Sage Podcast: They Hired Mark Carney. Now They Want Him to Spend His Political Capital to Get the Really Hard Stuff Done.

I think

they matter, obviously.

I think they matter because, you know, governments have to come to a bunch of decisions.

They have to figure out how it all adds up.

And they have to tell us.

You know, I see spending here and spending there and, you know, a $2 billion investment here and a $3 billion investment there.

The Globe and Mail had a piece last weekend about the mining industry and, you know, various public investments from various agencies and the government into there.

So you kind of get a reckoning.

But most importantly, you get a focus of the narrative.

What is the government up to, and what is it saying, and how does it pull it together? So it doesn't matter as much as it did.

My year is covering budgets, and I covered probably about 10 of them.

My year is covering budgets where the transition period between the budget is so sank or sank that if somebody takes a picture while you're flipping the pages and showing off your shoes— which was Marc Lalonde, then you might have to resign.

And they rushed that budget out that night because otherwise you'd have to resign.

And then they were getting to Paul Martin's period where he was shaping budgets, right? He was shaping public opinion before, you know, particularly before the great 1995 election.

Um, budget, you know, David and, uh, and John could either speak much more to this, but it was so exciting.

Budget day was so exciting.

You went into this lockup, this big room, you had to give up your cell phone.

Um, there were lots of, you know, smart people spinning you in this way and spinning you that way.

Um, and, uh, it, It was a very exciting, you know, meaningful moment to

report those.

And the fact that you couldn't leak any of this information, if you did, you got into trouble, was testament to just how singularly important these budgets are.

We heard at the investment summit, you know, the announcement of the mega deficit, mega deduction in terms of tax.

This is probably going to be incorporated.

in this budget the minister of finance is going to give a speech on monday i can pretty much guarantee he'll foreshadow everything that we're going to hear uh in thursday part of that leaking david and john is we're hearing now that this is going to be a growth competition budget designed to create an investment super cycle what are they talking about there david

Well, I don't think this is any different than what Mark Carney's been talking about since he became prime minister.