Economics Matters Ep. 22: Budget 2025 with Richard Forbes and Meghan Eibner

In this episode we explore the outcomes of the federal 2025 budget.  We explore what has been announced what it means for communities, and how these decisions will shape the next five years. We’ll explore the tension between ambitious investments and rising deficits, and dig into the long-term implications for Canadians.

We'll ask our leading economists whether there will be enough generational investments to offset the costs of rising deficits.  They'll also delve into the local impacts on the city of Ottawa–Gatineau from the announced public sector reductions.

They'll go beyond the headlines to give some much needed context and talk about how the question of whether the budget delivers has a lot to do with where the money is spent.

About our guests:

Richard Forbes has been a Principal Economist on the Conference Board’s economic forecasting team since 2016. Richard plays a key role in overseeing the Conference Board’s Industry Lens and Territorial Outlook products and contributes analysis on a wide range of sectors in the Canadian economy.

Meghan Eibner is a Lead Economist for The Conference Board of Canada. Within the Economic Forecasting unit, Meghan focuses provincial, US, and International economic outlooks.

Meghan has 15 years of experience working as an economist in the private, public, non-profit, and academic sectors. She spent much of her career in Toronto conducting economic analysis on multi-billion dollar transportation projects for the Government of Ontario. Now located in St. John’s NL, Meghan worked as a policy analyst for Memorial University before joining the CBoC.