Does the federal budget land where it was promised?

Federal deficit widened to -1.48% of GDP over the four quarters ending 2026 Q2, against the declining-deficit-to-GDP anchor

Over the four quarters from 2025 Q3 through 2026 Q2, federal net lending or borrowing on the National Accounts basis was -1.48% of nominal GDP, versus -1.23% over 2024 Q3 through 2025 Q2 — a year-over-year deterioration. Each ratio divides the sum of four quarterly net-lending/borrowing observations by the sum of GDP for the same quarters; both inputs are seasonally adjusted at annual rates, so their common scaling cancels. The government's fiscal anchor (Budget 2025, reaffirmed in the Spring Economic Update 2026) names a declining deficit-to-GDP ratio over 2025-26 to 2030-31. This rolling-year test is Countability's stated pace convention, not a path the government promised each quarter. The National Accounts basis differs from Finance Canada's Public Accounts budgetary balance. Correction: this pace calculation now follows its registered four-quarter convention; the earlier implementation compared single quarters a year apart. The direction on the refreshed evidence is deterioration under either window, but the percentages differ.

Canada's federal debt, on three accounting concepts, at their own closest available dates

Four figures that are each publicly cited as 'the federal debt,' pinned side by side with the concept, basis, and date each one carries: two Canadian Government Finance Statistics (CGFS) balance-sheet concepts from Statistics Canada (gross liabilities and net financial worth, calendar 2024, the most recent CGFS annual vintage available), and two Public Accounts-basis concepts from the Department of Finance's Fiscal Monitor (net debt and federal debt/accumulated deficit, both at 2026-03-31, unaudited pending the Public Accounts of Canada 2026). No concept is derived from another; none is asserted to be compositionally reconcilable with another; a published evidence gap states why. This entry pins each one from its own archived source bytes so the Fiscal Position and Settlement Brief's debt-concept chapter renders from citations, not render-time arithmetic.

• These four values are never combined, netted, or averaged into a single 'federal debt' figure. Each is pinned at its own concept, basis, date, and issuer; the Fiscal Position and Settlement Brief presents them side by side, with a stated read of when each is the right number to cite -- it does not adjudicate which is 'the' federal debt.
• The two CGFS values (calendar 2024) and the two Public Accounts-basis values (2026-03-31) are roughly two years apart -- CGFS is an annual compilation that lags the current quarter by about two years, while the Fiscal Monitor is current to the latest month. No interpolation or vintage-blending is performed to bring them to a common date; each concept is presented at its own latest available date, with that date printed beside it; a published evidence gap states why.
• Percentage-of-GDP figures for these four concepts are computed by the Brief's own window_share_of_gdp scenarios against Statistics Canada's nominal GDP series (already-grandfathered statcan:36-10-0104-01), dividing each concept by the average of its own reference year's four SAAR quarters of nominal GDP (calendar 2024 for the CGFS pair, fiscal year 2025-26 for the Public Accounts pair) -- the standard annual-GDP denominator, not computed or stored inside this Resolution, which pins dollar levels only.

The federal fiscal year month by month: the path to the 2025-26 in-year deficit, and its reconciliation to the published annual statement

The same fiscal year, read two ways by the same source. Statistics Canada's table 10-10-0133-01 redistributes the Department of Finance's monthly financial data -- the cube's own footnote reads, verbatim, 'Source: Department of Finance Canada.' and 'Monthly financial data is unaudited.' -- so the twelve monthly budgetary balances of fiscal 2025-26 can be summed and set against the annual figure the Fiscal Monitor publishes for the same year. This entry pins the monthly path, the annual totals it sums to, the single month that carries most of it, and the composition line where the two presentations differ, each from its own archived source bytes. It states what the record shows about how a federal fiscal year accumulates; it does not forecast, and it does not treat an unaudited in-year figure as a settled outcome.

• Every figure in this entry is unaudited. The source cube says so in its own footnote, and the Fiscal Monitor's HTML page says so in its own words. The audited outcome for fiscal 2025-26 is the Public Accounts of Canada, which had not been tabled when this entry was registered.
• The monthly series restates its own recent history. The cube's footnote states that changes in accounting policies, methodologies for estimating monthly balances, and the classification of balances between financial components are applied retroactively to monthly results for the fiscal year immediately preceding. No vintage archive of this series is published by anyone, so a figure pinned here cannot later be compared against what the same series said today unless these bytes are kept -- which is why they are archived with their hash.
• The monthly sums are addition and nothing else. No seasonal adjustment, annualisation, interpolation, or estimation is applied at any point. Where a sum differs from a published annual figure by one million dollars, the residual is the rounding carried by monthly values each stated to the nearest million, and it is reported rather than absorbed.

The federal budgetary balance for fiscal 2025-26, across four Finance Canada projection vintages, before the audited Public Accounts settle it

Canada's federal budgetary balance (surplus/deficit) for fiscal year 2025-26, as the Department of Finance Canada's own summary fiscal outlook stated it in four successive publications -- Budget 2024, the 2024 Fall Economic Statement, Budget 2025, and the Spring Economic Update 2026 -- each read from that publication's own headline fiscal table. No audited outcome exists yet: the Public Accounts of Canada for 2025-26 will settle this fiscal year in autumn 2026, and this entry pins the projection lineage on the record before that settlement, adjudicating none of it.

• No audited outcome exists yet. This entry is a pinned projection lineage, not a projection-vs-outturn resolution: every value is one of Finance Canada's own successive projections for fiscal 2025-26, and none is an observed or audited result. The Public Accounts of Canada for 2025-26 (expected autumn 2026, issued by the Receiver General) will settle this fiscal year; when it does, a later reading records the audited outcome and the projection-vs-outturn resolution steps -- nothing here is edited in place. The entry is registered now so the four first-published projections are on the record, hash-pinned, before the outcome that would otherwise reframe them exists.
• Every value is restated exactly as Finance Canada first published it and none has been attested by an independent auditor. These two provenance axes are carried on every value so that, when the audited Public Accounts outcome is added, its own assurance and its own basis are stated on the same two axes and never silently conflated with these projections.
• This entry compares Finance Canada against itself: the same headline quantity, the same fiscal year, four successive projection vintages of the same summary fiscal outlook. It is a projection-drift record, not a disagreement between institutions -- the pace and direction at which one issuer's own projection for a single year moved as it re-forecast. No direction of movement is described as more or less sound; the signed difference in billions is the disclosed comparison.