Federal budgets can provoke many reactions – anger, shock, confusion, boredom – but fun? Hardly.
That’s why I did a double-take when my editor suggested I develop a trivia challenge that takes a lighter beyond-the-numbers and behind-the-scenes look at Canada’s budget history. “Only accountants and policy wonks would find that interesting,” I groaned inwardly.
A little research, however, proved that her instincts were correct. Beneath the inevitable dry numbers and bureaucratic jargon that each budget contains, there’s a hidden trove of fascinating history to each of these annual rituals that chart Canada’s shifting economic fortunes throughout its history and capture the changing cast of political personalities who have left their mark on our country’s fiscal foundation.
So channel your inner policy wonk and take our latest quiz. With a pinch of gallows humour, we’ll take you beyond the stark numbers as we look back through our fiscal history, from Confederation, through peace and war, economic booms, depressions and recessions, trade wars, spending sprees and austerity drives, population booms and aging demographics. We’ll even take a historical detour into the finance ministers’ footwear of choice.
