The Conservative government continues to sit on billions of dollars in planned spending as it looks to balance the budget in 2015 and contemplates a series of tax breaks for Canadians, including expected income-splitting for families and a possible enhancement of the universal child-care benefit.
The numbers are contained in the Public Accounts, released Wednesday.
On Thursday, Prime Minister Stephen Harper will be in Vaughan, Ont., and it’s expected he will announce tax breaks for families. The Conservatives promised in the 2011 election campaign to introduce income-splitting for couples with children under 18 (sharing up to $50,000 of household income for tax purposes), once the budget was balanced.
But the measure, which could cost the government at least $2.5 billion annually, has proven controversial, even among Conservatives such as the late former finance minister Jim Flaherty, who said income-splitting for families would be of no benefit for many Canadians.
Harper said earlier this month his government intends “to move quickly to implement promises that we made to Canadians during the last election.”
Harper could announce a series of tax relief measures for families, which may include an enhancement to the $2.5-billion universal child-care benefit, with options including doubling the existing amount or making the $100-per-month (per child) benefit available to parents with children older than six.
The $7.4 billion in lapsed spending from the 2013-14 fiscal year is part of an effort to find the money for these kinds of tax breaks.
It is identified in federal records tabled in the House of Commons by Treasury Board president Tony Clement. An additional $10.9 billion in approved expenditures went unspent the previous year.
At the same time, several departments and agencies have been laying off thousands of employees and cutting billions of dollars in costs in an effort to help get the federal government back into black ink.
The tighter purse strings can be seen in the budgetary balance: the deficit in 2013-14 was $5.2 billion, dramatically lower than the $16.6 billion projected in the budget.
The savings have come at a cost to some departments.
The Department of National Defence – which had close to $1 billion in lapsed spending last year – has had to park many of its military vehicles, cut back on training, and cancel the purchase of spare parts because of a lack of cash.
More than $700 million in planned spending by Infrastructure Canada also went unused, dollars that might otherwise have gone to projects such as bridges and roads.
The Conservatives have also faced a backlash from veterans and opposition parties for closing nine regional Veterans Affairs offices across Canada, which the government says will save about $4 million a year and improve service.
As the country grapples with what the government believes are terrorist attacks, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service is facing challenges with what senior officials have called “limited resources” for tracking all 80 suspected Canadian extremists who travelled abroad for terror-related activities and have returned to Canada.
Federal unions have argued that government cuts to border services staff – including front-line workers, intelligence officials and sniffer-dog teams – are putting public safety and security at risk.
Here are some other notable spending items in the public accounts:
– The House of Commons spent almost $126,000 in the 2013-14 fiscal year on ammunition and weapons, more than three-and-a-half times what was spent in the 2012-13 and 2011-12 fiscal years combined. The public accounts documents do not say specifically what precisely the money bought;
– The Commons also spent $683,000 on “protection services” in the last fiscal year, the second year in a row there has been an increase in spending in the category. In the 2012-13 fiscal year, the Commons spent $603,760 on protection services. In the 2011-12 fiscal year, the Commons spent $218,736 on protection services. The documents don’t provide details on what the money bought;
– Members of Parliament and senators cut back on their travel expenses last year in the midst of the Senate expenses scandal. Spending on MPs’ travel expenses dropped almost 20 per cent in 2013-14 to about $20.6 million, from $25.6 million the previous year. Spending on senators’ travel expenses dipped 28 per cent last fiscal year to $5.4 million, from $7.5 million the previous year;
– The cost of Harper’s foreign travel last year was $1.8 million, a slight increase over the previous year. Harper travelled to 13 conferences and meetings over the year and was accompanied by political staff, government officials, cabinet ministers and Conservative MPs; and
– The most expensive Harper travel ($422,962) was a trip to Ukraine, The Hague and Germany. The second most expensive ($330,376) was a trip to Israel and Jordan, in which Harper was accompanied by nearly 20 Tory MPs and senators, and dozens of “stakeholders,” many of them from Canada’s Jewish community.
Original Article
Source: canada.com/
Author: BY JASON FEKETE
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