David Dodge joins BNN Bloomberg to talk about some of the fiscal considerations for the federal government as it prepares to table its 2024 budget.
David says the biggest issue is there is too much spending on consumption and not enough on investment to make the economy more productive. This is a long-standing issue in Canada and has to be addressed now.
"This problem has built over time and is only going to be solved over time," David says. "But the time we have to start solving it is now – in this budget. That does not imply that one budget alone is going to be able to do the trick. It has to be a continued effort to tilt towards investment, to tilt towards encouraging households to save, and quite frankly, to tilt towards reducing current consumption in order to make room for investment that will mean we have sustainable ability to grow the economy and to grow the standard of living."
When asked about how government spending affects the fight against inflation, David said, "Continuing to focus on total spending and not on what the spending is going on – that is the real problem. If we're spending to make investments for the future that mean we're going to have stronger incomes and growth, then that's a very different sort of spending than spending on consumption."
The full video is available on BNN Bloomberg's website.
Bennett Jones