OTTAWA—The Liberal Party’s 2019 platform merits good grades for fiscal management and transparency, according to an independent analysis by economists at the University of Ottawa.

But while the platform scored well overall, the Institute for Fiscal Studies and Democracy cautioned that the Liberals’ plan may be overlooking some challenges facing the Canadian economy in the longer term.

The Liberal platform, released Sunday, includes $56.86 billion in new spending commitments over the next four years. That new spending is partially offset by new “revenue measures” — including closing corporate tax loopholes and reviewing government spending — projected to bring in $25.38 billion over the same period.

While the dollar figures are big, IFSD characterizes the Liberals’ plans as “modest fiscal expansion” — noting the Liberals’ projected deficits still amount to just two-thirds of a per cent of Canada’s GDP.

The debt-to-GDP ratio — the Liberals’ chosen indicator for the government’s fiscal sustainability — is also projected to decline from 30.9 per cent in 2020-21 to 30.2 per cent in 2023-24.

“It’s a credible fiscal plan from (the) point of view of a party platform,” said Kevin Page, the former parliamentary budget officer who leads the IFSD, in an interview Sunday.

“The marks are strong, overall. It sets a pretty high standard.”

The IFSD is grading party platforms based on three broad categories: realistic economic and fiscal assumptions, responsible fiscal management, and transparency.

The Liberals scored “good” in terms of both fiscal management and transparency, receiving a “pass” on how realistic their economic assumptions were.

“There’s not a lot of work in this document that really lines up economic and fiscal challenges to specific measures,” Page said.

“There’s some high-level messages … (The platform suggests) the key economic challenge that we face in the country deals with affordability.”

“(But) there’s not a lot of talk about (Canada’s) major productivity challenge, our competitiveness issues … Some of these challenges are just ignored, so you can’t give them more than a pass on this.”

The Liberals plan faired much better with Page and his team’s analysis than the Green Party. Elizabeth May’s “fully costed” platform, released last week, received failing grades on all three categories the IFSD scored.

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