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I’m linking three times to the same video, as safeguard against potential take down and deletions. –

https://redd.it/1pccuqx
https://x.com/DonDavies/status/1996048505266131169?lang=en
https://youtu.be/YSON4Y8cjf4?si=ElqYBvjzBeDvsBLU&t=192

On November 29 2025, at the Parliamentary Press Gallery dinner, New Democratic Party (NDP) Interim Leader Donald Davies says at 3 minutes 10 seconds

Now I’d like to address the allegation that the NDP is broke. Untrue! We’ve had our accountant split the numbers into capital, and operating budgets.

Then the crowd starts to laugh. Why? I don’t get the joke. It’s plain and routine for an accountant to split numbers into capital, and operating budgets. What’s so comical about an accountant doing their job?

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    @JoeW "Putin enters a bar and proclaims, 'Next round's on the house!'" What's the point of this popular Russian joke? has 113 votes ;-) I am confident that this site can survive this question by a new user. Commented 2 days ago
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    @ItalianPhilosopher I would say that is a bad question as well. Commented 2 days ago
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    If a joke is about a political situation, it's not unreasonable to ask what it's referring to. That's a political question. Commented 2 days ago
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    That said, it's possible that this joke would work just as well for a regular corporation as a political party, so it may not be politically motivated. But since the joke was made in a political context, the OP is justified in assuming it's political and asking here. Commented 2 days ago
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    And the current most voted answer confirms that knowledge of Canadian politics is important to understand the joke. I'd say that by reading the question and the answer I learnt more about Canadian politics than about jokes or accounting, fulfilling the goal of this site. Commented 2 days ago

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The joke references the Government of Canada's 2025 change to separate operational spending from capital investment, its commitment to balance the operational budget by 2028-29, and the Parliamentary Budget Office's report that noted:

Unlike the previous fiscal anchor, the Government has not defined how the new Operating Budget targets will be measured. Specifically, there is no commonly accepted definition of what is defined as “operating” or “non-operating/capital” spending. Hence PBO is unable to assess whether the Government’s recent fiscal policy initiatives presented in Parliament (Main Estimates, Supplementary Estimates, Ways and Means motion) are consistent with achieving its new fiscal objective.

While the party's budget is not part of the government budget, the joke is that the NDP could address the claim that it was broke by using the same tactic the government had recently used.

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