I'm Sure That This Is Nothing At All to Be Worried About

 Budgets, I've been told, balance themselves:

The Canadian economy suffered its worst three-month stretch on record in the second quarter as the economy came to a near halt in April before starting to recover in May and June.

Statistics Canada said Friday real gross domestic product contracted at an annualized rate of 38.7 per cent for the quarter, the worst posting for the economy dating back to when comparable data was first recorded in 1961.

Almost every single component of the economy used to calculate GDP was at its lowest point during the three-month stretch — driven largely by widespread lockdowns in April meant to slow the spread of COVID-19

(Sidebar: this Statistics Canada.)

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The unmooring of Canada’s fiscal anchor — an explicit commitment to balanced budgets — and the failure to replace it with a convincing alternative contributed to Fitch Ratings’ decision in June to remove Canada from its exclusive club of AAA sovereigns.

(Sidebar: these ratings.)

The agency reckons that Canada’s potential growth rate — the pace at which the economy can expand without stoking rapid inflation — has shrunk to a mere one per cent, raising questions about whether politicians will be able to rely on economic growth alone to shrink their COVID-19 deficits.

** 

The federal government ran a deficit of $120.4 billion during the first three months of its 2020-2021 fiscal year as the treasury pumped out aid to cushion the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The result compared with a deficit of $85 million for the same period in the 2019-2020 fiscal year.

**

Alberta’s estimated massive budget deficit this year could mark a record for the province and could emerge as the largest deficit in percentage terms for any province in the country over the past 35 years.

Alberta’s government tabled a fiscal update Thursday that showed an expected budget deficit of $24.2 billion, which is 230 per cent, or $16.8 billion, higher than its previous budget for 2020/21 announced in February.

The coronavirus pandemic, related collapse in oil prices this year and sharp decline in tourism has hit Alberta’s economy particularly hard, Bank of Montreal chief economist and managing director Doug Porter said Thursday.

“Let’s face it, every single budget deficit number (within Canada and beyond) that we’re seeing tends to be shocking because they’re all numbers we’ve never seen before,” Porter said, but cautioned that “proportionately, Alberta’s is large. It’s the largest provincial deficit number as a share of GDP,” he said.

 

(Sidebar: it must suck when Canada's responsible adult among the provinces is going under.) 

These problems look so minuscule and unimportant that it doesn't matter that Justin's uglier but equally corrupt brother was paid $67,000 in "talent fees" or that former finance minister Bill Morneau billed the taxpayers over $81,000 in travel fees or that federal employees stuck taxpayers with equally high bills or that $237 million was paid for ventilators from Frank Baylis ...

(Sidebar: this Frank Baylis.)

 .. or that Industry (formerly Climate) Barbie can't account for money again.

 

I'm sure that none of that is important.