like infrastructure, all we have are tables detailing how much money will be spent.

Governments want only to be held accountable for spending, not for what that spending actually does. Note: No departmental spending plans were tabled after Budget 2016 consistent with the near-record increases in spending announced in the budget. What will happen after Budget 2017? The clock ticks.

Bruce Cockburn, an iconic Canadian folk singer, wrote a popular song in the early 1980s called ‘The Trouble with Normal’. In the current global political environment the song seems almost prescient, with its warnings about the “grinding devolution of the democratic dream” and a bar on political behaviour continuously being set lower.

“The trouble with normal,” the song goes, “is that it always gets worse.” Budget deficits are on the rise. Public debt is expected to increase by more than 20 per cent over the next six years. The ends are not meeting and the means are not changing.

We must do better.

Azfar Ali Khan and Kevin Page of the Institute of Fiscal Studies and Democracy, University of Ottawa, contributed to this article.

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