For Battle River-Crowfoot MP Damien Kurek, the new budget handed down by the liberal government does not appear to address the problems Canadians are facing.
Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland dropped the budget on Thursday, April 7, just before parliament left for break, a detail not lost on Kurek.
“So the budget dropped yesterday afternoon, and all MPs left Ottawa and are back in their constituencies for two weeks. So we are back in the swing of things only to be back in our constituencies,” he said.
He doesn’t believe the budget has the fiscal restraint needed for this time.
“The government is certainly starting to look past the pandemic, and they have started to mention the need for things like longer-term fiscal restraint. I would suggest their budget does not successfully accomplish that,” he said. “But they are starting to talk about things like economic growth.”
The budget comes after the LIberal and NDP party reached an agreement where the NDP would support the minority government until 2025. One of the commitments was to work to bring universal dental care.
“With parliament rising here, we don’t have the chance to hear some of the meat, and if what was presented in the budget actually meets what the NDP has expected,” he said. “Certainly the NDP, up until budget day, was talking about dental care and pharmacare. However when looking at the commitments that have been made they talked a lot about exploring the idea, but very little in terms of the tangible steps to create what would be either a national or provincial program on a larger scale.”
The budget also committed $8 billion to defense spending, something Kurek took a deeper dive on looking at.
“A couple of things stood out. One, it is a very small increase and only an incremental increase in defense spending. So I think next year it will end up at $1.1 billion more which is barely keeping up with the inflationary index which is impacting every Canadian, including the government, when it comes to procurement and providing services.”
He notes last week the Liberal, Conservatives, and Bloc all voted in favour of a Conservative motion to move towards the 2 per cent of GDP, NATO expectation for military spending. This is not reflected in the budget. He would like to see more spending, especially with the Navy to support sovereignty in the Arctic.
“I am glad the government is talking about the need for a strong military, unfortunately, when one digs into it we see they are certainly not living up to the rhetoric of delivering results,” he said.
For everyday Canadians, one of the biggest issues is the rising costs of virtually everything. Kurek says while there are commitments in the budget, Kurek feels like they are throwing money at the problem.
“Conservatives will often ask about things like housing, and about the results of the investments. The government often stands up and brags about the hundreds of millions or billions of dollars. They brag about the number they spent. I am hearing increasingly as inflation has become top of mind for so many, people are more concerned about dollars working for them, than simply the big dollars that are promised,” said Kurek. “So I am concerned about doubling down on the failed policies that have been shown to not work that well, that have increased or may have contributed to things like inflation and the rising cost of housing. Although well-intentioned, I’m not sure it actually gets the job done.”