CBC: For this year, the economic update assumes the price of the main North American benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) will be just $73 a barrel this year.
That underestimation means Ottawa has built in a multi-billion-dollar cushion for the next budget.
“I think there’s a lot of slack in the figures presented today, which means come the fall budget we are going to see much more room for this government to spend,” said Sahir Khan, executive vice-president of Institute of Fiscal Studies and Democracy in Ottawa…