Conservative Budget Fails Canadians
March 19, 2007
OTTAWA – Today’s Conservative budget does little for the average Canadian family, and by paying only lip service to competitiveness, environmental stewardship and social justice it does nothing to position Canada for the 21st century, Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion and Liberal Finance Critic John McCallum said today.
“This budget is further proof that the Harper government is more concerned about electioneering for the short term than helping the average Canadian succeed both now and in the future,” said Mr. Dion. “Either that or the Conservatives simply don’t understand the pressures facing low- and middle-income families.”
Mr. McCallum added that once again, the government is turning its back on the majority of hard-working Canadians.
“The Conservatives implement tax policies that look helpful on the surface, but their benefit is cancelled out by the tax hikes on low- and middle-income Canadians hidden in last year’s budget, which have still not been reversed,” he said. “The net personal tax relief is a modest $80 per tax-payer.”
Mr. Dion pointed to the deceptive schemes that the Conservatives are trying to pass off as solutions right before an unwanted election.
“Their so-called equalization formula for the provinces is little more than using taxpayers own money to buy favour, since they’ve already cut nearly $10 billion in provincial transfers since taking power by scrapping agreements on child care, labour market partnerships and more than $3 billion of the Canada-Ontario agreement,” he said.
Both Mr. Dion and Mr. McCallum said the budget:
FAILS to offer real tax relief - Taxes began to go up literally the day this government took power – the lowest income tax rate was 15 per cent in 2005, 15.25 per cent in 2006 and 15.5 per cent in 2007. The Conservatives also decreased the amount that can be earned tax-free in 2006. The least they could do was to reverse some of these tax hikes. This budget maintains the Conservative tax hike on the first $35,000 of income. The cost of this tax hike -- $1.4 billion – cancels out the benefit of their new child tax credit. Overall, the tax relief for hard-working Canadians is modest: some $1.3 billion per year, or $80 per tax-payer.
FAILS to help Canadians safeguard our environment or fight climate change - It cuts back our commitment to renewable energy to 4000 megawatts from 5500 megawatts of support for clean and sustainable production. It keeps tax breaks for new oil sands expansion in place until 2015 to help with their plan for explosive growth. It slows our planned cleanup of lakes and waterways. It replaces rewards for those who make energy savings changes with gimmicks that cost thousands of dollars for every tonne reduced. It reduces funding to our provincial partners by half. There is no plan to make sure polluters pay for using the atmosphere as a free garbage dump. Without an overall plan for the environment, modest support for greener cars falls short.
FAILS to offer new support to the provinces and territories – The Conservatives cut nearly $10 billion from projected federal-provincial-territorial transfers through 2010-11 by killing the Liberal childcare agreements, scrapping the Labour Market Partnership Agreements and reneging on much of the Canada-Ontario agreement. In place of these agreements, they put back $11.1 billion in new funding. So the net benefit to provinces over the next five years is about $1.1 billion.
FAILS to position Canada for the 21st century global market-place – In 2005, the Liberal government put forward the CANTrade strategy, which provided $485 million over 5 years to help Canadian businesses succeed in emerging markets. The Conservatives scrapped this initiative, and have now replaced it with $60 million over the next two years. The Conservative budget also cuts $970 million from the Indirect Costs of Research program, which provides support to Canada’s universities.
FAILS to offer new support to students – The budget doesn’t put a penny in the pockets of Canada’s under-graduate students. There’s money for Canada’s top 4,000 graduate students, but the vast majority get nothing at all.
FAILS to help working families – In 2006, the Conservatives promised 125,000 new child care spaces over 5 years. Fourteen months into its mandate, Canadian families are realizing this promise wasn’t worth the paper it was printed on: there have been zero spaces created in the past year. What’s worse, the so-called Universal Child Care benefit – neither universal nor child care – is fully taxable, and the government will rake in an average of $400 per family thanks to this. The 2006 Child Care Plan was a complete failure. Why should Canadians believe the so-called “new approach” will be any better?
FAILS to address the needs of Aboriginal Canadians – The Conservative budget provides no clear vision for improving the lives of Aboriginal Canadians, instead offering a hodge-podge of measures, with funding that is a drop in the bucket compared to the Kelowna Accord they abandoned.
