Carney has racked up an impressive list of projects and deals. His budget has to answer for them

“I just got here.”

It was Question Period on Oct. 7, and Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre had asked Prime Minister Mark Carney when the government’s basket of economic policies – in this instance, those intended to make housing more affordable – would begin to bear fruit.

“Mr. Speaker,” replied the PM, “I have to keep reminding the Leader of the Opposition that I just got here.”

The remainder of Mr. Carney’s answer was interrupted by howls from the opposition. Or as the parliamentary record Hansard always politely describes such things: “Some hon. members: Oh, oh!”

This is not the first time that Mr. Carney has said, hey, give me a break – I’m new on the job. It probably won’t be the last time.

On one level, it’s absurd. When Mr. Carney said this, he was in his 19th month as PM; he’s is now into his 20th. That’s a longer tenure than the namesake prime minister of the Quebec CEGEP I graduated from. The general election was a year and half ago. The government is roughly a third of the way through its mandate.

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A government that serves a four-year term normally presents four annual budgets. On Nov. 5, Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne will table budget No. 2. He’s halfway to a pre-election fourth budget.

A budget lays out where Ottawa intends to tax and spend more or less, and what it hopes to achieve by doing so. But it’s also about showing – because of that ticking political clock – that last year’s plan has started delivering positive fiscal and economic outcomes.

A budget is a set of blueprints for the future. But for any government more than a year old, it’s also an accountability document, offering evidence that the previously promised future is becoming the present.

On the political calendar, the Carney government is already approaching harvest season, when you have to show results. Even if it feels to him, and many Canadians, like he just got here.

If Mr. Carney is a ball of constant motion, with a pace of new announcements and initiatives sometimes tripping over one another – over the space of a few hours on Thursday, the government opened a summit on establishing some sort of association with the European Union, announced an unprecedented investment stake in AI company Cohere of up to $1.6-billion, and released a new national security strategy – it may be because he recognizes how fleeting political time is.

Tempus fugit is the expression in Latin – time flies. Mr. Carney has spent the last year and a half literally flying across the country and the globe, to announce partnerships and sign trade deals.

What has he got to show for it? How much has Canada’s economy been changed for the better?

Politics demands that the budget offer answers.

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However, the challenge for Mr. Carney is that, at 18 months since the last election, he’s well into harvest season on the political calendar, even though if it’s still spring on the macroeconomic calendar. Early spring, even.

There are no guarantees about what the government’s policy seeds will grow into, but finding out will take time. The seeds are still being planted. Mr. Speaker, they just got here.

It can take years for major policy changes to have a meaningful economic impact. To cite an example from the PM’s former job, central bankers operate on the assumption that monetary policy has what are known as “long and variable lags.” When the Bank of Canada raises its benchmark short-term interest rate to tame inflation, as it did this week, it expects that the full impact won’t be felt for 18 to 24 months.

A similar lag applies to changes to tax, investment and regulatory policy – each of which the Carney government is aggressively pursuing. The impact on the broader economy, if there is any, won’t appear overnight.

As for big infrastructure projects, the cycle from proposal to shovels in the ground is not instantaneous, even under the government’s ambitious “one project, one review, one year” standard. And that standard, part of Bill C-39, the Building Canada Strong Act, is not yet law.

The government’s overarching economic goal is higher economic growth, higher per capita economic growth and solid growth in wages. But to the extent that policy changes can deliver those positive outcomes, they can’t do it quickly.

Economic time doesn’t line up neatly with the political calendar. The economy is a supertanker, not a sports car.

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What the budget can offer is more detail on how far the ship has turned, and what is being done to ensure the course alteration continues.

For example, Ottawa intends to invest heavily in standing up a new, larger defence industry. That can’t happen overnight – but the Carney government didn’t start yesterday.

The coming budget should be able to spell out what’s been achieved, what’s still to be done, how much it will cost, and what economic benefits it will bring.

The Carney government has also embarked on an aggressive program of trying to boost non-U.S. trade, as a logical response to the impairment of commerce with our largest business partner.

In recent days, the government has signed a free-trade agreement with the United Arab Emirates, started talks with Turkey, and moved the ball forward on that closer link to the EU.

Europe is the most logical replacement for lost American trade. The EU is one of the world’s two free-market economic superpowers. It has advanced manufacturers that our industries can partner with (just like the U.S.), and it needs imported raw materials and energy (even more than the U.S.).

But we already have a free-trade deal with the EU, and its impact has not been large. How much can our non-U.S. trade be expected to grow? What will be the economic and fiscal impact? The budget should lay out the prospects.

When the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion finally went into operation in 2024, the Bank of Canada estimated that the higher global oil prices it allowed exporters to obtain would lead to a permanent 0.25-per-cent jump in Canada’s gross domestic product. It also delivered a fiscal windfall of billions of dollars in royalties and corporate income taxes.

What are the expected fiscal and economic impacts of another oil pipeline to the Pacific? What will be the fiscal and economic impact of attracting investors to expand oil sands production and build new liquefied natural gas exports facilities? The budget should lay that out.

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The Carney government is planning for a different world than the one Canada made a big bet on in the late 1980s, when we signed a free-trade agreement with the U.S., at the dawn of an era of global free trade. Ottawa is now betting – with good reason – on a world less open to trade and where governments practice industrial policy. The federal balance sheet is being harnessed to play that game.

As the TMX pipeline showed, some government spending on public infrastructure can pay for itself, by unlocking enough private business activity to boost both the economy and government revenues. Some of the projects Ottawa is talking about investing in – another Pacific oil pipeline, new port facilities – may be able to deliver positive returns.

However, other investments, such as building up the defence sector, may not be able to do that.

What is the expected impact on the federal bottom line – positive or negative – of each of Ottawa’s big investment bets?

And as Ottawa shifts its spending, as promised, to less consumption and more things classified as investments – including some assets that are not intended to generate returns – what will be the impact on the revenue side of the government’s accounts?

To what extent can more government investment, and less government consumption spending, set the stage for a future of increased economic activity and higher government revenues?

The answers may be slow to arrive. Either way, Canadians will ultimately get to render their verdict. The next election must be held no later than October, 2029.

In political time, that’s an eternity. In economic time, it’s already too close for Mr. Carney’s comfort.