Federal spending: methodology

Where the federal spending pages’ figures come from, how they are grouped, and why two totals appear.

Where the figures come from

Every figure comes from the Public Accounts of Canada, the government’s audited annual report, as read by the Build Canada data API, together with GC InfoBase’s program actuals. Nothing on these pages is typed in by hand: when a new year of the Public Accounts is loaded, its pages are built from it.

• Public Accounts of Canada 2013, Volume I: Ten-year comparative financial information (Table 1.1)
• Public Accounts of Canada 2014, Volume I: Ten-year comparative financial information (Table 1.1)
• Public Accounts of Canada 2015, Volume I: Ten-year comparative financial information (Table 1.1)
• Public Accounts of Canada 2016, Volume I: Ten-year comparative financial information (Table 1.1)
• Public Accounts of Canada 2017, Volume I: Ten-year comparative financial information (Table 1.1)
• Public Accounts of Canada 2018, Volume I: Ten-year comparative financial information (Table 1.1)
• Public Accounts of Canada 2019, Volume I: Ten-year comparative financial information (Table 1.1)
• Public Accounts of Canada 2020, Volume I: Ten-year comparative financial information (Table 1.1)
• Public Accounts of Canada 2021, Volume I: Ten-year comparative financial information (Table 1.1)
• Public Accounts of Canada 2022, Volume I: Ten-year comparative financial information (Table 1.1)
• Public Accounts of Canada 2023, Volume I: Ten-year comparative financial information (Table 1.1)
• Public Accounts of Canada 2024, Volume I: Ten-year comparative financial information (Table 1.1)
• Public Accounts of Canada 2025, Volume I: Ten-year comparative financial information (Table 1.1)
• Public Accounts of Canada 2026, Volume I: Ten-year comparative financial information (Table 1.1)
• Public Accounts of Canada 2003, Volume II: Ministerial expenditures by standard object (Table 3)
• Public Accounts of Canada 2004, Volume II: Ministerial expenditures by standard object (Table 3)
• Public Accounts of Canada 2005, Volume II: Ministerial expenditures by standard object (Table 3)
• Public Accounts of Canada 2006, Volume II: Ministerial expenditures by standard object (Table 3)
• Public Accounts of Canada 2007, Volume II: Ministerial expenditures by standard object (Table 3)
• Public Accounts of Canada 2008, Volume II: Ministerial expenditures by standard object (Table 3)
• Public Accounts of Canada 2009, Volume II: Ministerial expenditures by standard object (Table 3)
• Public Accounts of Canada 2010, Volume II: Ministerial expenditures by standard object (Table 3)
• Public Accounts of Canada 2011, Volume II: Ministerial expenditures by standard object (Table 3)
• Public Accounts of Canada 2012, Volume II: Ministerial expenditures by standard object (Table 3)
• Public Accounts of Canada 2013, Volume II: Ministerial expenditures by standard object (Table 3)
• Public Accounts of Canada 2014, Volume II: Ministerial expenditures by standard object (Table 3)
• Public Accounts of Canada 2015, Volume II: Ministerial expenditures by standard object (Table 3)
• Public Accounts of Canada 2016, Volume II: Ministerial expenditures by standard object (Table 3)
• Public Accounts of Canada 2017, Volume II: Ministerial expenditures by standard object (Table 3)
• Public Accounts of Canada 2018, Volume II: Ministerial expenditures by standard object (Table 3)
• Public Accounts of Canada 2019, Volume II: Ministerial expenditures by standard object (Table 3)
• Public Accounts of Canada 2020, Volume II: Ministerial expenditures by standard object (Table 3)
• Public Accounts of Canada 2021, Volume II: Ministerial expenditures by standard object (Table 3)
• Public Accounts of Canada 2022, Volume II: Ministerial expenditures by standard object (Table 3)
• Public Accounts of Canada 2023, Volume II: Ministerial expenditures by standard object (Table 3)
• Public Accounts of Canada 2024, Volume II: Ministerial expenditures by standard object (Table 3)
• Public Accounts of Canada 2025, Volume II: Ministerial expenditures by standard object (Table 3)
• Public Accounts of Canada 2026, Volume II: Ministerial expenditures by standard object (Table 3)
• Public Accounts of Canada 2013, Volume II: Transfer payments, by ministry
• Public Accounts of Canada 2014, Volume II: Transfer payments, by ministry
• Public Accounts of Canada, Volume II: Transfer payments (multi-year open data)

Two totals: expenses and net expenditure

The overview’s headline (revenues, expenses and the deficit or surplus) and its revenue and spending chart come from Volume I of the Public Accounts: the consolidated statement of operations, on an accrual basis. The chart’s lines add up to the headline exactly.

Everything about ministries and departments comes from Volume II: each organization’s net expenditure by standard object (personnel, professional services, transfer payments and so on), less the revenues it was allowed to keep, and its transfer payment programs. GC InfoBase’s program actuals are on the same basis, so a department’s programs add up to its total (to within a thousand dollars). On a department page, the stat card, the chart and the lists are the same total.

The two bases don’t add up to each other. Volume I records expenses as they are incurred (for example, capital assets as they are used up, and pensions and other benefits as employees earn them), consolidates the spending of Crown corporations and accounts that isn’t part of ministries’ net expenditure, and includes items no department spends, such as net actuarial losses. Volume II records what each organization spent in the year from its authorities. So the ministries on the overview add up to every organization’s net expenditure, not to the headline expenses, and they are labelled that way.

In 2025-26, expenses were $566B and net expenditure was $478B.

* Volume I figures for 2017-18 to 2017-18 are as restated in GC InfoBase – Public Accounts of Canada – Authorities and Expenditures by Program (2013-14 to 2017-18), which can differ from those years’ own reports.

* Volume I figures for 2003-04 to 2011-12 are as restated in Public Accounts of Canada 2013, Volume I: Ten-year comparative financial information (Table 1.1), which can differ from those years’ own reports.

Volume II has expenditures from 2002-03, and Volume I’s figures begin in 2003-04, so the years before have no headline.

Spending categories

The overview’s chart sorts each year’s expenses into the categories of the chart Canada Spends published for 2023-24: Defence, Transfers to Provinces, Indigenous Priorities, Health and the rest. Its smallest items add up to the expenses in the financial statements (Volume I).

The statement of operations’ major lines are their categories: Old Age Security, Employment Insurance, children’s benefits, the Canada Health and Social Transfers, fiscal arrangements, the carbon rebate, public debt charges and others. Where Finance’s transfer payments itemize fiscal arrangements, they split it into Equalization, the Quebec offset and other major transfers; otherwise it is all under Equalization. The Canada Health and Social Transfer of 2003-04 and 2004-05 is under the Health Transfer.

The rest of the expenses are what organizations spent (net expenditure, Volume II). Each organization is in the category the 2023-24 chart gave it, and the chart’s breakdown of some departments is kept: by core responsibility (GC InfoBase’s actuals, from 2010-11) for National Defence, Global Affairs, Fisheries and Oceans, Natural Resources, Environment and Immigration; by transfer program (from 2012-13) for Indigenous Services, Crown-Indigenous Relations, Finance, Employment and Social Development, the Canada Revenue Agency, Immigration, Public Safety and Health Canada. In earlier years, such a department is in the category the chart gave the rest of it.

What the 2023-24 chart doesn’t name (organizations of other years, and programs that were renamed or are new) is categorized into the same categories: an organization that was split, merged or absorbed takes the category of the organizations the Build Canada registry links it to, when they share one; otherwise Jev, a classification model, chose among the categories, and its choice is used when it is more likely than all the others together. Each judgment is kept with what the model was shown, for review. An organization neither places is under Not Yet Categorized.

Accrual and Consolidation Adjustments is the statement’s other expenses less what organizations spent outside the major lines. The two bases differ (see above), so it can be negative. A few items of the 2023-24 chart can’t be shown, because the Public Accounts don’t separate them: each province’s share of the major transfers, the individual claims settlements of 2023-24, and the parts of energy and excise taxes.

Departments and ministries

A department page is one organization: a department, an agency, a Crown corporation that receives appropriations, or an office of Parliament. Organizations are identified by their GC InfoBase code, so a page follows the same organization across renames.

A ministry is a minister’s portfolio: it groups departments, agencies and Crown corporations, and spends nothing itself. The overview groups each year’s organizations by the ministry the Public Accounts printed each under that year, as the Build Canada data API gives it, and names each ministry as the Public Accounts published it that year, since a ministry’s name changes when it is reorganized. These are the portfolios of the ministers responsible that year, so some last only a few years, and an agency with its own minister can be a ministry of its own name. An organization that moved between ministries appears with a different ministry in different years. An organization under no ministry that year is shown on its own.

Transfer payment programs

From 2012-13, a department’s transfer payments are broken into the named grant, contribution and other transfer programs the Public Accounts list. The chart shows the largest and groups the rest; the table lists them all, as published, and downloads as CSV. The program table and the standard object are published separately and can differ slightly; the chart shows any difference as “Not itemized by program”, so it still adds up to the department’s total.

Charts

In every chart, amounts are on the smallest items only and each group is the sum of its items, so nothing is counted twice. Revenues a department kept are shown as negative amounts.

Inflation

The nominal and real toggle shows amounts in 2024-25 dollars, using the Consumer Price Index averaged over each fiscal year (April to March) from Statistics Canada Table 18-10-0004-01. Your choice is remembered as you move between pages. Percentages are not adjusted.

Commentary, workforce and votes

What a department does is our own commentary, and it states no figures: every sentence with a number is generated from the data.

A department’s workforce is the full-time equivalents GC InfoBase reports for its programs that year, beside its personnel standard object (salaries, wages and benefits). Personnel spending per full-time equivalent is the one divided by the other: it includes benefits and pension contributions, so it is not an average salary. An organization InfoBase gives no full-time equivalents for shows its personnel spending only.

A department’s votes are Volume II’s budgetary details by allotment: for each vote, and for its statutory amounts, what was available for use, what was used, what stays available in later years and what lapsed. What it used is its net expenditure. A transfer payment program is statutory where the Public Accounts mark it “(S)”: it is paid under an act of its own, not voted each year in the Estimates.

What these pages don’t have

The size of the federal public service as a headcount, and the age, tenure and salaries of its employees (Treasury Board’s population of the federal public service), are not shown: the data API does not serve them yet.