Government House Leader Steven MacKinnon speaks to reporters ahead of a cabinet meeting on Parliament Hill on Tuesday.Spencer Colby/The Canadian Press
The minority Liberal government is expressing concern with prebudget demands from the Conservatives and the Bloc Québécois, calling them unreasonable given that Canadians elected the current Parliament just six months ago.
Government House Leader Steven MacKinnon, who is also Minister of Transport, made the comments Tuesday, one day after Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre released his letter to Prime Minister Mark Carney outlining his party’s demands.
“We’re two weeks from the budget. I think that what I’m seeing in Parliament worries me,” Mr. MacKinnon said, adding that Canadians are looking for certainty.
“We intend to present a plan to Canadians to deal with this very critical moment in our history. And what we’re seeing is our opposition parties, the Bloc Québécois, who, without having even read the budget, eliminate the possibility that they will support it, and the Conservatives making just ludicrous demands with respect to the budget.”
Late Tuesday, the Prime Minister’s Office announced that Mr. Carney “will make a live address on Canada’s plan to build a stronger economy, in advance of the 2025 Budget” at 7:30 p.m. ET Wednesday. No further details were provided.
Mr. Poilievre released an open letter Monday to the Prime Minister that says the Nov. 4 budget should keep the deficit under $42-billion. He also said the budget should reduce taxes on income, capital gains, the industrial carbon tax and “homebuilding taxes” and should eliminate various taxes related to packaging, fertilizer and farm equipment that he calls “hidden taxes on food.”
“Canadians have had enough of your buzzwords and broken promises. Every Liberal budget ends the same way – higher prices, lower paycheques and bigger bills,” Mr. Poilievre’s letter states. “We don’t need another lecture from the ones who caused the crisis. We need results that put Canadians first.”
Bloc MP Jean-Denis Garon, the party’s finance critic, held a news conference last week to announce 18 budget demands, six of which he described as non-negotiable.
Mr. Garon told reporters the Bloc’s support for the budget will be “difficult to obtain” based on where things stand at the moment.
Mr. MacKinnon said Mr. Poilievre has set a deficit figure that he knows is not attainable.
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The government’s December, 2024, economic statement projected a $42.2-billion deficit for the 2025-26 fiscal year. The Liberal platform revised that projection to $62.3-billion during the April election campaign.
In light of further major spending promises since then in areas such as defence spending, a July projection by the C.D. Howe Institute said this year’s deficit could be more than $92-billion.
In the April election, the Liberals fell three seats short of the 172 needed to form a majority government. The Conservative Party finished second with 144 seats, followed by 22 for the Bloc, seven for the NDP and one for the Green Party.
The Liberals need to persuade at least one of the three largest opposition parties in the House to either vote with them or have a handful of MPs abstain to avoid defeat on votes that are deemed confidence matters, such as the budget.
For most of the previous Parliament, the Liberals had a supply and confidence agreement in place with the NDP that ensured the minority government’s survival in exchange for action on NDP priorities.
No such deal is currently in place between the government and any of the opposition parties.
NDP Interim Leader Don Davies has said his party will not support a budget “that takes an austerity approach.”
He also said his party is not making specific budget demands.
Mr. MacKinnon said a government defeat on the budget would mean the government would fall.
“We don’t think Canadians want an election, but [an] election there will be. It’s the opposition parties who have that decision in their hands,” he said.