It has been 497 days since Canada last had a federal budget , which is unacceptable. Budgets are the primary tool by which governments seek Parliament’s approval for taxation and spending. Yet Canadians have been left in the dark, forced to accept government funding by special warrants — spending without Parliamentary approval — for much of the early part of 2025. That should concern us all.

Yet, despite this glaring absence, Prime Minister Mark Carney ’s extended honeymoon with the public rolls on. Canadians seem remarkably tolerant of a government that has avoided presenting the most basic instrument of fiscal accountability. Instead, Canada should loudly reject this kind of governance.

A budget is not a ceremonial speech or a political talking point; it is the plan. Budgets are financial tools to help guide overall operational plans, including revenues, expenditures, cash flow and capital outlays for the upcoming period. Without one, transparency and accountability are undermined. Again, that should trouble us far more than it seems to.

There are no laws requiring the federal government to present an annual budget, but there are longstanding constitutional conventions that make it obligatory.

Since Canada was born in 1867, there has always been an annual full federal budget presented until 2020, the initial COVID-19 year, when, shockingly, there was no budget. There were annual budgets presented during the First and Second World Wars, the Great Depression years from 1929 until the 1930s and even with unstable minority governments — such as the Joe Clark government of 1979. Most countries around the world, including developing countries, also have a standard protocol to release an annual budget in advance.

Even when new governments are elected, there have always been budgets presented, often with short but reasonable delays. Having no budget presented in 2020 was out of step. Shortly after getting elected this spring, the new finance minister indicated that there would be no budget presented this year, opting instead for a fiscal update in the fall. However, Carney promised a fall budget after feeling the heat.

Do other countries have long periods of time elapsing between budget releases? No. It is not the norm. Yes, some countries have experienced unusual circumstances that have delayed budgets, but it is pretty rare to find experiences of long periods of delay.

For Canada, the normal release date has been in the early spring. Why? The federal government’s fiscal year ends on March 31. It is normal for budgets — whether it is by a government, for-profit business or non-profit — to be prepared and released in advance of the next fiscal year. To release a budget after the start of the fiscal year kind of defeats the whole purpose.

Canada’s release date for its annual budget, however, has been a guessing game over the years. It’s typically released just before the start of the next fiscal year in, say, mid-March, but it’s also common to be released shortly after as well. If an election falls within that period, then very shortly after the election.

Preparing a budget is not an easy task. It involves the hard work of the Department of Finance bureaucrats. Taxation measures need to be carefully crafted, usually by way of draft legislation and often presented by way of a Notice of Ways and Means Motion tabled immediately after presentation. In other words, there often needs to be sufficient time to properly prepare and release budget materials.

In 1985, finance minister Michael Wilson released a document , The Canadian Budgetary Process: Proposal For Improvement, that was presented as part of the 1985 federal budget. It proposed fixing an annual date for the release of the budget to “lessen the chronic concern, confusion and uncertainty” that accompanies “budget guessing” in the financial and business communities, the provinces and among Canadians generally.

The document also analyzed when that fixed date should be. It concluded that “a fixed date between mid-January and mid-February, while not entirely free of difficulty … would appear to be the optimum timing for an annual budget.”

Ultimately, the fixed budget date recommendation was not adopted. It’s not entirely clear to me why, but in a Westminster system of government where budgets are confidence measures, it has been common for Canadian governments to jealously guard the flexibility to time budget release dates for maximum political advantage, even at the cost of transparency, predictability, and orderly fiscal management.

Other advanced economies have long since taken that path. The United States legislated a February deadline for the president’s budget submission. India delivers its union budget on Feb. 1 without fail. Australia is anchored to the second Tuesday in May, while the United Kingdom moved its main budget to every autumn. Interestingly, the U.K., India and Australia also have Westminster systems of government, but have traded political convenience for transparency by adopting a form of fixed dates for budgets.

Sir Winston Churchill once said, “The longer you can look back, the farther you can look forward.” Brilliant.

Forty years ago, the federal government made proactive recommendations to improve the Canadian budgetary process. It’s time to look back to that recommendation and reconsider it. There very well might be reasons to not adopt fixed-date budget releases that I have not thought of (other than the obvious political advantages that would be retained by the governing party for not adopting it), but there appear to be very compelling reasons to adopt it.

  • The CRA and government can often have problems when administering tax proposals as if they were law
  • The great wealth transfer requires more than a 20-year-old will and naming a few beneficiaries

Would fixed dates eliminate or reduce the recent experiences of not having a budget timely released? It can’t hurt. Churchill was right: looking back shows us the discipline we once had. Looking forward, Canadians deserve no less than a government that delivers a budget on time. Honeymoon or not.

Kim Moody, FCPA, FCA, TEP, is the founder of Moodys Tax/Moodys Private Client, a former chair of the Canadian Tax Foundation, former chair of the Society of Estate Practitioners (Canada) and has held many other leadership positions in the Canadian tax community. He can be reached at kgcm@kimgcmoody.com and his LinkedIn profile is https://www.linkedin.com/in/kimgcmoody.

_____________________________________________________________

If you like this story, sign up for the FP Investor Newsletter.

_____________________________________________________________