Report

Economic and Fiscal Outlook — March 2023

Mar 2, 2023

This report provides a baseline projection to help parliamentarians gauge potential economic and fiscal outcomes under current policy settings.

Supplementary Data (xlsx)
Supplementary information - Appendix F: Direct program expenses

Highlights

Following a stronger-than-expected performance in the second half of 2022, PBO projects the Canadian economy to stagnate through 2023. As the tightening of monetary policy takes hold, we expect a further decline in residential investment and weakness in consumer spending in the first half of this year.
PBO expects the Bank of Canada to maintain its “pause”, holding the policy interest rate at 4.5 per cent, through December of this year. With CPI inflation solidly on track to return to its 2 per cent target, we then expect the Bank to start lowering its policy rate in January 2024, returning the rate to its estimated neutral level of 2.5 per cent in December 2024.
For the current fiscal year, 2022-23, PBO projects the budgetary deficit to be $36.5 billion (1.3 per cent of GDP) under status quo policy. Assuming no new measures and existing temporary measures sunset as scheduled, the deficit is projected to increase to $43.1 billion (1.5 per cent of GDP) in 2023-24 before resuming its downward trajectory, falling to $8.7 billion (0.3 per cent of GDP) in 2027-28.
Under status quo policy, PBO projects the federal debt-to-GDP ratio to decline to 41.8 per cent in 2022-23 and then to temporarily rise to 42.2 per cent in 2023-24. Assuming no new measures and existing temporary measures sunset as scheduled, the federal debt ratio is projected to fall to 38.1 per cent in 2027-28 but remain above its pre-pandemic level of 31.2 per cent of GDP in 2019-20.
PBO projects the debt service ratio (that is, public debt charges relative to tax revenues) under status quo policy will peak at 11.5 per cent in 2023-24 and then decline gradually to 10.3 per cent in 2027-28—two percentage points above its pre-pandemic low of 8.3 per cent in 2018 19.