Small nuggets for Nunavut buried in federal budget

Federal finance minister Jim Flaherty speaks to reporters during the G7 finance ministers meeting in Iqaluit last month. Flaherty tabled the federal budget Thursday, saying it contains $45 million to replace the food mail program. (PHOTO BY CHRIS WINDEYER)

Last year’s federal spending spree will wind down this year as Ottawa gets ready to tackle Canada’s $53.8 billion deficit.

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty tabled the federal budget Thursday, March 4.

It contains the second half of the federal stimulus program, worth $19 billion, but also $17.6 billion in spending cuts over the next five years.

“Canadians remain concerned about jobs and the economy,” Flaherty said in his budget speech.

“They know that a speedy and strong recovery is not a given. They also know that government must live within its means, that we cannot agree to every request for new spending.”

The budget aims to slash the deficit in half, to $27.6 billion in two years, and to $1.8 billion by 2015.

Still, there are a few nuggets for the North lodged inside the 424-page document:

• $60 million over two years to help the territories provide healthcare within their borders;

• $60 million over two years to replace the ailing food mail program;

• $18 million to design the new High Arctic research centre;

• $11 million to speed up regulatory approval of resource projects in the North;

• $9.2 million for Environment Canada to improve meteorological services in the Arctic;

• $8 million for “community-based” environmental monitoring programs;

• $2.2 million for Fisheries and Oceans Canada to improve navigational services in Arctic waters.

Keith Peterson, Nunavut’s finance minister, said it’s good news that the budget contains no cuts to the territorial formula financing agreement and health and social transfer payments, which account for more than 90 per cent of Nunavut’s annual budget.

And Peterson said he’s also glad the budget extends by two years a federal fund that helps the territories provide healthcare services closer to home.

That item is worth $60 million to the three territories.

But he’s concerned that Nunavut’s bottom line will take a hit when Ottawa goes into deficit-fighting mode next year.

“That’s what happened in the mid-nineties when the federal government got aggressive,” Peterson said. “They started capping and cutting those transfers and it hurt.”

Flaherty has vowed not to raise taxes or touch major transfers to provinces or individuals, which includes money for healthcare, education and elderly benefits.

Instead, the Conservatives will rely on a combination of economic growth and their restraint program to balance the books.

Nunavut will also get its share of $100 million earmarked to the territories for new housing. That money was announced in last year’s federal budget.

Peterson said Nunavut could always use more money for housing, especially to help fund maintenance for the hundreds of millions of dollars worth of housing that has been built in the territory over the last four years.

Chuck Strahl, the Indian and Northern Affairs minister, said he doesn’t have any details yet about how the food mail revamp will work, but said “I need to proceed relatively quickly with reform of the system.”

“I can’t announce any details, but it’s an overhaul of the system,” Strahl said.

But he said the money will end the practice of having to go before Parliament to ask for supplementary funding for the existing $15-million program that’s now run by Canada Post.

Strahl also said the government would announce this year the location of a new High Arctic research station. $18 million is set aside in the budget for design work for the centre, which will go to either Resolute Bay, Cambridge Bay or Pond Inlet.

Like last year, the minority Conservatives need the help of the three opposition parties for the budget to pass and avoid triggering an election.

Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff said enough of his party’s MPs would abstain or be absent from the budget vote to allow it to pass, thus avoiding an election.

“Canadians don’t want an election,” Ignatieff told reporters. “What they want from me is an alternative, an alternative to cuts, freezes and gimmicks. And we’ve been working hard on that alternative.”

NDP Leader Jack Layton also said his party did not support the budget, but would wait to decide how his MPs would vote, in the hopes of negotiating changes with the Conservatives.

Bloc Quebecois Leader Gilles Duceppe said his party would outright oppose the budget outright.

With a report from Canwest News Service.