Local MP’s Express Budget Disappointment
Prince George, B.C.- The Trudeau government has tabled its first budget with a prediction of a $29.4 billion dollar deficit this year, another $29 billion in 2017. ( see previous story)
Reaction has been swift with Cariboo-Prince George MP Todd Doherty saying the spending plan has no clear plan to help unemployed Canadians get back to work.
“Canadians should be concerned that the Liberals are failing to do what is necessary to encourage the private sector to invest in our economy and create well-paying, high-quality jobs” says Doherty.
Prince George-Peace River- Northern Rockies MP Bob Zimmer expressed concerns about the budget eliminating the Children’s fitness and arts tax credits ” As a father of four children, I know how expensive extra-curricular activities can be, which is why I was so proud to support these tax credits during our time in government.”
Zimmer is also concerned the Liberal government has kept the Small Business Tax Credit at 10.5%, instead of lowering it to 9% as promised during the election.
To Zimmer, there was at least one bright spot in the spending plan, “I am pleased to see that key initiatives that are important to our region have remained, including the continuation of the Accelerated Capital Cost Allowance for Liquefied Natural Gas Facilities and the extension of the Mineral Exploration Tax Credit. The Accelerated Capital Cost Allowance in particular is something that I worked extremely hard on during the previous government and it is important to the future of the B.C. LNG industry that it continues.”
For MP Doherty, there is also uncertainty about when the Veteran’s Affairs office in Prince George will reopen. The budget says the Liberal government “proposes” to reopen the office here, but there are no details on when, or the costs associated with that promised re-opening.
Comments
That would translate into 12,000 dollars for every man,woman and child in Canada
Of course the opposition parties are going to say the budget is not good for the country. If the other parties got to form the government then the Liberals will be saying the budget is no good for the country. No party is when your not in the driver seat. Of course our local mp’s are going to say it’s no good because they don’t work for the Liberals but what do you except. The family’s are going to get more for the kids then the Harper gave. There was a guy on cbc radio west who broke down the budget a little bit and said families will get more money.
How is it that the Tories insist (when they are in power) that the government needs to stay out of the economy, and then express outrage (when they are not in power) that the government isn’t doing enough in the economy?
Oh wait, I’ve fallen into the logic trap. Silly me.
Zimmer actually opeed his mouth..previously he was gagged by Harper..of course Doherty doesn’t have to say anything but a few words ..more than Harris did!
Should read …opened his mouth…
Well Harper destroyed Canada while spending well over 170 billion and cutting funding to seniors veterans etc.. Now the liberals get to spend billions fixing all of the cons screw ups and actually helping out Canadians.. Such a nice change.
the federal government’s relatively low debt-to-GDP ratio makes spending possible
Thanks to Harper.
So much partisanship on this forum is nauseating. Harper destroyed Canada? Really? How about one example of Canada being destroyed. I hope you like taxes, because when you go 30 billion in debt every year for the foreseeable future that’s what you’re going to get.
You realize, of course, that your partisanship statement is nauseating by your own admission. LOL
Local MP’s Express Budget Disappointment . Ya so ?
Of course Zimmer’s is only a slight disappointment. The Liberals actually did not eradicate the “key initiatives that are important to our region”.
This is news? lol
Like father like son. Pierre Trudeau increased the debt by a staggering 738.7%.
And what did we have to show for it? Well, who knows? If the government were a private business and it increased its Liabilities by that, or any other amount, there would be a corresponding increase in Assets. But we never see that increase, if there is one, in government accounting. Nor do we see how many times over we’re going to pay for those Liabilities. Once, for most of them, should be enough. But if all we’re paying on them is the interest, and never reducing the principal? I think we’re being taken.
The “assets” are measured by the GDP since the assets allow various levels of business to be conducted. It is the flow of money through businesses which allow taxes to be collected which in turn will allow the government to create more fixed assets as well as service benefits to further improve the business environment.
I liken it to the “goodwill” of a business. There are tangible assets of inventory and fixtures. They typically have a depreciated value. The City of PG knows all about that as does the province as do the feds.
Canada, however, has a relatively high level of “goodwill” when it comes to countries in thee world.
I would love to hear what you think that “goodwill” should be valued at.
Another way to look at it is the line of credit a business might carry.
In the construction industry a contractor does not get paid until work has been done and has been accepted. Larger projects may have periodic progress payments based on percentage of work in place. Typically such contractors have lines of credit so that they can pay their overhead, employees, suppliers, etc.
The line of credit is typically a % of the amount of work a contractor typically has, whether $100,000, $1million or $10million and so on.
The contracts in place, the business climate, past performance of the company with the ability to get jobs, etc. will determine what the assets are which will allow the level of liabilities the contractor is able to take on.
The crunch comes when business (cash flow) slows down. What do you do to get a larger share of the dwindling market?
Reduce your expenses? Lay off people? move to smaller digs? sell equipment?
Or, invest in better promotions, better qualified people, better equipment that is more efficient?
Or, adjust the type of business that you do from commercial to residential construction? Build speculative buildings (assets).
Or go out of business and move to a location with a better business climate?
Even with an extensive line of credit with great terms your lender is still going to want to see a plan for repayment. Where’s ours?
That is not correct. I am talking about an revolving line of credit for operating purposes. It allows the business to use the funds when they are needed.
It is typically used for operating purposes, fluctuating each month depending on the customer’s current cash flow needs.
This country, this province and this City are operations, just like businesses. There are other measures which are used as indicators of good fiscal policies.
For instance, where is the money borrowed from. The cheapest rate is from the Bank of Canada. No one else can provide such rates. In fact, it is sometimes cheaper to build now since inflation is more than the cost of borrowing.
When Trudeau came to office in 1968 Canada had a national debt of $11.3Billion and the DDP was $75.4Billion; the debt to GDP was 15.0%
When he left office in 1984 the figures were : $128.0Billion debt : $444.7Billion GDP : 28.78% debt to GDP
The debt grew by 1,133% but the economy grew by 590%
The national debt has to be seen in relationship to something. The population and the economy does not remain the same.
The Mulroney government followed. When he left office in 1993, his government managed to increase the debt to GDP ratio to 65%.
Mulroney 1993 : 65% debt to GDP. He ran continuous deficit budgets ranging from $29 to $39 Billion dollars.
Chretien/Martin followed. By the time they left office in 2006 they managed to reduce the debt to GDP ratio back down to 32%. In 1996 they brought in the first surplus budget at $3Billion. That grew to $20 billion in 1999 and ended at $13.7 Billion in 2006.
Under Harper, the debt to GDP ratio grew to around 40%.
A word of caution to those who might be looking at public debt and see a figure of over a trillion dollars. That is the combined debt of federal plus provincial governments. The above is a reporting of federal debt only since that is all a federal government has control over.
Are you talking debt to GDP provincially, federally, as a whole, inflation adjusted, etc. Pretty easy to spew numbers and mix and match figures with no relation to each other. What were the actual federal debt to GDP numbers at the time? Inflation adjusted skews these actual percentages as does adding in provincial debt.
In 2016 adjusted dollars Chretien ran a 150 billion dollars of deficit in his first 3 years of office, actual dollars at the time were 105 billion netting a loss of -4 to -6 percent of GDP. Even Harper’s 55 billion dollar deficit during the global recession was only -3.6 percent of GDP
Martin had two budgets 1.4 and 13.2 billion surplus, following Chretien’s 2001 .8 billion, 2002 6.6 billion and 2003 9.1 billion. Harper followed Martin with 13.8 billion and 9.6 billion surplus before the global recession hit.
What you are trying to say is Justin Trudeau inherited a surplus budget as did Harper but managed to turn that into a massive deficit without even a global recession to trigger it, I got you.
How can you possibly measure a budget that was just tabled now and goes into effect on April 1, 2016 and completes the cycle on March 31, 2017 as a percentage of GDP?
You must be some sort of soothsayer. We will not know how much will actually be spent nor how much the economy will grow or shrink over the 12 months until probably a quarter after the current budget cycle.
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As far as past comparisons, I agree that correcting for inflation by converting everything to 1990 or 2000 0r 2015 dollars skews the comparison.
The first figures I showed for Pierre Trudeau’s 16 year run with less than a year of the Clark government incorporated into that span are current dollars for the years shown, not adjust to some future year. The rest I am not sure of because to get historic data on the internet is very inconsistent. If one were doing a serious review, they would, of course, be available from StasCan, likely at a cost.
For this site, I am not about to bother to get that type of accuracy. Most people would not even understand what is being discussed.
The fiberals are giving money to those that vote fiberal, that is so politician. I thought Trudeau was to be the new deal. The only result so far is not one campaign promise kept. Ever notice that mischievous grin he always has, well its the result of his perpetual astonishment on how easy it was to mislead his way into office. Well he had help with the multi millions promised to the ever honest CBC. That just must piss off CTV, Global, no money.
8 billion to native issues with no accountability, now there is a money maker for many. Vote buying or what, so politician.
I am amazed at what Trudeau is pulling off and most of you don’t see it, truly amazing.
Thing is, with 1.4 million aboriginals, that’s 5700.00 per person. Not really a lot when it’s spread over 5 years. So it makes a big news splash as if he’s really doing something, but with the complexity of problems facing aboriginals it’s likely not going to be the big salvation it’s being touted as.
The election promise of spending 10 billion per year on infrastructure over what was already being spent annually of 5 billion, which meant an extra 5 billion per year seems to have gone AWOL? The budget comes out at 11.9 billion over 5 years… how is that an extra 5 billion per year? The promise was 60 billion over 10 years (doubling the current spending) … what happened?
For Gus – the Liberals have us at 31 percent debt to GDP requiring 25 billion in additional debt per year for that to go up
Source:
htt p://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/where-will-125-billion-in-infrastructure-spendinggo/article28228477/
to slinky …. from that article, the fist thing I noticed was this comment: “Economists argue that it is better to spend money on projects that will achieve long-term productivity gains, like improved border crossings”
Having crossed the border to the USA relatively frequently in the last few years, there is a cheap solution. We have a free trade agreement. So does Europe. The members of the common market have no borders posts.
Unlike Trump, who wants to build walls, follow NAFTA and let goods move back and forth. Let people work in both countries. There is no free trade of goods and services if border patrols have to guard borders that make no sense.
The same goes with visitors and resident. If one is a visitor to either country, then both countries agree what the standard of screening is, trust each other and as Reagan use to say “trust but verify”. But to employ people and build infrastructure to define national boundaries is counter productive.
Further to that article, to promise anything over a 10 year period which seems to be the case for both the previous government and the current government when the mandates they have are over a 4 year period has no merit.
If they showed the studies which show what needs to be done, and they couple that with the rate that infrastructure can be improved to a more acceptable level of standard, and they discover that that level would take 10 years to achieve, that is one thing, but to pull guesses out of thin air as seems to be the case in both parties is simply not how to do it.
Perhaps the Liberals have determined that the objective standard cannot be met over a ten year period with the money the Conservatives had earmarked so they thought they had to accelerated that. It may not even be driven by JOBS. It may be driven by fiscal responsibility for all I know.
The author of the G&M article is just contemplating his navel as well on this matter. There is not much insight there.
You know that when you use terms like “fiberal” your bias is showing. It really negates anything else you write.
If one checks out the ratings you wouldn’t invest 10 cents in the CBC.
If the feds wanted to stimulate the economy they could have easily extended the accelerated depreciation rules in place for LNG projects to the smokestack and other natural resource industries. Creating new investment saves jobs and increases hiring big time. At the same time, Alberta could introduce 0% royalties in new petroleum investments and cancel the ‘kill coal’ program.
gopg2015, the “assets” are not measurable by GDP, which is a meaningless measure in any case. The “assets” COULD be measurable, along with the “liabilities”, and “capital” (citizen’s equity), if we had a properly constructed National Balance Sheet. Which we do not currently have.
So we waste our time in endless argument over whether a Federal Budget, which in its total sense can NEVER be balanced under the current financial conventions, (barring a constant and continuing excess of exports over imports, which is a mathematical impossibility if the ‘figures’ are to REFLECT actual ‘facts’.)
No country can constantly export more than it imports ~ to do so would make its currency rise to a value where no other countries could afford its products, unless it was out to ‘give’ them away for something less than their costs of production. Which ALL countries have supposedly agreed in various ‘free trade’ deals NOT to do.
And despite all those various “free trade” deals, gopg2015, ALL countries are continually still trying to do. Sell their products into export markets at less than cost. Some are more expert at it than others. Which begs a question, I think. If countries can do that to other countries, why can’t they do the same thing in their own country? All costs flow through and enter prices. But in each successive cycle of production, only SOME of those costs are ever distributed as incomes. Yet SOME is supposed to be able to liquidate ALL. Somehow. Currently it does this by ever expanding debt. But this debt is currently unrepayable in its totality, even under the terms of the various loan agreements that created it. THIS is WHY governments, no matter which Party forms them, find themselves in a position where they continually have to run deficits. And even when they don’t, or have the occasional surplus, or even a string of them, all they’re really doing is some creative accounting. Overall debt is still increasing, and the means of its repayment by individuals ever diminishing in ratio to it.
I’m So happy Harpo and his dorks are gone.
This time last year Harper was giving Israel 50 million free and cutting Vets offices. Mr Harris was showing 500 THOUSAND for his expense claim for a year.
You need to spend money to make money. Let the liberals do there best.
In 10 years we will vote there ass out and start again.
Because that is what we do in Canada
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