Hello,
With one week to go before Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland tables the Liberal government’s 2022 budget, MPs are spending the day debating what it should contain.
Thursday is an opposition day for the Conservative Party, meaning it can propose a motion of its choosing for a day-long debate, followed by a vote.
The CPC motion bemoans the government’s “excessive” spending and calls on the government to present a federal budget “rooted in fiscal responsibility, with no new taxes, a path to balance, and a meaningful fiscal anchor.”
The reference to no new taxes is likely to be a deal breaker for the Liberals and NDP. The two parties recently reached a parliamentary co-operation agreement that will see NDP MPs vote to keep the Liberal government in power until June 2025 in exchange for action on a list of policy priorities.
That list includes an assurance that the Liberals will follow through on a campaign promise to raise nearly $11-billion in tax revenue over five years through tax hikes on large banks and insurance companies. The pledge was not implemented in Ms. Freeland’s December fiscal update, but the government signalled at the time that details would be released in the 2022 budget.
Conservative finance critic Ed Fast kicked off debate on Thursday’s motion by condemning the Liberal government’s record on fiscal matters.
“Excessive government spending. Deficits as far as the eye can see. The largest national debt this country has ever seen, in fact double in a short six years. Inflation running rampant. Skyrocketing housing prices. Seven years littered with broken promises. That is the record of the failed Liberal government,” he said.
Terry Beech, Ms. Freeland’s parliamentary secretary, dismissed the motion and defended the government when he spoke in the House.
“The truth is we remain committed to the fiscal anchors we outlined in our 2021 budget. This means reducing our debt-to-GDP ratio and unwinding the COVID-19-related deficits,” he said. “While it is true the cost of the pandemic was significant, it was more than reasonable that the federal government use our strong fiscal position to take on this burden. We did this so small businesses, Canadian workers and family household budgets did not have to. While Conservatives may see these investments as frivolous or unnecessary, I would expect the nine million Canadians who were able to feed families and the 450,000 employers who were able to keep 5.3 million employees on the payroll would disagree with their position.”
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TODAY'S HEADLINES
SENATOR APOLOGIZES FOR SAYING DEFATED MP KENNY CHIU WAS LYING ABOUT FALLING VICTIM TO DISINFORMATION CAMPAIGN - A Conservative senator apologized Wednesday for accusing a member of his own party of lying in a still-simmering debate over whether a disinformation campaign cost Kenny Chiu his job as a member of Parliament last year. Story here.
FORMER AFGHAN TRANSLATORS STAGE HUNGER STRIKE ON PARLIAMENT HILL TO PLEAD FOR FAMILIES’ EVACUATION - Former Afghan interpreters are holding a hunger strike on Parliament Hill on Thursday to persuade the federal government to speed up bringing their extended families to safety in Canada. Story here.
SENATORS OVERWHELMED BY E-MAILS, CALLS PUSHING CONSPIRACY THEORIES ABOUT BASIC INCOME LEGISLATION - Members of the Red Chamber have been hit by a wave of questionable correspondence from Canadians convinced that a pending Senate bill would take away their pensions and lead to some sort of totalitarian world government, CBC News reports here.
INDIGENOUS LEADERS OPTIMISTIC POPE FRANCIS WILL APOLOGIZE FOR RESIDENTIAL SCHOOL SUFFERING - The Assembly of First Nations emerged from a two-hour meeting with Pope Francis optimistic that he would offer a full apology for more than a century of abuse at the Catholic-run residential schools and visit Canada, where they would like the apology to be made. Story here.
CONSERVATIVE LEADERSHIP RACE
CHAREST HEADS EAST - Jean Charest has, this week, completed a two-day stop in the Greater Toronto Area, and, according to an advisory from his campaign, is headed to Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador and Ottawa next week.
POILIEVRE RALLY - Leadership contender Pierre Poilievre holds a rally in Ottawa in support of axing what an advisory calls “the Trudeau-Charest-Brown carbon tax.”
THIS AND THAT
TODAY IN THE COMMONS – Projected Order of Business at the House of Commons, March 31, accessible here.
THE DECIBEL
On Thursday’s Decibel podcast, Globe reporters Matt Lundy and Josh O’Kane explain why Canadian tech companies are struggling to compete, what it means for Canada’s tech industry and what needs to be done to retain Canadian talent. Listen on your favourite podcast platform. More information can be found here.
PRIME MINISTER'S DAY
The Prime Minister attended private meetings, chaired the cabinet meeting and attended question period. The Prime Minister was also scheduled to meet with a delegation of deputies from the Parliament of Ukraine, the Verkhovna Rada.
LEADERS
Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet held a news conference on Parliament Hill, with party Finance Critic Gabriel Ste-Marie, on the Bloc Québécois’ budgetary expectations.
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh attended the Broadbent Institute’s Progress Summit and was scheduled to meet with the delegation of MPs from Ukraine.
OPINION
John Ibbitson (The Globe and Mail) on why Trudeau and Ford’s political bromance is bad news for opposition parties - “Ontario Premier Doug Ford and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau were once enemies. Now they’re friends.
This is bad news both for the federal Conservatives and for the Liberals and NDP at Queen’s Park. It’s one reason why the provincial Tories are likely to prevail in the June 2 election.”
The Globe and Mail editorial board on the Liberal government’s new climate change plan - “Bottom line: In 2018, a landmark United Nations climate report laid it down: “rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society.” That’s what is necessary. Canada is warming twice as fast as the global average. The country saw what climate-heating havoc looks like in British Columbia last year, over and over. The Liberal plan is not perfect, but it’s the best we have had so far.”
Tanya Talaga (The Globe and Mail) on the delegation of First Nations, Métis and Inuit people meeting with the Pope this week in Rome - “Oh, this is the beauty of our peoples – that after everything they’ve endured, that they should be the ones to travel here to the Holy See to ask for an apology for the intergenerational suffering caused by the brutality of residential schools. Some delegates even brought gifts, because that is tradition – one that has been kept in defiance of what church teachings tried to eliminate.”
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