Finance Minister Jim Flaherty announced a long-promised blueprint to streamline the environmental review process, and also proposed changes to Employment Insurance, the immigration system, and aboriginal education designed to increase the labour supply to booming sectors, such as B.C.'s burgeoning natural gas industry and Alberta's potent oilsands sector.
A starkly different message was sent to environmental groups that are waging an intense battle against the oilsands sector and especially Calgary-based Enbridge's proposal to build a pipeline to Kitimat, B.C.
The budget commits $8 million over the next two years to help the Canadian Revenue Agency target registered charities that the government believes are too overtly political.
The money will be used to "improve transparency by requiring charities to provide more information on their political activities, including the extent to which these are funded by foreign sources," according to budget documents.
One federal official said $3 million of the $8 million will go to "education and compliance," with the "lion's share" of that $3 million to cover the cost of stepped-up audits.
Flaherty's speech described Canada's natural resources as a "massive" asset, with the oil and gas, mining and forestry sectors employing roughly 750,000 Canadians and driving economic growth across the country.
In a nod to efforts by Enbridge and Kinder Morgan to obtain approval from the independent National Energy Board to build oilsands pipelines to the West Coast, Flaherty said: "it has become clear" Canada must open new Asia-Pacific markets.
And he said the government "will ensure that Canada has the infrastructure we need to move our exports to new markets."
Flaherty warned that Canada could lose a "historic opportunity" if it falls to its competitors trying to feed China and other resource-hungry Asia-Pacific economies.
"We will implement responsible resource development and smart regulation for major economic projects,
respecting provincial jurisdiction and maintaining the highest standards of environmental protection," Flaherty told the House of Commons.
"We will streamline the review process for such projects, according to the following principle: one project, one
review, completed in a clearly defined time period. We will ensure that Canada has the infrastructure we need to move our exports to new markets."
The budget puts Flaherty on a collision course not only with the environmental movement but also with the new official Opposition leader, Thomas Mulcair.
Mulcair has said Canada's high petro-dollar, fuelled by federal government policies to artificially prop up the oilsands industry, are ruining Canada's manufacturing sector, located primarily in Central Canada.
While Thursday's budget answered the B.C. government's long-standing pleas for a more business-friendly environmental review system, Flaherty gave a cold shoulder to Liberal Premier Christy Clark's appeal for changes to the health transfers formula announced in December.
Flaherty altered the annual increase in transfers from six per cent a year to a figure linked to economic growth, starting in 2014-15.
Clark complained publicly that the new formula, which treats all Canadians equally by divvying up transfers on a per-capita basis, didn't adequately take into account the higher costs on the West Coast caused by an older population.
But Flaherty ignored that request. The only change to the formula was a promise to pass legislation guaranteeing that no province or territory will experience a reduction in transfers when the new formula is enacted in the 2014-15 year.
The government also gave a boost to the B.C. shipbuilding and ship repair sector by committing $101 million over five years to "restore and modernize" the West Coast's largest deep-sea shipbuilding and repair dock at Esquimalt.
That investment to the Esquimalt Graving Dock, originally built in 1927, will maintain the roughly 1,300 jobs generated by the facility in the Greater Victoria Area, according to the government.
Flaherty also committed an additional $5.2 billion over 11 years to the Canadian Coast Guard for new vessels and helicopters, as well as to fund the repair and refitting of existing vessels.
Among the other measures in Thursday's budget:
- The eligibility age for Old Age Security and Guaranteed Income Supplement programs will rise gradually to 67 from age 65, over the 2023-2029 period. The timing ensures that the vast majority of baby boomers won't be impacted.
- The budget announced a series of measures aimed at meeting soaring demands for skilled labour that is particularly acute in Western Canada, where some politicians have complained that the jobless in high-unemployment parts of Eastern Canada lack the incentive to move West.
The biggest of those measures is a $387-million investment over two years to "align the calculation of the value of EI benefits with local labour market conditions." The program will encourage people who work sporadically to accept "all available work," and those who don't will receive lower benefits.
- The budget commits $35.7 million over two years for a series of measures to improve Canada's tanker safety regime. New regulations will boost inspection requirements and "appropriate legislative and regulatory frameworks" will be introduced dealing with emergency preparedness and response.
- The government will extend the "temporary" 15 per cent Mineral Exploration Tax Credit for flow-through share investors, scheduled to expire this month, for another year. The extension, designed to help junior exploration firms raise capital, will cost the federal coffers $100 million.
- The government said it would follow through on Immigration Minister Jason Kenney's vow to more closely align Canada's immigration system with the country's economic needs, and there were numerous measures intended to get more young aboriginals into the workforce.
- The government committed $12 million for the upcoming 2012-13 fiscal year for fisheries science projects aimed at helping industry, but said it will "take steps" to use industry-generated revenues in the future to fund science.
Original Article
Source: canada.com
Author: Peter O'Neil
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