Next: The next quarterly government finance statistics release or Finance Canada fiscal update; Public Accounts tabling remains event-driven and its exact date is not confirmed in this record.
The National Accounts estimate for fiscal 2025-26 is revised to a $47.6 billion deficit; the audited Public Accounts outcome remains absent. Interest takes about a dollar in ten of fiscal-year revenue.
The answer
No audited outcome exists yet for fiscal 2025-26 -- the Public Accounts of Canada settle it this autumn.
What the record already shows: the government's own projection of that year's deficit moved from $38.9 billion (Budget 2024) to $42.2 billion (the 2024 Fall Economic Statement) to $78.3 billion (Budget 2025), before narrowing to $66.9 billion at its final pre-settlement estimate (the Spring Economic Update 2026) -- the promised deficit for this one year roughly doubled and then partly retreated across four successive statements from the same issuer.
The government's own unaudited year-end tally (the Fiscal Monitor, cumulative through March 2026) shows a $55.3 billion deficit -- a figure that still precedes the post-March tax accruals, valuation changes, and other adjustments recorded before the Public Accounts settle a year. The Fiscal Monitor states what those adjustments did to the three preceding years: the final deficit decreased by $6.8 billion in 2024-25, grew by $10.9 billion in 2023-24, and decreased by $6.0 billion in 2022-23 -- movements large enough to matter, and not reliably in one direction.
Statistics Canada's August 28 release revises the federal deficit for fiscal 2025-26 on the National Accounts basis from $44.823 billion to $47.636 billion, an increase of $2.813 billion. The revised annual estimate is 1.5 per cent of the GDP measure for the same four quarters. Separately, April-June 2026, the first quarter of fiscal 2026-27, records net borrowing at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $57.964 billion, narrower than the revised $61.700 billion in January-March 2026, the last quarter of fiscal 2025-26. That new quarter is outside the year being revised. None of these is an audited Public Accounts settlement. These are three differently defined figures for one year, published by two institutions on two accounting bases; none is necessarily inconsistent with another once accounting basis and timing are taken into account, and none is the audited outcome.
Federal interest costs now take roughly one dollar in ten of federal revenue -- 10.0 per cent in fiscal 2025-26, up from 5.9 per cent four fiscal years earlier, with a detected level shift around 2023 Q3. The share remains well below the record's own peak of 34.4 per cent, reached in 1995 Q2: this is a fast-rising claim on revenue, not a return to early-1990s conditions.
'Federal debt' itself spans roughly twenty-six points of GDP depending on which concept is cited: gross liabilities measure 60.0 per cent of GDP (Canadian Government Finance Statistics basis, 2024, the most recent available vintage); net financial worth measures negative 34.2 per cent of GDP on the same basis and date (a net-liability position); Public Accounts net debt measures 44.8 per cent of GDP on the unaudited Fiscal Monitor's balance sheet as of March 31, 2026 (this read 44.9 per cent until Statistics Canada restated the January-March 2026 quarter of nominal GDP on 2026-08-28, which raised the denominator; the debt figure itself did not move); and the accumulated deficit -- the concept the government's own debt-to-GDP anchor path tracks -- stands at 40.4 per cent of GDP on the same unaudited basis and date (each concept divided by its own reference year's nominal GDP; the accumulated-deficit figure sits just below the government's own published 41-42 per cent path because the government uses its own internal GDP forecast for the fiscal year while this figure uses Statistics Canada's later actual annual GDP -- a denominator-vintage difference, an instance of the comparability problem this Brief documents, not an error in either figure). Which concept survives a definition switch is part of the reading, not a footnote.
| Share, earlier window | 5.9% |
|---|---|
| Share, later window | 10.0% |
| Change in share (percentage points) | 4.1 percentage points |
| Later window as a multiple of the earlier window | 1.7 ratio (current / prior) |
Federal public debt charges divided by federal revenue (both National Accounts basis, quarterly seasonally-adjusted-at-annual-rates), each averaged over its own fiscal year's four quarters (April, July, October, and the following January), then compared as a share in each of two fiscal-year windows.
What this means for the decision
A reader pricing any federal commitment -- defence, transfers, a tax change -- should read it against the interest wedge's growth and the government's own anchor path, and should treat any single 'the deficit is X' or 'the debt is Y' sentence as basis-unstated until the accounting concept, vintage, and date are named. The autumn Public Accounts is the next event that converts the government's own promise into a settled, audited figure -- and this record will publish the comparison whichever way it lands.
The key uncertainty
This record cannot say whether the federal fiscal position is sustainable over the long run (a model property, not a record property, and outside what this Brief attempts); cannot measure the government's own operating-balance anchor against any official series (a published evidence gap, not bridged by a proxy here); and cannot attribute any vintage-to-vintage movement in the projected deficit to policy choices, the economy, or restatement -- no decomposition source exists for that split, and none is claimed. The quarterly National Accounts track is a different accounting basis from the four Finance Canada projections; this Brief never scores one against the other, and the settlement chapter scores the eventual audited outcome against the four projections on the promise's own Public Accounts basis only.
What would settle it
The next quarterly government finance statistics release or Finance Canada fiscal update; Public Accounts tabling remains event-driven and its exact date is not confirmed in this record.
A single headline deficit or debt figure is being used to close arguments that a closer look shows are being fought on different accounting bases, different vintages, and different assurance levels entirely. Reading a government's successive fiscal statements, its own unaudited in-year tally, an independent statistical agency's separate measurement, and the audited settlement that eventually arrives, apart -- with every formula and figure disclosed -- is what turns a set of headline numbers into a decision-usable answer.
Evidence reviewed through 2026-09-06 · 7 cited sources · 3 member Resolutions · 7 chapters
Resolution lineages behind this Brief: Canada's federal debt, on three accounting concepts, at their own closest available dates → · The federal fiscal year month by month: the path to the 2025-26 in-year deficit, and its reconciliation to the… → · The federal budgetary balance for fiscal 2025-26, across four Finance Canada projection vintages, before the audited… →
Refreshed on quarterly government finance statistics releases and Finance Canada fiscal updates; the Public Accounts tabling is the standing settlement event. The August 28, 2026 GFS release is incorporated in this reading.
This Brief answers the Big Question Does the federal budget land where it was promised? · How this Brief was made — sources, method and limits →
Chapter 1§
The year on the record
What the government said the year's deficit would be, at each moment it spoke, against what two separate measuring systems show for the same year now: dated Finance Canada projections, the government's own unaudited year-end tally, and Statistics Canada's separate National Accounts measurement -- a settlement ledger with one row still empty, because no audited figure exists yet.
| Period | Value | Role | Assurance | Basis |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fiscal year 2025-26 | -38.9 billions of Canadian dollars | projection | unaudited | Federal budgetary balance (surplus/deficit) for fiscal year 2025-26, in billions of dollars, as projected by Finance Canada in Budget 2024's summary fiscal… |
| Fiscal year 2025-26 | -42.2 billions of Canadian dollars | projection | unaudited | Federal budgetary balance (surplus/deficit) for fiscal year 2025-26, in billions of dollars, as projected by Finance Canada in the 2024 Fall Economic… |
| Fiscal year 2025-26 | -78.3 billions of Canadian dollars | projection | unaudited | Federal budgetary balance (surplus/deficit) for fiscal year 2025-26, in billions of dollars, as projected by Finance Canada in Budget 2025's summary fiscal… |
| Fiscal year 2025-26 | -66.9 billions of Canadian dollars | projection | unaudited | Federal budgetary balance (surplus/deficit) for fiscal year 2025-26, in billions of dollars, as projected by Finance Canada in the Spring Economic Update… |
| Fiscal year 2025-26 | -55.3 billions of Canadian dollars | preliminary observation | unaudited | Federal budgetary balance (deficit/surplus) for fiscal year 2025-26, in billions of dollars, as reported by the Fiscal Monitor's cumulative April-to-March… |
| Comparison | Movement | Convention |
|---|---|---|
| Fiscal 2025-26: Budget 2024 projection vs. FES 2024 projection | -3.3 billions of Canadian dollars | Numeric difference: the later publication's projected value minus the earlier one's, for the same fiscal year (2025-26), in billions of Canadian dollars. A negative number means the later projection is a larger deficit… |
| Fiscal 2025-26: FES 2024 projection vs. Budget 2025 projection | -36.1 billions of Canadian dollars | Numeric difference: the later publication's projected value minus the earlier one's, for the same fiscal year (2025-26), in billions of Canadian dollars. Same-issuer vintage comparison; no audited outcome exists yet.… |
| Fiscal 2025-26: Budget 2025 projection vs. SEU 2026 projection | +11.4 billions of Canadian dollars | Numeric difference: the later publication's projected value minus the earlier one's, for the same fiscal year (2025-26), in billions of Canadian dollars. A positive number means the later projection is a smaller deficit… |
| Fiscal 2025-26: first projection (Budget 2024) vs. latest captured projection (SEU 2026) | -28.0 billions of Canadian dollars | Numeric difference: the latest captured projected value minus the first projected value, for fiscal 2025-26, in billions of Canadian dollars (the cumulative movement across all three re-projections). This is the entry's… |
| Fiscal 2025-26: SEU 2026 projection vs. Fiscal Monitor unaudited year-end observation | +11.6 billions of Canadian dollars | Numeric difference: the Fiscal Monitor's unaudited year-end observation minus Finance Canada's final pre-settlement projection, for fiscal 2025-26, in billions of Canadian dollars. A positive number means the observed… |
The evidence behind this chapter: The federal budgetary balance for fiscal 2025-26, across four Finance Canada projection vintages, before the audited… →
Chapter 2§
The interest wedge
How much of the government's own revenue federal interest costs now take, and how fast that changed: a same-basis, same-issuer ratio, public debt charges over revenue, both National Accounts basis, computed here across two era windows and set beside the record's own detected level shift and longest deficit run -- a burden measure, not a forecast of where the rate goes next.
Federal interest on debt, % of revenue (National Accounts basis): level shift detected around 2023 Q3
A two-segment mean-shift scan over the last 40 quarters places the largest level shift in federal interest on debt, % of revenue (national accounts basis) around 2023 Q3: mean 6.85 before vs 10.05 after (shift = 4.8× pooled variability). The detector locates the shift; it does not attribute a cause.
Technical details
Federal budgetary balance (National Accounts basis, SAAR): 13 consecutive quarters at a negative level
Federal budgetary balance (National Accounts basis, SAAR) has been negative for 13 consecutive quarters, beginning in 2023 Q2. The latest reading is −$57,964,000,000 in 2026 Q2. A streak counts consecutive periods in one direction; it carries no causal claim and does not imply the run will continue.
Technical details
Chapter 3§
How the year accumulates
The same fiscal year read month by month rather than as one annual figure: twelve monthly budgetary balances from the Department of Finance's own monthly data, summing exactly to the annual deficit already on this Brief, with more than half of that deficit appearing in the final month alone -- a property of when the federal accounts recognise year-end amounts, shown as the record shows it and not attributed to any spending decision.
| Period | Value | Role | Assurance | Basis |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fiscal 2025-26 (April 2025 through March 2026), twelve monthly observations summed | -55,277.0 CAD millions | preliminary observation | unaudited | The sum of the twelve monthly budgetary balances for April 2025 through March 2026, table 10-10-0133-01 member 1 (Budgetary balance, deficit (-) / surplus… |
| April 2025 through February 2026, the eleven months before the fiscal year's last | -25,550.0 CAD millions | preliminary observation | unaudited | The sum of the eleven monthly budgetary balances for April 2025 through February 2026, table 10-10-0133-01 member 1, Canada, in millions of Canadian dollars.… |
| March 2026 alone (the final month of fiscal 2025-26) | -29,727.0 CAD millions | preliminary observation | unaudited | The single monthly budgetary balance for March 2026, table 10-10-0133-01 member 1, Canada, in millions of Canadian dollars, read directly from the archived… |
| Fiscal 2024-25 (April 2024 through March 2025), twelve monthly observations summed | -43,154.0 CAD millions | preliminary observation | unaudited | The sum of the twelve monthly budgetary balances for April 2024 through March 2025, table 10-10-0133-01 member 1, Canada, in millions of Canadian dollars.… |
| March 2025 alone (the final month of fiscal 2024-25) | -23,880.0 CAD millions | preliminary observation | unaudited | The single monthly budgetary balance for March 2025, table 10-10-0133-01 member 1, Canada, in millions of Canadian dollars, read directly from the archived… |
| Comparison | Movement | Convention |
|---|---|---|
| Fiscal 2025-26: the final month set beside the eleven months before it | not comparable — The horizons differ by construction -- one month against eleven -- so the two figures are complements that add to the year, not measures of the same thing on the same span. The numeric difference is… | Numeric difference: the March 2026 budgetary balance minus the April 2025 to February 2026 balance, in millions of Canadian dollars, both from the same monthly series on one accounting basis. The two figures are… |
| The final month's share of its own fiscal year, 2024-25 and 2025-26 | -5,847.0 CAD millions | Numeric difference: the March 2026 budgetary balance minus the March 2025 budgetary balance, in millions of Canadian dollars, both from the same monthly series. Set beside the two annual totals also pinned here, the… |
The evidence behind this chapter: The federal fiscal year month by month: the path to the 2025-26 in-year deficit, and its reconciliation to the… →
Chapter 4§
Why two published numbers differ
A worked reconciliation between two federal program-expense figures for the same twelve months that differ by about thirteen and a half billion dollars: the monthly series summed, and the Fiscal Monitor's own presentation, which reports net actuarial losses on a separate line. Adding the separately published line closes the gap to one million dollars of rounding -- so a reader meeting the two numbers apart from each other can see that neither is wrong.
| Period | Value | Role | Assurance | Basis |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fiscal 2025-26 program expenses, twelve monthly observations summed | 501,588.0 CAD millions | preliminary observation | unaudited | The sum of the twelve monthly program expenses for April 2025 through March 2026, table 10-10-0133-01 member 4, Canada, in millions of Canadian dollars. This… |
| Fiscal 2025-26 program expenses excluding net actuarial losses, as published | 487,892.0 CAD millions | preliminary observation | unaudited | The Fiscal Monitor March 2026 Table 1 line 'Program expenses, excluding net actuarial losses', April to March 2025-26 column, in millions of Canadian dollars,… |
| Fiscal 2025-26 net actuarial losses, as published | 13,695.0 CAD millions | preliminary observation | unaudited | The Fiscal Monitor March 2026 Table 1 line 'Net actuarial losses', April to March 2025-26 column, in millions of Canadian dollars, reported as a positive… |
| Fiscal 2025-26 public debt charges, twelve monthly observations summed | 53,707.0 CAD millions | preliminary observation | unaudited | The sum of the twelve monthly public debt charges for April 2025 through March 2026, table 10-10-0133-01 member 5, Canada, in millions of Canadian dollars.… |
| Comparison | Movement | Convention |
|---|---|---|
| Fiscal 2025-26 program expenses: the monthly series summed, against the Fiscal Monitor's published presentation | +13,696.0 CAD millions | Numeric difference: the twelve-month sum of table 10-10-0133-01's program expenses minus the Fiscal Monitor's published 'program expenses, excluding net actuarial losses', in millions of Canadian dollars. The difference… |
How does Canada's actual federal debt-to-GDP ratio compare with Finance Canada's and PBO's projected paths?
What is missing: The only StatsCan machine-readable federal balance-sheet series (table 10-10-0016, Canadian Government Finance Statistics basis) lags materially behind the projection vintages: its cube metadata reports a latest reference year of 2024, roughly two fiscal years behind the 2025-26 starting point of both institutions' projection paths. It is also conceptually distinct from the Public Accounts 'federal debt' (accumulated deficit) concept both Finance Canada and PBO use in their own tables — CGFS liabilities and Public Accounts federal debt are not confirmed to be composed identically.
Consequence: Countability cannot publish a same-basis, current-vintage compliance comparison of actual federal debt-to-GDP against either institution's projected path. The two projected paths are published side by side as modelled benchmarks (never merged); Countability's own StatsCan-sourced debt figure is shown separately as clearly-dated context, not blended with either projection.
The evidence behind this chapter: The federal fiscal year month by month: the path to the 2025-26 in-year deficit, and its reconciliation to the… →
Chapter 5§
Which debt number
Four figures are each publicly cited as 'the federal debt': two Canadian Government Finance Statistics balance-sheet concepts (gross liabilities, net financial worth) and two Public Accounts-basis concepts from the unaudited Fiscal Monitor (net debt, the accumulated deficit the government's own anchor path tracks). Pinned at each concept's own latest available date, with that date printed, and set against Statistics Canada's own nominal GDP -- never interpolated, never blended into one number, and not asserted to be compositionally reconcilable with each other.
| Period | Value | Role | Assurance | Basis |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Calendar year 2024 (CGFS annual stock) | 1,864,209.0 CAD millions | final observation | unaudited | Federal general government gross liabilities, Canadian Government Finance Statistics (CGFS) basis, calendar year 2024, in millions of Canadian dollars --… |
| Calendar year 2024 (CGFS annual stock) | -1,061,969.0 CAD millions | final observation | unaudited | Federal general government net financial worth, Canadian Government Finance Statistics (CGFS) basis, calendar year 2024, in millions of Canadian dollars --… |
| As of March 31, 2026 (fiscal year-end 2025-26) | 1,467,135.0 CAD millions | preliminary observation | unaudited | Federal net debt, Public Accounts basis, as of March 31, 2026, in millions of Canadian dollars -- total liabilities minus total financial assets, the Fiscal… |
| As of March 31, 2026 (fiscal year-end 2025-26) | 1,322,004.0 CAD millions | preliminary observation | unaudited | Federal debt (accumulated deficit), Public Accounts basis, as of March 31, 2026, in millions of Canadian dollars -- net debt minus non-financial assets, the… |
| Comparison | Movement | Convention |
|---|---|---|
| CGFS basis, same date: gross liabilities vs. net financial worth | -2,926,178.0 CAD millions | Numeric difference: net financial worth minus gross liabilities, same date, in millions of Canadian dollars. Not a disagreement between sources -- both are Statistics Canada's own CGFS compilation, same date; the… |
| Public Accounts basis, same date: net debt vs. federal debt (accumulated deficit) | -145,131.0 CAD millions | Numeric difference: federal debt (accumulated deficit) minus net debt, same date, in millions of Canadian dollars. Both are Public-Accounts-basis concepts from the same unaudited Fiscal Monitor publication; the… |
The evidence behind this chapter: Canada's federal debt, on three accounting concepts, at their own closest available dates →
Chapter 6§
The anchors as stated
What the government committed to, on what basis, and what can actually be checked against public data: a declining deficit-to-GDP path, measurable on the National Accounts basis against a Public Accounts-basis anchor (a pace read, not literal compliance), and a same-year operating-balance target that no official series isolates at all -- carried here as a registered commitment with its own published gap, not a synthesized proxy.
Maintain a declining deficit-to-GDP ratio over the projection horizon (fiscal anchor announced in Budget 2025, reaffirmed in the Spring Economic Update 2026)
Issuer: Government of Canada (Department of Finance). Stated in Spring Economic Update 2026, reaffirming Budget 2025.
Latest observed: -1.48 (four quarters ending 2026 Q2) against target -1.4 (% of GDP (federal budgetary balance)).
Balance day-to-day operating spending with revenues by fiscal year 2028-29 (fiscal anchor announced in Budget 2025, reaffirmed in the Spring Economic Update 2026)
Issuer: Government of Canada (Department of Finance). Stated in Spring Economic Update 2026, reaffirming Budget 2025.
Latest observed: — against target 0 (CAD billions, operating balance (day-to-day spending less revenues, Budget accounting basis)).
Is the federal government on track to balance day-to-day operating spending with revenues by fiscal year 2028-29?
What is missing: No official machine-readable series isolates 'day-to-day operating spending' from capital investment on the same accounting basis the government uses for this anchor. Statistics Canada's National Accounts federal expenditure series (table 36-10-0477) separates final consumption expenditure from non-financial capital acquisition, but does not reproduce the Budget's own operating/capital split — the two decompositions are not confirmed to be identical.
Consequence: This commitment is published as a registered commitment without a compliance claim. Countability will not construct a proxy operating-balance measure by subtracting StatsCan capital-acquisition from federal expenditure absent confirmation that this matches the Budget's own definition.
Chapter 7§
What the Public Accounts will settle
What happens when the Public Accounts of Canada are tabled this autumn, what exactly gets settled, and what would count as this year's promise having landed: the audited outcome will settle the Public Accounts-basis balance and accumulated deficit against every pinned projection vintage and the final estimate's own accrual history -- it will not settle the National Accounts reading, the operating-balance anchor, or any sustainability question, and this record publishes the comparison whichever way it lands.
The evidence behind this chapter: The federal budgetary balance for fiscal 2025-26, across four Finance Canada projection vintages, before the audited… →
Scenarios
Interest's share of federal revenue: FY2021-22 vs FY2025-26
How much more of federal revenue does interest now take than it did four fiscal years earlier?
Federal public debt charges divided by federal revenue (both National Accounts basis, quarterly seasonally-adjusted-at-annual-rates), each averaged over its own fiscal year's four quarters (April, July, October, and the following January), then compared as a share in each of two fiscal-year windows.
| Share, earlier window | 5.9% |
| Share, later window | 10.0% |
| Change in share (percentage points) | 4.1 percentage points |
| Later window as a multiple of the earlier window | 1.7 ratio (current / prior) |
Assumptions:
- Both series are the same issuer's same-basis quarterly flows; averaging four SAAR quarters approximates the fiscal year's own average annualized share, not a fiscal-year total in dollars.
- No adjustment is made for one-time items within either window; a single quarter's artifact would only move this figure if it persisted across the whole four-quarter window.
Interest's share of federal revenue: the 1995 peak vs the latest quarter
How does today's interest burden compare with the record's historical peak?
The same federal interest-to-revenue ratio, computed at a single quarter in each of two windows: the record's own historical peak quarter, and the latest published quarter.
| Share, earlier window | 34.4% |
| Share, later window | 9.9% |
| Change in share (percentage points) | -24.5 percentage points |
| Later window as a multiple of the earlier window | 0.3 ratio (current / prior) |
Assumptions:
- Single-quarter SAAR values, not fiscal-year averages -- the comparison is point-to-point against the record's own historical extreme, not era-to-era.
- No claim is made that the current level is trending toward, or away from, the 1995 peak; the comparison states levels only.
Gross liabilities, % of GDP (CGFS basis, 2024)
What share of GDP do federal gross liabilities represent, on the widest balance-sheet concept?
Federal gross liabilities (Canadian Government Finance Statistics basis, 2024) divided by Statistics Canada's own nominal GDP for calendar year 2024 -- the average of that year's four seasonally-adjusted-at-annual-rate quarters, the same annual-GDP basis every other window_share_of_gdp scenario on this platform uses and the basis the government's own published debt-to-GDP ratios are computed on.
| Share of GDP | 60.0% |
| Matched GDP denominator | 3,108,551.0 CAD millions |
Assumptions:
- The CGFS stock (calendar 2024) is divided by calendar-2024 nominal GDP -- the average of that year's four SAAR quarters, not a single quarter; no interpolation is performed.
Net financial worth, % of GDP (CGFS basis, 2024)
What share of GDP does the federal government's net financial position represent, on the same balance-sheet basis?
Federal net financial worth (Canadian Government Finance Statistics basis, 2024; a negative figure denotes a net-liability position) divided by the same calendar-2024 nominal GDP average (that year's four SAAR quarters).
| Share of GDP | -34.2% |
| Matched GDP denominator | 3,108,551.0 CAD millions |
Assumptions:
- The result is a signed percentage: a negative share denotes a net-liability position on this basis, not a positive debt figure restated -- the sign is preserved exactly as published, never flipped.
Net debt, % of GDP (Public Accounts basis, 2026-03-31)
What share of GDP does the government's Public Accounts-basis net debt represent, on the government's own latest unaudited balance sheet?
The Fiscal Monitor's unaudited Public Accounts-basis net debt (as of March 31, 2026) divided by Statistics Canada's nominal GDP for fiscal year 2025-26 -- the average of that fiscal year's four SAAR quarters (April 2025 through January 2026).
| Share of GDP | 44.8% |
| Matched GDP denominator | 3,271,267.0 CAD millions |
Assumptions:
- The balance-sheet date (2026-03-31) is the end of fiscal year 2025-26; it is divided by that fiscal year's own nominal GDP (the four-quarter average), the same annual-GDP basis the government's own published debt-to-GDP ratios use.
- This figure is unaudited pending the Public Accounts of Canada 2026 and may move when the audited balance sheet is tabled.
Federal debt (accumulated deficit), % of GDP (Public Accounts basis, 2026-03-31)
What share of GDP does the accumulated deficit represent -- the concept the government's own debt-to-GDP anchor path tracks?
The Fiscal Monitor's unaudited federal debt (accumulated deficit), Public Accounts basis, as of March 31, 2026, divided by the same fiscal-year-2025-26 nominal GDP average (that fiscal year's four SAAR quarters).
| Share of GDP | 40.4% |
| Matched GDP denominator | 3,271,267.0 CAD millions |
Assumptions:
- This is the narrowest of the four concepts pinned in the federal-debt entry, and the one the government's own debt-to-GDP anchor path tracks. Both this figure and the government's own ratio use annual GDP; the small remaining gap is a denominator-vintage difference -- the government uses its own internal GDP forecast for the fiscal year, while this figure uses Statistics Canada's later actual annual GDP for the same year -- expected, part of the reading, not an error in either.
- Unaudited pending the Public Accounts of Canada 2026.
Directly observed
Estimated, projected, or otherwise not yet an audited outcome
- Fiscal year 2025-26
- Fiscal year 2025-26
- Fiscal year 2025-26
- Fiscal year 2025-26
- Fiscal year 2025-26
- Fiscal 2025-26: Budget 2024 projection vs. FES 2024 projection
- Fiscal 2025-26: FES 2024 projection vs. Budget 2025 projection
- Fiscal 2025-26: Budget 2025 projection vs. SEU 2026 projection
- Fiscal 2025-26: first projection (Budget 2024) vs. latest captured projection (SEU 2026)
- Fiscal 2025-26: SEU 2026 projection vs. Fiscal Monitor unaudited year-end observation
- Fiscal 2025-26 (April 2025 through March 2026), twelve monthly observations summed
- April 2025 through February 2026, the eleven months before the fiscal year's last
- March 2026 alone (the final month of fiscal 2025-26)
- Fiscal 2024-25 (April 2024 through March 2025), twelve monthly observations summed
- March 2025 alone (the final month of fiscal 2024-25)
- The final month's share of its own fiscal year, 2024-25 and 2025-26
- Fiscal 2025-26 program expenses, twelve monthly observations summed
- Fiscal 2025-26 program expenses excluding net actuarial losses, as published
- Fiscal 2025-26 net actuarial losses, as published
- Fiscal 2025-26 public debt charges, twelve monthly observations summed
- Fiscal 2025-26 program expenses: the monthly series summed, against the Fiscal Monitor's published presentation
- Calendar year 2024 (CGFS annual stock)
- Calendar year 2024 (CGFS annual stock)
- As of March 31, 2026 (fiscal year-end 2025-26)
- As of March 31, 2026 (fiscal year-end 2025-26)
- CGFS basis, same date: gross liabilities vs. net financial worth
- Public Accounts basis, same date: net debt vs. federal debt (accumulated deficit)
Unresolved
- Fiscal 2025-26: the final month set beside the eleven months before it
- The only StatsCan machine-readable federal balance-sheet series (table 10-10-0016, Canadian Government Finance Statistics basis) lags materially behind the projection vintages: its cube metadata reports a latest reference year of 2024, roughly two fiscal years behind the 2025-26 starting point of both institutions' projection paths. It is also conceptually distinct from the Public Accounts 'federal debt' (accumulated deficit) concept both Finance Canada and PBO use in their own tables — CGFS liabilities and Public Accounts federal debt are not confirmed to be composed identically.
- No official machine-readable series isolates 'day-to-day operating spending' from capital investment on the same accounting basis the government uses for this anchor. Statistics Canada's National Accounts federal expenditure series (table 36-10-0477) separates final consumption expenditure from non-financial capital acquisition, but does not reproduce the Budget's own operating/capital split — the two decompositions are not confirmed to be identical.
- Balance day-to-day operating spending with revenues by fiscal year 2028-29 (fiscal anchor announced in Budget 2025, reaffirmed in the Spring Economic Update 2026) — no on-pace assessment is published for this target.
Key evidence
| Issuer | Publication | Published | Vintage | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Statistics Canada | Canadian government finance statistics (CGFS), statement of operations and balance sheet by public sector component, tab | 2025-09-26 | 2024 reference year (CGFS annual, published 2025) | Source → |
| Statistics Canada | Canadian government finance statistics (CGFS), statement of operations and balance sheet by public sector component, tab | 2025-09-26 | 2024 reference year (CGFS annual, published 2025) | Source → |
| Department of Finance Canada | The Fiscal Monitor, March 2026 (Table 7, 'Condensed statement of assets and liabilities') -- 'Net debt&#x | 2026-06-15 | Fiscal Monitor, March 2026 (balance sheet as of 2026-03-31) | Source → |
| Department of Finance Canada | The Fiscal Monitor, March 2026 (Table 7, 'Condensed statement of assets and liabilities') -- 'Federal deb | 2026-06-15 | Fiscal Monitor, March 2026 (balance sheet as of 2026-03-31) | Source → |
| Statistics Canada | Central government operations: budgetary balance, non-budgetary transactions, and financial source/requirement, monthly, | 2026-07-26 | The series as published at capture, reference periods 2009-0 | Source → |
| Department of Finance Canada | The Fiscal Monitor, March 2026, Table 1 (summary statement of transactions) -- the April 2025 to March 2026 cumulative c | 2026-06-15 | March 2026 edition (the twelfth and final monthly edition co | Source → |
| Statistics Canada | Central government operations: budgetary balance, non-budgetary transactions, and financial source/requirement, monthly, | 2026-07-26 | The series as published at capture, reference periods 2009-0 | Source → |
| Statistics Canada | Central government operations: budgetary balance, non-budgetary transactions, and financial source/requirement, monthly, | 2026-07-26 | The series as published at capture, reference periods 2009-0 | Source → |
| Department of Finance Canada | The Fiscal Monitor, March 2026, Table 1 (summary statement of transactions) -- Table 1 line "Net actuarial losses&q | 2026-06-15 | March 2026 edition (the twelfth and final monthly edition co | Source → |
| Finance Canada | Federal Budget 2024, summary fiscal outlook (Overview table 1, 'Budgetary balance') | 2024-04-16 | Budget 2024 | Source → |
| Finance Canada | 2024 Fall Economic Statement, summary fiscal outlook (Overview table 3, 'Budgetary balance') | 2024-12-16 | FES 2024 | Source → |
| Finance Canada | Federal Budget 2025, summary fiscal outlook (Overview table 1, 'Budgetary balance') | 2025-11-04 | Budget 2025 | Source → |
| Finance Canada | Spring Economic Update 2026, summary fiscal outlook (Overview table 1, 'Budgetary balance') | 2026-04-28 | SEU 2026 | Source → |
| Department of Finance Canada | The Fiscal Monitor, March 2026 (Table 1, 'Budgetary balance (deficit/surplus)', April to March 2025-26 cumulat | 2026-06-15 | Fiscal Monitor, March 2026 | Source → |
Method and limitations
- Every figure on this Brief is either a Resolution-pinned value (read from an archived, hash-verified source), a Resolution comparison (a disclosed numeric difference between two same-issuer, same-basis pinned values), or a Scenario computed here under a named, whitelisted formula from those same pinned or already-published inputs -- never a bare literal typed into prose. Two formulas compose this Brief's own arithmetic beyond a bare Resolution citation: window_ratio_compare (new this release: a window-average numerator divided by a window-average denominator, in each of two named quarterly windows, for the interest-wedge era comparisons) and the existing window_share_of_gdp (a pinned dollar level divided by Statistics Canada's own nominal GDP, averaged over the concept's own reference year's four quarters, for the debt-concept table). Fiscal-year aggregates from quarterly seasonally-adjusted-at-annual-rate series are the average of the year's four published quarters, not a sum -- summing four already-annualized quarters would quadruple the effective annual rate, the same SAAR-annualization artifact this Brief names explicitly (a single recent quarter's print, at roughly negative seven per cent of GDP, is the case study, carried as a labelled artifact, never as a fiscal-year figure). The National Accounts quarterly track (Statistics Canada) and the four Finance Canada projections are never scored against each other -- they are different accounting bases (National Accounts vs. Public Accounts) for the same government; the settlement chapter scores the eventual audited outcome against the four projections on the promise's own Public Accounts basis only. No figure on this Brief asserts that a projection change reflects a specific policy choice, the economy, or a restatement -- no decomposition source exists to make that attribution, and none is claimed.
- 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.
- Net financial worth is a signed figure (a negative number denotes a net-liability position); it is never sign-flipped in this entry's own values[] array. Where the Brief's prose treats its magnitude as a debt-equivalent read for a concept-spread comparison, that transformation happens in the Brief's own composed text, not in this Resolution.
- None of these four values is the audited outcome of anything: the CGFS pair carries Statistics Canada's own statistical-compilation status (a final statistical observation, not an external financial audit), and the Public Accounts-basis pair is explicitly unaudited pending the Public Accounts of Canada 2026, which is expected to carry an audited federal debt (accumulated deficit) figure for fiscal 2025-26. When it is tabled, a later reading records the audited outcome alongside these -- nothing here is edited in place.
- This entry does not attempt to reconcile the CGFS and Public Accounts bases into one compositional bridge (the published evidence gap on this basis mismatch states why: different accounting frameworks, different asset/liability perimeters, no official crosswalk at the grain this record would need). It presents both, dated and labelled, and stops there.
- 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.
- March's share of the year is a property of the record, not an explanation of it. Federal accounts recognise year-end accruals, valuation adjustments, and other amounts in the final month; the record shows the concentration and does not attribute it to any spending decision, policy, or department.
- The 10-10-0133-01 program-expenses member and the Fiscal Monitor's 'program expenses, excluding net actuarial losses' are different lines. They are reconciled here explicitly rather than presented as alternatives, and neither is restated into the other's form.
- 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.
- The percentage difference is deliberately not computed on any step. The base quantity is a projected budgetary balance -- a negative number (a deficit) in each vintage -- so a percentage change would divide by a negative deficit and invert the intuitive sign (a deeper deficit reading as a 'smaller' percentage move, or vice versa), producing a figure that is neither stable nor meaningful. The absolute movement in billions of dollars is the honest comparison, and it is the only one published.
- This example was not chosen for a dramatic swing. The four-vintage path for fiscal 2025-26 (-38.9 -> -42.2 -> -78.3 -> -66.9) is shown in full, including the step where the projected deficit narrowed (Budget 2025 to SEU 2026, +11.4), rather than selected for or against any direction. The headline cumulative movement (first to latest, -28.0) is stated alongside the intermediate steps, not in place of them.
- Each value is read from its own publication's headline fiscal table, not from a later document's comparison row -- so Budget 2024's -38.9 is Budget 2024's own 'Budgetary balance' line, not the '-38.9' that the 2024 Fall Economic Statement independently reprints beside its own path (the two agree, which is a cross-instrument corroboration, not the source used).
- This entry is filed under the fiscal domain, the closest existing one; it concerns the aggregate federal budgetary balance, not a specific fiscal-anchor compliance measure, and no new domain is created to hold it. Its reading frame is the platform's standing forecast-record question -- a projection lineage held open for the outcome that will one day answer it for this year.
- Fiscal Position and Settlement flagship, 2026-07-20: extended additively (design S7 item 7a) with the Fiscal Monitor's own unaudited year-end observation of the same fiscal year (recorded as a preliminary observation) and one new comparison against the final pre-settlement projection. Nothing in the four original publications, values, or resolution steps above was edited. This entry is now the spine of the Fiscal Position and Settlement Brief; it remains a member of the other public questions it already served, unchanged. The audited Public Accounts of Canada 2026 outcome, when tabled, will be appended the same way -- a new publication, a new audited outcome value, and new resolution steps comparing it against every vintage above and against this Fiscal Monitor observation -- never in place of what is here now.
- Extended 2026-08-24 with a caveat citing the Spring Economic Update 2026's Annex 1 (a distinct, narrative page from the numeric-data-table publication listed above, which carries the numeric budgetary-balance data table this Resolution's values pin; sha256 e897f8f643f11de99159c33886784b70ae330e12d7e308993532c0a87a05767e, archived and hash-pinned per this record's own archive-at-citation method) -- cited here as evidence for this caveat, not registered as a publication of this Resolution's own value lineage, because it restates no numeric budgetary-balance figure and is not a further vintage of the quantity this entry's five publications and values pin. Quoted verbatim from the page's own text: 'The economic forecast reported here is based on a survey conducted in March 2026' and 'In the March survey, private sector forecasters incorporated the most recent tariff measures, trade policy developments, and their expectations regarding potential tariff de-escalation. Economists generally expected current U.S. tariffs on trading partners, including Canada, to remain in place over the forecast horizon, with no return to broadly open, low-tariff global trade.' The same Annex states, on its fiscal-projections page and also quoted verbatim: 'The fiscal outlook presented in the Spring Economic Update is based on the economic projections from the March 2026 survey of private sector forecasters' -- the sentence that connects the economic survey basis above to the fiscal projections this Resolution's values pin. The operative United States tariff schedule applied to Canadian goods changed materially after that survey closed: three new Section 338 proclamations state an effective date of August 22, 2026, imposing an additional 50 percent ad valorem duty on certain products of Canada set forth in each proclamation's own Annex II, on a discrimination predicate specific to each proclamation, pinned in full in this record's companion 2026 tariff-actions Resolution -- a different shape of action from anything the March 2026 survey could have incorporated. Separately, and not the schedule change above: the same Annex 1 page also states, of Canada's OWN retaliatory countermeasures (a different, Canadian instrument): 'The revenue projections assume these countermeasures will remain in place through 2026-27' and 'The continued application of the countermeasures is subject to outcomes of discussions with the United States to resolve U.S. tariffs applied on Canadian exports of steel, aluminum and motor vehicles' -- quoted here because it is the Annex's own stated tariff assumption on the Canadian side, distinct from the U.S.-schedule divergence above, and because the companion Resolution separately pins the Prime Minister's 2026-08-21 statement suspending trade negotiations. This caveat states only these divergences in kind, timing, and (for the countermeasures) continuation assumption; it does not estimate, forecast, or restate any deficit or GDP figure as a result, and no value in this Resolution is changed by it.
- Extended 2026-08-25 with the counter-tariff/support concretization -- a divergence observation only, no deficit or GDP arithmetic, no forecast. On 2026-08-25 the Department of Finance Canada announced Canada's own retaliatory counter-tariff schedule (15, 25, and 50 per cent rates, matching the corresponding U.S. rate for each product, applying to 'products covering $27.6 billion in imports from the U.S.', effective 2026-09-08) and, the same day, 'a $7.5 billion package of new and enhanced measures to protect Canadian workers and businesses, building on the nearly $25 billion in supports the government has implemented over the past 18 months' -- both quoted verbatim from the Department's own news release and backgrounder, pinned in full (as publications and values) in this record's companion Resolution on the 2026 U.S. tariff escalation and Canada's own retaliation. These two documents are cited here, in prose, for this caveat's own divergence observation, and are NOT registered as a new publication entry of this Resolution's own value lineage: they restate no figure this Resolution's five publications and values pin, and adding them here would inflate the vintage/publication count against what the entry actually carries, the same discipline the prior Annex 1 citation above already follows. The divergence: the March 2026 survey behind the Spring Economic Update 2026's fiscal projections (see the prior caveat) could not have incorporated a $7.5 billion spending package or a 27.6-billion-dollar counter-tariff schedule that did not exist until 2026-08-25 -- a further material development on both the revenue side (Canada's own countermeasures, whose continuation the survey's own assumption already covers only through 2026-27, per the prior caveat) and the spending side (new announced expenditure) beyond what that caveat already states for the U.S. tariff schedule alone. No deficit or GDP estimate is stated as a result of this further divergence, per this item's own standing constraint. GDP/growth linkage: none of the documents this record has captured for either the U.S. tariff escalation or Canada's own counter-tariff and support announcement -- the four proclamations, the Prime Minister's two statements, the Department of Finance Canada's news release, backgrounder, and programs pages -- states a GDP or economic-growth figure or assumption of its own; the Spring Economic Update 2026 Annex 1 citation already pinned above states only the survey's tariff-persistence assumption, not a growth figure attached to this specific episode. This record therefore states no GDP-growth linkage: not because none was sought, but because no captured issuer document supplies one, and a model estimate produced by a third party is not a fact this record publishes as one.
- Both series are the same issuer's same-basis quarterly flows; averaging four SAAR quarters approximates the fiscal year's own average annualized share, not a fiscal-year total in dollars.
- No adjustment is made for one-time items within either window; a single quarter's artifact would only move this figure if it persisted across the whole four-quarter window.
- Single-quarter SAAR values, not fiscal-year averages -- the comparison is point-to-point against the record's own historical extreme, not era-to-era.
- No claim is made that the current level is trending toward, or away from, the 1995 peak; the comparison states levels only.
- The CGFS stock (calendar 2024) is divided by calendar-2024 nominal GDP -- the average of that year's four SAAR quarters, not a single quarter; no interpolation is performed.
- The result is a signed percentage: a negative share denotes a net-liability position on this basis, not a positive debt figure restated -- the sign is preserved exactly as published, never flipped.
- The balance-sheet date (2026-03-31) is the end of fiscal year 2025-26; it is divided by that fiscal year's own nominal GDP (the four-quarter average), the same annual-GDP basis the government's own published debt-to-GDP ratios use.
- This figure is unaudited pending the Public Accounts of Canada 2026 and may move when the audited balance sheet is tabled.
- This is the narrowest of the four concepts pinned in the federal-debt entry, and the one the government's own debt-to-GDP anchor path tracks. Both this figure and the government's own ratio use annual GDP; the small remaining gap is a denominator-vintage difference -- the government uses its own internal GDP forecast for the fiscal year, while this figure uses Statistics Canada's later actual annual GDP for the same year -- expected, part of the reading, not an error in either.
- Unaudited pending the Public Accounts of Canada 2026.
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