In part 2 of what has now become budget week, I’m following up yesterday’s budget charts with debt charts. Once again, I’m comparing data between the federal government and provinces using data collected by the Royal Bank of Canada.

Here’s an overview of the budget balances for the federal and provincial governments, to give some context to the federal government’s recently announced budget surplus. You can select from three options:

Here’s another thought: what constitutes an normal length election, anyways? Taking into account the time between elections and the party that called them, it isn’t clear what the trend is, if there is one at all.

The 42nd election campaign still has another month to go until election day on October 19th. It feels like it’s already been going on a long time, having started on August 2nd. Compared to just about every past election campaign, this one is definitely one of the longest: