The federal finance minister has warned Conservatives to stop their claims of a looming recession.
Bill Morneau also told the media on the weekend that the country’s economic track will have a bearing on how the Liberals steer their government’s budget in the coming years.
On CTV Sunday, Morneau warned his Conservative critics to avoid the "irresponsible" claims when private sector economists project growth, which the fiscal update estimated at 1.7% this year and 1.6% in 2020.
The projections would make Canada’s the second-fastest-growing economy among G7 countries, behind only the United States.
Conservatives have charged that the conditions are ripe for a "made-in-Canada" recession, fulled by the Liberals’ spending policies, as the party’s finance critic, Pierre Poilievre, claimed last Monday in the wake of the fiscal update.
The technical definition of a recession is two consecutive quarters of economic contraction, but the scope of the declines makes a difference between adorning the label to the downturn of 2008 or the split to do so for the two quarters of declines measured in 2015.
Morneau’s fiscal updates released Monday showed the Liberals’ projected deficit of $19.8 billion for this fiscal year will now be $26.6 billion, and next year it will be $28.1 billion before accounting for the Liberals’ election promises.
