Noted as the largest-spending budget in Canadian history, the federal fiscal plan leaves much to be desired, says Foothills MP John Barlow.
The Liberal government’s 2021 budget, which came down on April 19, recognizes a $354.2-billion deficit in the 2021-21 fiscal year, which is anticipated to fall to $154.7 billion this year.
“The deficit that is being added by Prime Minister Trudeau is higher than the debt of every prime minister in Canadian history combined,” said Barlow. “That’s a big number to sink in.”
He said the 2021 budget includes irresponsible spending without a concrete strategy to bring the country back to balance.
About $100 billion in new stimulus spending is largely unnecessary, said Barlow.
“Economists are saying stimulus isn’t needed once vaccines are out there, and we’re already seeing the economy start to uptick,” he said. “That additional $100 billion isn’t needed, and now is going to be a bit of a slush fund.”
He said the government missed the mark on what most Canadians wanted to see in the 2021 federal budget – a strategy to get people back to work and businesses open to jump-start the economy.
There was not much by the way of investment in new infrastructure projects that could help achieve that, he said.
In addition, Barlow said increased health transfers to provinces to help guide them through the pandemic should have been included in the budget.
“You have utterly failed when it comes to accessing and distributing vaccines, and you see the provinces really struggling with this, so not to have this in the budget as well…” said Barlow. “When you are spending these kinds of dollars and you miss three really critical pillars – I think some of the priorities are misguided from what they think Canadians wanted to see.”
There was some promise for the agriculture sector in terms of carbon sequestration and carbon credits, he said, adding he’s curious to see how those programs roll out in the next year.
Roughly $100 million is expected to roll out to farmers in the next year as they begin collecting carbon credits, and the Agricultural Clean Technology Program has been expanded to a $165-million allocation. In addition, $200 million over two years has been allotted for the Agricultural Climate Solutions program, which targets farming operations aimed at reducing emissions with green initiatives.
As a co-chair of the Conservative Opioid Crisis Working Group, which has begun research focused on mental health and addictions issues, Barlow said it was good to see some programs included in the budget to address these concerns – though more was needed.
The budget proposed $116 million in funding over two years to support treatment and prevention programs.
“I think it was too little,” said Barlow. “I think that has to be a huge focus, mental health and opioid addictions and substance abuse.”
He said preliminary research of the working group has revealed that while there was a crisis pre-COVID, the situation had worsened during the pandemic with more people turning to substance use or suffering from anxiety and depression.
“There were some steps in the right direction, but still for the amount of money that was spent here it’s quite staggering,” said Barlow.
Another area that could have used more funding is development of broadband accessibility to address issues of poor Internet connections in rural Canada, he said.
He said there is some light in the budget for those still hurting from the effects of the COVID pandemic, as the government is continuing programs like wage subsidy to help keep businesses afloat.
“The response benefit, certainly I’ve heard from constituents and business owners that they’re still struggling, so I think extending those to September is a good step,” said Barlow.
