The Conservative government’s unflinching efforts to balance the books and eliminate a deficit estimated at $17.9 billion will drive a federal budget many believe is likely to be delivered in mid-February — when public attention is focused on the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.
The government’s annual fiscal blueprint will be a main theme of the parliamentary session that resumes Monday, when MPs return to the House of Commons following their holiday break.
Finance Minister Jim Flaherty is scheduled to meet Monday with private-sector economists to discuss the state of the Canadian economy, and it’s possible he could announce the budget date following their meeting.
Flaherty is expected to table a no-frills budget with few big-ticket promises, as the Conservative government looks to balance the books by next year and save tax breaks for the 2015 budget in the lead-up to the federal election.
The Harper government initially announced in the 2012 budget it would cut more than $5 billion in spending and 19,000 jobs over three years to help balance the books.
Those reductions are now firmly taking hold.
“There’s no necessity to balance it by 2015,” said Ian Lee, assistant professor at Carleton University’s Sprott School of Business in Ottawa.
“It’s more political than economic, that is to say the Canadian economy is not going to blow up if they don’t balance the books by 2015.”
However, Lee notes Canada and other G20 nations have vowed to gradually eliminate deficits.
The Conservatives are focused on returning to surplus to show they kept their promise to Canadians, and use it to compare and contrast with the NDP and Liberals, he said.
“This is part of their brand. They’re going to run and say ‘This is who we are, we believe in fiscal responsibility, we believe in balancing the books,” Lee added.
Approximately $10 billion of authorized budgetary expenditures have gone unspent each of the past three years, with the government forecasting departments and agencies will spend $7 billion less than authorized in the current 2013-14 fiscal year.
Flaherty explained the government’s approach to the upcoming budget in a recent letter to opposition MPs asking for “low- to no-cost ideas to grow the economy.”
“Rest assured that Budget 2014 will continue to focus on creating jobs and economic growth, while keeping taxes low and returning to balanced budgets in 2015,” Flaherty said in the letter.
Significant tax breaks are contingent on Ottawa returning to surplus. The Conservatives have promised income-splitting for couples with children under age 18 — a measure expected to cost $2.5 billion annually — but only once the budget is balanced.
A two-year departmental operating budget freeze is expected to save the government $550 million in 2014-15 and $1.1 billion in 2015-16, the year the books are to be balanced with a $3.7 billion surplus.
Federal unions and opposition parties say the government is reckless in how it is reaching its fiscal targets, with Canadians paying the price through cuts to critical programs.
“This is a political deadline rather than an economic deadline,” NDP finance critic Peggy Nash said about eliminating the deficit. “There are far too many Canadians who are struggling.”
The NDP supports a return to balanced budgets over the business cycle and once the economy is stronger, she said, but cutting billions of dollars in spending and thousands of jobs during fragile economic times hurts, not helps, the Canadian economy.
Ottawa expects to collect at least $2.7 billion in asset sales over the next few years, including $700 million this fiscal year from its sale of 30 million General Motors shares last September.
Another $500 million in asset sales is expected in 2014-15 and $1.5 billion in 2015-16, including the expected sale of Ridley Terminals (a bulk coal terminal in British Columbia) and the government’s remaining GM shares.
The federal government has just closed the sale of Macdonald House — home to the Canadian High Commission offices and residence in central London — to an India-based developer for $530 million.
The Conservative government is also planning to sell the Canadian Embassy in Paris as well as a separate building where Canada’s mission to UNESCO is based. Official residences in other cities across Europe are also on the block.
“It has the feel of selling off the furniture,” Nash said.
The cost-cutting Canadian military, which is facing billions of dollars in budget reductions, recently cancelled a $2 billion order for 108 close-combat vehicles.
The deficit-reduction fallout is also spreading to Canadian war veterans and other seniors.
The federal government is planning to close Veterans Affairs offices across Canada, while Canada Post is eliminating door-to-door delivery in urban areas, a worry for seniors who will have to walk to community mailboxes.
Even books aren’t safe from the deficit-reduction measures. More than a dozen federal government departments and agencies have closed or are slated to close at least 37 libraries by the end of 2014.
“This government is hell-bent to do a lot of cuts, but they’re not doing them with any rhyme or reason. They’re just slashing,” said Robyn Benson, national president of the Public Service Alliance of Canada, the country’s largest federal public sector union.
PSAC is also girding for a tough round of collective bargaining with federal officials in 2014 on contracts for more than 100,000 federal workers whose agreements expire this year.
“They’re setting themselves up for the election,” Benson added. “They think that Canadians will forget everything that they’ve done because they will infuse some money somewhere to say how good they are.”
The government has also started selling off billions of dollars worth of federal assets, such as land and embassies.
Original Article
Source: canada.com/
Author: Jason Fekete
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