Finance minister to deliver economic update on Friday

The federal finance minister is set to deliver an economic and fiscal update on Friday morning in Ottawa.

Bill Morneau is expected to speak at 10:45 a.m. at the National Press Theatre. According to a release issued by the Department of Finance, “the fiscal outlook will not include measures to be adopted by this Government.”

It will be the first fiscal update since the Liberals took power following a majority win in the Oct. 19 federal election, and the first since the Parliamentary Budget Officer released somewhat grim predictions about Canada’s economy over the next five years.

READ MORE: Will bleak economic forecast spell trouble for Liberals?

The PBO reported that the U.S. economy is not growing as fast as forecast, and emerging economies like China are stagnating. This has resulted in a slower-than-anticipated recovery for the Canadian economy.

While Prime Minister Justin Trudeau ran on a pledge to run “modest” deficits of no more than $10 billion over the next three years, the budget watchdog is now projecting that if they keep all their commitments, the Liberals could easily fall more than $10 billion into the red annually.

Returning to balanced books by 2019-20, as Trudeau promised, may also be much harder than expected.