Poilievre 'very disappointed' in government's decision to skip spring budget
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said Thursday he is dismayed that the new Liberal government has decided to forgo a federal budget for now, saying Prime Minister Mark Carney promised Canadians a plan during the election campaign and he should deliver one sooner rather than later.
"Mr. Carney took delight in saying a slogan is not a plan," Poilievre told reporters on Parliament Hill, referencing the prime minister's past criticisms of the Conservative leader's election sloganeering.
"If he does know what he's doing then he would introduce a budget so Canadians know exactly what the finances are."
Poilievre said the decision to push off a federal budget this year will "send a bad signal to investors, ratings agencies and a lot of people will wonder what the Liberal government is hiding about our finances."
Canadians will be left in the dark about the government's debt and deficit projections — and what Ottawa's future interest and inflation rates would be — all key data points, Poilievre said. "We were very disappointed to hear there will not be a budget this year," he said.
Poilievre said he wants Carney to "steal our best ideas" by implementing Conservative policies like a deeper tax cut. He also promised to sit down with the new prime minister to discuss his proposals if there's any interest.
Poilievre's criticism comes after Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne announced earlier this week that there will not be the usual spring budget.
He said the government will present its plan to tackle tariffs and other economic issues like affordability in the upcoming speech from the throne — which must be read as the first act of a new session of Parliament.
The government's next order of business is introducing legislation to pass what they are calling a middle-class tax cut and then come back in the fall with a "very substantial" economic update, a sort of mini-budget halfway through the fiscal year, Champagne said.
He said the government is "going to do things in the right and logical order," and it doesn't make sense to table a budget now given there is "uncertainty in the market" as the Canadian economy grapples with a trade war.
"I want to be prudent. We're going to provide a substantive update when we come back — hopefully by then there will be less uncertainty we have to factor into it," Champagne said in an interview with CBC's Power & Politics.
"First things first, let's help folks," he said, referencing Carney's promised tax cut — a measure Poilievre said Thursday he may be willing to support depending on what's actually tabled in Parliament.
Champagne also said there's not much time between now and when the House of Commons is set to rise for its summer break in mid-June.
It typically takes months to craft a federal budget, a document drawn up after broad consultations — although some of that work was already underway before Carney took over the party.
Still, it's been nearly 400 days since the federal government presented a budget, an inordinately long time.
Former prime minister Justin Trudeau's team did present a fiscal update in late December — a document that showed the finances were much worse than expected — but it was largely overshadowed by Chrystia Freeland's dramatic resignation from cabinet just hours before it was due to be tabled.
Kevin Page, the former parliamentary budget officer, said Champagne's assertion that the government has to wait to table a budget because of U.S. President Donald Trump-related economic uncertainties is "not a strong argument," but he is sympathetic to the time constraint claims, given summer is weeks away.
"The reason you have a plan is to deal with the uncertainty," Page said in an interview.
With unemployment up and a recession a very real possibility, he said "it's not sustainable to not put out some sort of economic and fiscal document.
"We've gotten sort of sloppy with respect to the financial cycle, we've been tabling budgets late, not giving Parliament planning pictures. Canadians want to know what can they expect," he said.
Page said the government's promised fall statement needs to be akin to a full-scale budget, especially given Carney has promised many changes and new spending on everything from infrastructure to higher wages for Canadian Armed Forces personnel.
"You can't make these substantive changes without a budget and the clock is ticking," Page said.
cbc.ca
