Carney’s Budget Delay Dashes Hopes of Financial Delivery
PM Mark Carney, “financial wizard,” skips 2025 Canada budget, leaving businesses in limbo amid $1.236T debt and tariffs. Fall update looms. #CanadaEconomy
Mark Carney
By Elke Porter | WBN News Vancouver | May 15, 2025
Mark Carney, Canada’s new Prime Minister and heralded “financial wizard,” was expected to mend the nation’s fractured economy when sworn in on March 14, 2025. A Harvard and Oxford graduate, Carney’s tenure as Governor of the Bank of Canada and Bank of England fueled hopes he’d piece Humpty Dumpty—Canada’s fiscal mess—back together.
Yet, almost two months into his Liberal minority government, Carney’s decision to skip a 2025 federal budget has sparked accusations of broken promises, leaving small businesses and entrepreneurs in limbo.
Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne cites U.S. tariffs and market uncertainty as reasons for delaying the budget, promising a “substantial” fall economic update instead. Canada can legally operate without a budget, relying on prior appropriations, but the absence of fiscal clarity disrupts planning.
The last budget, tabled in April 2024, offered small business relief like lower credit card fees and a $1.25 million capital gains exemption, but these remain stalled, exacerbating challenges from inflation, supply chain issues, and high borrowing costs (prime rate ~5.95%).
Also, Canada’s federal debt stands at $1.236 trillion CAD (42.1% of GDP), with total public debt hitting 110.77% of GDP ($2.48 trillion USD). Interest payments, projected at 1.8% of GDP, strain finances. Carney’s fiscal plan, adding $225 billion to the debt over four years, and laying out average deficits of $56.9 billion annually, is proposing to rack up a level of non-emergency debt that will not have been matched since Mulroney’s second term, which was considered one of the worst in Canadian history.
Carney has pledged to balance the federal government’s operating budget in three years while maintaining a “small deficit” for long-term capital investments. In addition to tax relief, the government plans to advance initiatives in national defence, infrastructure, housing, and industrial protection in response to international pressures, including U.S. tariffs.
Carney defends his approach, promising investments in housing, AI, and supply chains, plus a middle-class tax cut by July 2025. However, his lack of elected experience and budget delay are undermining his financial wizardry image.
Small businesses, facing whiplash in an already volatile market, are awaiting the fall economic update for clarity and have no choice but to rely on government promises and media speculation to make their annual budgets. With uncertainty looming, many are holding back on hiring or expansion, wary of policy shifts that could impact interest rates, taxation, supply chains and consumer confidence.
This is how Mark Carney's decision to skip a 2025 federal budget has split opinions, with supporters defending his strategy while critics lament the realization of their worst fears. The fall economic update, due in the fall of 2025, is his next chance to unify opinions—or deepen the divide.
#Mark Carney #Canada Budget 2025 #Financial Wizard #Small Business Canada #Federal Debt #Economic Uncertainty #WBN News Vancouver #Elke Porter
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