State of the Economy: Spring 2001

OTTAWA--The government should draw upon the fiscal dividend to ease the impact of the current economic slowdown and to reinvest in programs that bore the brunt of spending cuts in the 1990s, concludes the latest update on the State of the Economy by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

The report, by David Robinson, CCPA research associate and economist with the Canadian Association of University Teachers, forecasts program spending, as a share of GDP, will drop from 11.7% in fiscal 1999 to just 11% in fiscal 2003, its lowest point since 1948.