Aglukkaq: no budget cuts to territorial transfers

Federal finance minister Jim Flaherty tabled June 6 a budget much the same as the one he set down this past March, with one key difference.

This budget will actually pass.

With the Conservatives now holding a majority government after the June 2 election, Flaherty said the budget has the formal backing of Canadians.

“Through their votes last month, their voices have been heard and they said ‘yea’ to the economic plan that was put before them,” he said.

The forecast budget deficit this year will be $36.2 billion, down from $40.5 billion in March. Flaherty said the Conservative will eliminate the deficit entirely by 2014-15, thanks in part to $4 billion per year in savings from a review of government programs.

Leona Aglukkaq, Nunavut’s MP and the federal health minister, wouldn’t say specifically what kind of programs would be cut.

Instead she said the government would find savings by “better managing the resources that we have.”

“This will not be done on the backs of provinces and territories as it relates to transfers and health care,” she said.

The government’s previously announced plan to reduce corporate taxes is expected to go ahead next year.

Although not contained in the March budget, the new 15 per cent tax rate among was a hot election issue, with the NDP and Liberals opposing the move.

Dennis Bevington, the NDP MP for Western Arctic, said personal income tax revenues will increase by nearly 50 per cent by 2015-16, outpacing the growth in corporate tax revenues.

“Likely, the solution to deal with the deficit is going to mean higher taxes for individuals at the same time we see the corporate tax rate going down,” he said.

For the North, this budget looks much the same as the one tabled in March:

• $150 million for the construction of an all-weather road between Inuvik and Tuktoyaktuk in the NWT;

• $9 million over two years for expanded adult education programming in the three territories;

• $8 million over two years to promote the use of clean energy in Aboriginal and Northern communities; and,

• $4.2 million to help Nunavut hire more judges and Crown prosecutors.

While Bevington praised federal funding for the Inuvik-Tuktoyaktuk road, he said the Government of the Northwest Territories estimates the project’s total cost at $230 million.

“They (the GNWT) are going to need some way to raise the other $80 million,” he said.

The budget also brings back the mineral exploration tax credit, at a cost of $120 million, and retains $27 million in new funding to improve Environment Canada’s weather services.

There’s also a $450 annual tax credit for volunteer firefighters.

Other measures include a program to forgive up to $40,000 in student debt for doctors and up to $20,000 for nurses and nurse practitioners who work in rural and remote communities.

There’s also $400 million to extend a popular program that helps homeowners make their houses more energy efficient. A further $470 million over two years goes to various climate change initiatives.

The budget also includes $2.2 billion to resolve a dispute between Ottawa and Quebec over the Harmonized Sales Tax and promises a gradual end to the federal subsidy to political parties, a move that will eventually save $30 million per year.

With files from Postmedia News