Canada has hundreds of government bodies — departments, agencies, Crown corporations, provinces, municipalities — and most of their financial records are public. Few people read them. We do.
Rednwhite analyzes financial statements, budget documents, Auditor General reports, and public accounts to find spending that looks out of place: costs that seem too high, unexplained jumps in expenses, or patterns that don’t match what comparable governments spend on the same services.
Federal government
We track the finances of the Government of Canada and its major agencies:
- Consolidated federal financial statements
- Major departments: National Defence, Health Canada, CRA, IRCC, Public Safety, Justice, Transport, and others
- Crown corporations: CBC, Canada Post, CMHC, Export Development Canada, Business Development Bank, Farm Credit Canada, and more
- Parliamentary spending (House of Commons, Senate)
All 13 provinces and territories
Every province and territory publishes consolidated financial statements and public accounts. We analyze all of them, looking for:
- Spending that grew faster than revenues or population
- Debt levels increasing as a share of GDP
- Departmental costs that are high compared to peer provinces
- Programs that cost significantly more than originally budgeted
- Qualified audit opinions from the Auditor General
Municipal governments
We start with municipalities over 100,000 population and expand from there. Municipal finances are often the least scrutinized — and cities manage enormous amounts of public money for infrastructure, transit, housing, and local services.
We look at capital budgets vs. what projects actually cost, reserve fund levels, consulting and contractor spending, and debt per resident compared to similar cities.
What we use
Everything we analyze comes from publicly available documents that governments are required to publish: Auditor General reports, public accounts, annual reports, financial information returns (municipal level), and budgets. We go to the original source — not government press releases, not summaries, not talking points.
What we don’t do
We don’t investigate corruption or comment on policy choices. Our job is financial analysis: does the spending look reasonable, is it comparable to what similar governments spend on the same thing, and was it disclosed clearly? When we find something that looks wrong, we report what the numbers show and let readers draw their own conclusions.