FIN IN THE NEWS: Conservative budget is a massive let down

NDP MPs voice concerns about new Tory budget

Published: March 05, 2010 1:00 PM
Updated: March 05, 2010 1:47 PM

Members of Parliament for two local ridings are none too impressed with Stephen Harper’s plans to tackle the massive deficit.

The Conservative government announced Thursday (March 4) the budget for 2010-11 that will see federal spending reach $280.5 billion while the country struggles with a forecasted deficit of $53.8 billion.

Rookie MP Fin Donnelly of the New Westminster-Coquitlam riding has concluded there is “essentially nothing in the budget for the homeless, renters or homeowners”—essentially everyone—in his riding.

“I can’t see people being pleased with this in times of recession,” said the NDP MP over the phone from Ottawa.

“I don’t think people in this time of crisis will be pleased to see huge tax cuts to the corporate sector. I was hoping to see some basic steps towards private sector development of rental housing but they’re completely absent. They’ve cancelled the home renovation tax credit, there is no funding for the Homelessness Partnering Strategy and there’s nothing for those affected by the leaky condo crisis. I was hoping there would be more in the budget that would address the needs of hard-working Canadians and those most vulnerable.”

Peter Julian, MP for Burnaby-New Westminster, managed to find one silver lining in the Conservatives’ budget.

“At least the Conservatives corrected the cutbacks in funding to the Own the Podium program they’d talked about during the Olympics,” said Julian (NDP),

“[Minister of State for Sport] Gary Lund said they were only going to fund $11 million as opposed to $22 million. That was just incredibly poor timing and poor judgement. The NDP reacted to this very strongly and the public did as well, which caused them to reverse their position on that. The athletes that did so well during the Olympics are no longer facing significant cutbacks.”

“This is a very tough budget,” said Finance Minister Jim Flaherty in a press conference before the budget was announced.

“Some very difficult decisions have been made. Most of the answers to requests for funding were ‘no.’”

Julian agrees with Donnelly the worst aspect of the budget cutting funding in favour of corporate tax cuts.

“We have this record deficit that is largely caused by these corporate tax cuts. When you look at the budget documents themselves, the government admits that corporate tax cuts are the worst form of government spending. With social programs and infrastructure, you spend a dollar and you stimulate another dollar’s worth of economic activity as a result of that. With corporate tax cuts, there is no multiplying factors. Most of that money is just lost. The department of finance itself estimates about 90 per cent is lost for good,” he said.

“The government has chosen to put all its eggs into a series of corporate tax cuts, which is simply foolish,” Julian said in closing.