The Week Ahead

One book, two books, Red Book, Blue Book

Back in the days when documents were still handed out in hard copy, Canada’s political parties issued their platforms in what they called a “book”, a Red Book for the Liberals, Blue for the Conservatives. These days, it’s a downloadable pdf, but the content is similarly glossy in tone if not physically so, comprising a sales pitch for the policy proposals, and a table that purports to show the fiscal implications.

Institutional investors were pouring over those tables this week in an effort to identify the implications for government bond supply, and to understand how much fiscal stimulus or restraint might impact the Bank of Canada’s need to cut rates. But while we welcome the details provided by Canada’s political parties, we would caution our clients that there could be quite a gap between what’s there in print, or on their screens these days, and what we might see on budget day this spring or the following year.

Chief Economist, Avery Shenfeld, delves deeper into this in the report below.