The federal budget introduced in Parliament on Tuesday provides no tax relief and will add close to $20 billion to the country’s accumulated debt.
Some of the positive aspects of the budget include the promise to provide high-speed Internet to all Canadians over the next decade, $3.9 billion in compensation for supply-managed farmers of eggs, dairy and poultry, and new skills training tax credits.
There will also be a shared-equity mortgage program for first-time home buyers, and for the agricultural sector, infrastructure funding eligibility for short line railways, and funding for a study on land and water resources on the Prairie provinces.
For small business owners, the news was not good, as there are newer and higher taxes for them to deal with in this budget, including seven years of CPP premium hikes, higher taxes for many family businesses and those with passive investments, and the new carbon tax which takes effect on April 1.
Taxes, like death, are an inevitability, but to be increasing taxes on small businesses will only hurt them, and in turn will hurt the economy, as small businesses are the backbone of jobs and of the economy in local communities.
The carbon tax will hurt them and will negatively impact every sector of the province, including the agricultural and oil and gas industries. This is a punitive and regressive tax that will provide no benefits whatsoever to the economy, and will not help the environment in any way, despite the Liberals claim that this is the purpose of such a tax.
Of great concern to all taxpayers is the size of this year’s deficit at $19.8 billion, and the fact there is no real plan in place to deal with it.
The deficits are forecasted to continue for years to come, and won’t decrease until 2023-24, when it will go down to $9.8 billion (and that’s only a prediction — the reality is that deficit amount will only get bigger in the years to come). Future deficits will add to Canada’s accumulated debt, and in turn will mean future taxes to pay it down, which is not a very good legacy to be leaving for future generations.
The main explanation for this budget is that this is the Liberals’ final one before the federal election in October. Clearly their hope is that by spending extra dollars that they really don’t have, this will distract Canadians from the fiasco of the SNC-Lavalin scandal.
Curiously, they drew even more attention to it on budget day by arbitrarily shutting down the committee hearings into the affair, even though there is much more evidence that needs to come forward about what the Liberals did. Election day isn’t that far away that Canadians are going to forget about it.
