Politics This Morning: Ministers fan across country to promote 2016 budget, Ambrose calls it a ‘nightmare scenario’
Interim Conservative Leader Rona Ambrose says the federal government’s 2016 budget is a “nightmare scenario” but Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and several other ministers will be fanning out across the country to promote it today. Mr. Trudeau will speak about the budget on various media this morning, starting with Radio-Canada’s Les matins d’ici at 7:50 […]
Liberals’ first budget an easy sell to Canadians: Tim Harper
OTTAWA—Welcome to the era of deficits and dreams. Some of the dreams are deferred, but the deficits seem cast in stone. Here’s betting, however, that Canadians will not give much thought to a $29.4-billion deficit that scales down, but does not disappear, during the Liberal mandate. Rookie Finance Minister Bill Morneau has a budget that […]
Putting off defence acquisitions cuts $1-billion from federal deficit: Page
The government’s decision to shift funding for $3.7-billion worth of large-scale defence acquisitions until after 2020 reduced next year’s projected deficit by $1-billion and by similar annual amounts until the projects go ahead, according to fine print in the budget Finance Minister Bill Morneau tabled on Tuesday. Former parliamentary budget officer Kevin Page confirmed the […]
Organizing budget day ‘like a campaign war room inside the minister’s office’
PARLIAMENT HILL—On Parliament Hill and in the Hill neighbourhood, eight different budget day lockups took place for journalists, MPs and Senators, lobbyists, stakeholders, and federal officials, with around 2,000 participants. Logistically speaking, it’s the biggest annual event for the Parliamentary Press Gallery, which has been coordinating with Finance Canada officials for the last three weeks […]
Feds give Shared Services extra $383.8-million to complete IT consolidation
The federal government is giving Shared Services Canada an additional $383.8-million over the next two fiscal years towards the department’s massively delayed IT consolidation initiatives, and is proposing to take government-wide consolidation further by amalgamating government-wide human resources, financial and information management, in addition to the ongoing IT merger. Announced in the Tuesday, March 22 […]
Politics This Morning: It’s budget day
Editor’s Note: Thank you for reading Politics This Morning. Due to a technical error, this was not sent out at 5 a.m. as it should have been. We apologize for this delay. Good Tuesday morning! It’s budget day in the nation’s capital, and all eyes will be on Finance Minister Bill Morneau who will […]
Trudeau has profound opportunity to galvanize faltering economy
In October, an overwhelming majority of Canadians cast ballots to defeat the Harper Conservatives and bring a new government to Ottawa. Canadians took prime minister Justin Trudeau at his word and his promise of “real change”—especially when it comes to Canada’s role fighting climate change. There is no issue more critical to this generation and […]
Liberals’ budget ‘long-term investment in Canadian economy, deficits be damned’
Justin Trudeau is said to have hit on the idea of running deficits last July while brainstorming with aides just weeks before the election call. The following month, in late August, he unveiled that plan and, according to Trudeau, that was the day he believed he won the election. Tuesday, he takes a pocketful of […]
Liberals should sweat the small budgetary stuff
OAKVILLE, ONT.—Whenever federal budgets make news, (such as now) the media inevitably focus on the mind-boggling spending numbers. It’s a billion dollars here and a billion dollars there, here a billion, there a billion, everywhere a billion. And that’s fine, except in the crazy world of politics, it’s often the little numbers that really matter. […]
Liberals set to put stamp on new government with first federal budget in a decade, ‘watershed’ moment
This week’s budget presents the Liberal government with an opportunity to truly differentiate itself from a decade of Conservative rule that ended after last year’s election, say those within government and outside observers. On Tuesday, the Justin Trudeau (Papineau, Que.) government—as articulated by Finance Minister Bill Morneau (Toronto Centre, Ont.)—will bring down the first budget of its […]
