Feds Table Budget Predict $29.4 Billion Dollar Deficit
Tuesday, March 22, 2016 @ 1:49 PM
Prince George, B.C. – With applause and a standing ovation, both from the floor and the gallery, Federal Finance Minister Bill Morneau has tabled the Trudeau Government`s first budget.
He opened his presentation saying “Today we begin to restore hope to the middle class, today we begin to revitalize the economy“. He says the budget “puts people first” addressing their needs today.
Morneau says the programs and initiatives will mean there will be $29.4 billion dollar deficit this year, and a further $29 billion dollar deficit in 2017.
Here are some of the highlights:
- Government is extending EI in regions impacted by the downturn in the oil patch such as Alberta, Saskatchewan, Newfoundland and Labrador
- New Canada Child Benefit, families with children under the age of 18 will start receiving benefits this July. Benefits that will be better than any current program
- $11.9 billion over 5 years to modernize infrastructure, new roads new bridges, sewers, watermains, broadband and social housing and mass transit including $370 million to Metro Vancouver Transit
- $3.4 billion for parks, harbours, border points and contaminated sites across country
- New “innovation ” agenda that will market Canada as an “innovation” centre. To that end: increase Student grants by 50% for students from middle income families so they can get the post secondary education they need.
- create up to 35 thousand jobs in each of the next three years, under Canada Summer Jobs program to help students gain experience.
- Invest $2 billion over three years to modernize on campus research, innovation and training facilities
- Invest $800 million over 4 years to support innovation “clusters” connecting people and their ideas to ensure innovation “happens”
- $675 million over 5 years to modernize CBC
- $1.9 billion over 5 years to Arts and Culture sector
- $30 Million a year to Canadian Institute of Health Research
- Increasing guaranteed income supplement for single seniors by up to $947 dollars a year.
- promises to enhance Canada Pension Plan following consultation with Provinces
- Increase disability awards to Veterans by indexing it to inflation
- Additional funding to reopen the Veterans Affairs offices which were closed ( including Prince George) and a new office in Surrey
- Double the amount provided to CMHC for the affordable housing initiative
- $112 million dollars over next two years for the homelessness strategy
- Will fund more than 3,000 transition or housing for victims of violence
- $8.4 billion over 5 years, ” to ensure Indigenous peoples share in Canada’s prosperity” over half that money will be invested in education, including construction of schools and hiring of teachers.
- Nearly $2 billion over 5 years on water infrastructure to ensure all Canadians have clean , safe drinking water.
- Funding to settle a further 10 thousand Syrian refugees this year
- $40 million for inquiry into Murdered and Missiing women
- will end income splitting for couples with children, the children’s fitness tax credit and children’s art tax credit
Morneau wrapped his presentation saying the work delivered today, is the plan for the future.
Comments
I have the impression that the Feds haven’t got a clue as to what the “middle class” is. The only thing in this budget that relates to them is the ending of the children’s fitness and art tax credits and ending it isn’t really helping them out.
My wife and I, along with our neighbours and friends are all “middle class”! We are all doing fine and we keep wondering why Justin feels the need to save us?
A rich spoiled brat that never has had to balance anything. We are on a wild spending spree and still the economy is way worse off than last year. Not a clue is the new theme.
Meanwhile in Kindergarten today, a bunch of kids were finger painting and are completely clueless that someone just spent 118 billion dollars, and the plan is for them to pay it back. Ah, the innocence of youth. Spend Mr. PM, our children and grandchildren can afford it.
Nailed it ski. haven’t we seen this movie before? Lot’s of money, no results.
Talk about clueless. Every poster here so far seems to think he is spending money more than the last PM. The only difference is THIS spending might actually be trying to help out those who don’t earn 6 figure incomes.
True Bent.
In 2009/2010 Harper ran a deficit of 55.6 billion. In 2010/2011 he ran a deficit of 33.4 billion. In 2011/2012 he ran a deficit of 26.3 billion.
If people are freaking out about Trudeau running a deficit of 28.4 billion, they should’ve had pitchforks out when they saw Harper’s numbers. Of course, they didn’t. Probably because they are hypocritical.
Personally, I don’t have an issue with short-term budget deficits if it makes sense. Putting the money towards infrastructure is far different than spending it on economic action plan ads.
Also, 2008 we had a world wide recession and the financial markets collapsed, and Harper used stimulus spending to keep the country going. We are not in that situation today so the comparison is not the same.
And this idea of more child tax credit – giving money directly to parents has never been shown to help children.
A national day care strategy would help children, school meals would help children. Increased funding to education would help children
Money to parents might help children, might also buy cigarettes, booze, iphones, holidays – no guarantee it will be spent well.
And since the highest amount of payments to low income parent(s), it could quite conceivably cause people who are poor parental candidates to start with, to have even more children.
You’re looking at this through the eyes of a civil servant though. It must be a massive relief knowing you have another 4 years of job security regardless of how bad the non taxpayer funded taxpayers are doing.
There’s a big difference between running a deficit to stimulate the economy versus running a deficit as pay back for getting voted in. $675 million to “modernize” the CBC? What the hell does that even mean? $800 million for “innovation” clusters? Is that government speak for “political boondoggle”? $370 million to Translink? Have they showed anything remotely resembling fiscal responsibility in the past? And we’re just going to give them more money?
Axman …. $300 million to Vancouver transit system …. if you were following the news a month or so ago, Justin was the first PM to have an official visit with the Mayor of Vancouver since his father did. It was obvious what they were talking about if you followed the GVRD politics and the needs of the lower mainland.
Given the connection to the City by the PM, there should be no surprise.
NMG. You do realize that the world went into the biggest rescission since the 30’s in that era. That Harper was in a minority government, right? To compare 2009 to today is beyond amateur. But whatever, leftards won the election, go hard.
You see, it goes like this: Harper’s huge deficits and his adding of 169 billion new debt to the national debt were a stroke of genius! When any other party runs deficits the dollars are spent in a totally irresponsible manner. It is a bit confusing because a dollar is a dollar no matter how one looks at it!
Bent, go with that and then take a deep breath. This kind of budget is what zoolander,s Dad did. There is no upside to this. Idiot’s
It’s 30 BILLION over the expected income. That IS more money than the last PM.
I knew this would bring out the proffesional complainers. It’s about time. The infrastructure in this country is falling apart. Old sewers, bridges, roads, buildings. This budget will take a long time to repay yes but it will also provide jobs and safer infrastucture. People will be working and spending again. Our children and grandchildren will benefit from that now and long term. I did like the income splitting though. It was beneficial for us but a small price to pay when you can drive safely over a bridge. (especially in Montreal) Finally a prime Minister with vision and balls.
vocer, you state that this budget will take a long time to repay! What about 2017’s projected $29 Billion dollar deficit? What about the deficit for 2018, 2019…..?
You say that our children and grandchildren will benefit from the infrastructure spending now and long term, but you neglect to mention that they and I might add our great grandchildren will still be paying for today’s new infrastructure spending, long after today’s new infrastructure will haven fallen apart!
So much for Justin’s modest deficit promise!
I’m still waiting to see how “the budget will balance itself”!
Ya so.. It really doesnt matter how long it takes. If you have mold in your kitchen do you ignore it because of cost. The mold will grow and grow until it makes you and you’re great grand children sick. Same applies. The longer we leave things as they are the more dangerous they become. Your logic makes no sense. Fix the mold before it becomes and even bigger problem.
“our great grandchildren will still be paying for today’s new infrastructure spending, long after today’s new infrastructure will haven fallen apart!”
Are we still paying for the infrastructure that was put in place in PG 50 years ago or longer? NO!!
What we are paying for is trying to repair that infrastructure over and over again, in the meantime driving for months on roads that are falling apart and repairing systems in buildings that should be replaced with more energy-efficient systems.
How long do you want to wait, like Kinsley did, and then borrow money to do the work instead of raising taxes to an appropriate level so that we get it over with during the current generation.
Investing in the future is a fact of life.
Then again, if you have your own house, perhaps you rented and greased some other person’s/company’s palms until you could pay for it with cash instead of borrowing and greasing the bank’s palms while living in your “own” home.
So Hart Guy, is your position that we don’t need to spend money on infrastructure?
Read Todd Whitcombe’s column in the newspaper! He put the debt and deficit habits of the Cons into proper perspective – understandable by anyone whose mind is not shackled by political ideology and devotion.
Did you happen to notice that of the projected 118 billion, only 12 billion is ear marked for infrastructure. How about the other 106 billion – do you think it’s well spent too? Because the interest payment is about 4 billion a year once this deficit is done – assuming interest rates don’t rise.
So there’s about 33 million of us, and 5 million are under 15 and 5 million are over 65 – roughly. Of the remaining 23 million not all can/do work. So, the remaining 20 million will have to cover off $200.00 a year in interest, and will have a debt of $5,900.00. And this is just this deficit, that doesn’t take into account what’s been spent before.
The best analogy that I’ve seen so far for this budget is this:
There is good deficit spending and there is bad deficit spending! Good deficit spending is fixing the roof, installing a new furnace or new windows. Bad deficit spending is a vacation trip to Mexico!
With the vast majority of this budget being spent on “social” spending, it would appear that this budget is “a trip to Mexico” deficit spending!
“Hang in there” Alberta.
amazing the amount of money the CBC is getting paid off with for their heavy biased reporting during the election. No matter what party one bows to this should be very disconcerting to everyone. A very big blow against democracy.
I’m surprised that the other mainstream media, CTV and Global aren’t going ballistic over the increase to CBC!
If I was CTV or Global, I’d be royally pissed! It’s long passed time for CBC to stand or fail on it’s own!
If the CBC and we may as well add Bombardier can’t make it on their own, too bad, so sad!
This was an item that surprised me also. Better get bang for the buck for that kind of dola.
So you actually listen to the CBC. Interesting …. LOL
So Gus,If you listen to CBC, you are smarter?
Seamutt was talking about heavily biased CBC reporting, not me. Unless he likes to quote other sources and he does not listen himself. He just apes others. Might suit him.
I actually do not listen to CBC, Dow. I try to avoid CBC TV news as well. I tend to peruse various internet news sources from Canada and international sites if it deals with world matters.
What do you use for information sources that makes you so smart Dow?
Restoring funding to the CBC is a blow against democracy? You must use tinfoil as wallpaper.
Britbart. drudge, bourque and most newspapers. Gus.
I wonder if anyone actually thought the reaction of many in the 250NEWS peanut gallery would be any different than what we are seeing here today after the reaction by them immediately following the election results.
Amazingly (tongue firmly planted in cheek)the two are closely aligned.
gopg2015, you’re the Op250 expert on absolutely everything, so I’m really interested in what you have to say about the Liberal’s broken election promises?
Justin promised to keep the deficit to $10 Billion!
Justin promised to be fiscally responsible!
Justin promised to return to a balanced budget by 2019!
Today, Justin broke all 3 of these KEY election platform promises!
What say you in defence of this indefensible twit?
bang on HG. This is shaping up to be a big cluster fXck.
I do not care about election PROMISES. Federal, provincial, municipal. They are all the same. I agree with your use of the word PROMISES. It is right on. That is all they are.
I look at the PLANS which are based on more complete information, especially if the party in power is a new one. The Budget is a PLAN. Now we need to see how well the plan works. So, the assessment should be made towards the end of the Budget cycle, certainly not the promises before the Plan.
I see this no different than managing a business and managing staff. Objectives are set that should be achievable that everyone agrees to, everyone works towards those objectives and, periodically adjusts the actions taken towards the objectives based on environments one finds themselves in.
At the end of the cycle one evaluates on as unbiased a fashion as possible. That includes self-evaluation as well as external evaluation.
Not quite the atmosphere one finds on this and other internet blogging sites, is it?
Bernie Sanders loves to comment on the negativism of the internet. Maclean’s has done the same in an article about today’s society who are better off than ever before yet complain the most of any generation before.
If people actually want to read the budget details instead of relying on snippets from various news articles or comments from people, you can spend hours pouring over the details here:
www. budget.gc.ca
Remember, some are totally functionally illiterate. :-)
Sanctimony, is the Liberal Hallmark, gus.
If any of you are worried about this federal budget don`t be it`s peanuts compared to what our very own photo op queen will have BC on the hook for, by the time we add up site c, its 10 billion in todays dollars! the Massey tunnel again another estimated 8-9 billion `in this years dollars, we already owe billions for Hydro in deferred payments, the plan to bankrupt Hydro is going along just fine thank you very much, I have no problem with the federal budget announcement today it’s the huge BC debt burden that we are being saddled with that scares me …. I didn`t vote for JT but I like what he is doing so far a few hits and misses yes but already better than Harper
Its very scary to watch the government of the day spend so foolishly. Eventually we will go bankrupt like Greece. We can always blame the previous government to make it look like it is not anyones fault.
We really don’t have a democracy anymore. I’m not sure what we should call it. Have a nice day.
The last election wasn’t an exercise in democracy? I always vote. If the outcome favours my convictions, great! If the outcome is not what I voted for, fine too. A party gets a mandate to govern in 2015. Harper celebrated when his party finally got a majority. It is the way democracy works.
This is a Green Horn budget pure and simple. Many people getting money for nothing, and others getting the opportunity to pay the bill.
When you elect lefties, what else can you expect.
Lots of money being promised for infrastructure spending. I’d be really really interested to see what measures are being put into place or will be put into place to ensure financial accountability for monies spent!
Lots of money that I suspect will go to waste with not enough filtering through to the point where it actually accomplishes anything!
But, not to worry! There will be another $29 Billion next year!
$100 Billion deficit projected over the next five years. Have fun with that.
What, stop the taxpayer funded biased press, did he not say the budget will balance itself!!!!!!!. What drama, oh wait.
Spend spend spend…the only way to fix harpers mess.. How dare he worry about drinking water.. Spending money on roads…being worried about our safety…what’s he thinking? Helping out the seniors and veterans.. Unheard of in the last 10 years…
Doenst get any worse than having a government who cares about the voters….we are so NOT used to that
Not a word or mention of actual help for our energy industry! The EI extension is a joke and is nothing more than band aid solution to the Alberta, Saskatchewan and BC energy industry workers!
Our energy industry workers don’t want a hand out! They want a hand up!
Where was Justin’s commitment to opening up access to our energy resources. We sell our oil to the USA! That’s it! We sell it to them at less than world prices, because the USA won’t pay us world prices. Since we have no other markets to access, we are forced to sell to the USA and to do so at a discount.
At the same time as we are doing that, we have Eastern and Atlantic Canada importing oil from the USA, from Venezuela and from Saudi Arabia all the while paying world prices for that oil!
So, let’s build and operate a pipeline to the east! We could sell our western oil to Eastern Canada at a price that is lower than what they are paying to import oil from the USA, Venezuela and Saudi Arabia. That’s a good deal for Eastern and Atlantic Canada!
At the same time, we could be selling it to them for more than what we are getting from the USA! That’s good for Western Canada!
It’s a win/win for all of Canada and it would put so many back to work! Eastern Canada buys Western Canadian oil for less than what they pay now! Western Canada sells to the East for more than what we now get from the USA!
Alberta, Saskatchewan and BC energy workers don’t want EI! They want to go to work! So, where was Justin’s commitment to this?
So you want Pierre Trudeau’s national energy program?
Actually Eagleone, NO!
No! In no way do I want Pierre Trudeau’s national energy program!
In October 1980, Pierre Trudeau introduced the National Energy Program, following a deadlock in negotiations with Alberta over an energy-pricing agreement and he did so without consulting the oil industry.
The NEP sought more federal control over the energy industry, with three main goals: increase the federal share of energy revenues, boost Canadian ownership in the oil industry, and make Canada self-sufficient as an oil producer.”
What many in the West want is access to our own Eastern market as well as access to world markets with the ability to sell to offshore. There is NO desire to increase the federal share of energy revenues and NO desire to change the current ownership positions within the energy industry. However, a byproduct of increased access to eastern markets would increase Canada’s energy self-sufficiency.
Eastern Canada currently pays world prices for oil from the USA, Venezuela and Saudi Arabia! Saudi Arabia?
Western Canada wants the ability to sell it’s oil to Eastern Canada, perhaps for slightly more than the low price that our only customer, the USA is willing to pay! Simple, right? Eastern Canada should embrace the opportunity to source their oil from Western Canada, perhaps at a slight discount over what they currently pay to the USA, Venezuela and Saudi Arabia!
None of this requires Pierre Trudeau’s National Energy Program!
If you think zoolander will somehow fix these issues while spending into oblivion P Val, your sniffing intoxicants.
an interesting read!
Chris Hannay, Ottawa — The Globe and Mail – March 22, 2016
Trudeau’s first budget: Welcome to a decade of deficits
ht tp://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/welcome-to-the-next-decade-of-deficits/article29323430/
financial accountability for monies spent! right not mentioned anywhere, how long until the scandels start. Wonder what slice of the pie Quebec will get. I am sure the foxes are already circling the hen house.
Trudeau has a lot of payback to make.
Welcome to adecade of deficits ? We already had one..lol
P Val, in case you haven’t made the connection yet, the Harper Government’s deficit spending occurred by and large during a global economic crisis and with Canada in a recession! Justin’s deficit spending is occurring even though the country is not in recession!
From the article that I posted a link to earlier:
“The Harper government reluctantly fought the 2008-09 recession with deficit spending; it took half a decade of painful cuts to get the books back into the black. (Some will say that a deteriorating economy would have created a deficit this year regardless of who was in charge, but anyone who knows Stephen Harper knows he would have ordered his finance minister to balance the books this year no matter how much blood had to flow.)
And now, for the first time since 1971, a federal finance minister is taking the budget out of balance even though there is no recession. Then, it took two-and-a-half decades to bring things back under control. Maybe we should start a pool on how long it will take this time. If you remember Edgar Benson, don’t join, because you might not live to collect.”
And a better PM brought us out of those deficits quite nicely. And now we’re thrown right back in.
Also only 30 billion….not even close to harpers 56 billion in 2010.
You realize everything is on the internet right? Including the correct answer to your accusation.
read HG’s post again P Val, Man your thick in the head.
Do any of the liberals that voted for Justin even care that he broke his main election promise of a measly 10 billion deficit? I guess keeping promises is only for the other guys.
findme, earlier I asked for a comment on the following broken promises:
Justin promised to keep the deficit to $10 Billion!
Justin promised to be fiscally responsible!
Justin promised to return to a balanced budget by 2019!
Today, Justin broke all 3 of these KEY election platform promises!
I didn’t get a response! Go figure!
Hart guy… So a con deficient is cool, awesome… But a liberals isnt.. Nice bubble you live in dude.
P Val, seriously Dude, you really need to pay attention!
Did you even read my post at 8:34 PM?
Did you not read the article that I posted a link to at 8:13 PM?
Obviously NOT!
P Val, for crying out loud, you’re like the guy that keeps bringing a knife to a gun fight!
love it HG. P Val can’t back up much with logic. Keep trying though.
I read it…meant nothing..like most of your posts.
P Val. If you want to talk about posts that mean nothing, then you should review most of what you post. Other than trying to make a case against Harper you don’t bring much to the table.
Fact of the matter is the Liberals have already broke a number of elections promises, and will break more. Remember Jean Chretian, Paul Martin and the **Red Book**. They broke every promise they made in that book, and in fact threw the book in the garbage.
Same thing applies to Justin. Behind him hanging out at the trough are all the old Liberals ie; Chretian, Martin, Dion, etc; etc; Remember the Gomery commission?? Get ready for more of the same.
One big problem is, is that Justin is not Pierre, and I doubt if he will be able to control the party when they start to spend all this money.
Good budget just for the fact that it has people like Dow7501, Hart Guy and Palopu wailing, gnashing their teeth and tearing their hair out.
zing haha. Who’s paying your tuition? Clearly you are unemployable.
Thank you. No one. Wrong again which is nothing new from reading your comments.
If the issue of our times is the growing rich poor divide as it pertains to the role the national income ratios play in the perpetual battle between labor and capital than this budget doesn’t live up to the hype. It’s more of the same, just based on a lower oil price reality reflecting in the deficit.
Yup, I’m a rightard. Guilty haha.
Is that why you constantly make reference to children’s programming ?
Government deficits in this day in age are inevitable no matter which party is in power. The concerning thing about this budget is we now have a government that seems to be bent on putting up road blocks on resource and energy projects(including “green energy”)which will pay for the deficits.
Regardless of which government is in power i believe that we are at the point of no return when it comes to sovereign debt and at some point unless budgets are balanced a currency crisis is a very likely possibility. This is due to years of politicians not being held accountable for their actions and spending beyond what our GDP can produce. At the end of the day the working class will get stiffed with the bill..
I love how easy it is to wind up the Con lovers..
They are so ignorant to what Harper did.. He had 3 yrs of over adding 30 billion to our deficient and they have a long list of reasons why it was a fantastic decision. But have a new gov come in and spend some cash to fix all harpers screw ups and the world is coming to a end… Bunch of clowns :-)
Out of the ashes grows a new crop . ironandearth.org
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