P.A. federal election candidates react to budget

“If somebody’s at the age of retiring they can sell their assets without paying tax on it, up to $1 million.”

Another big change relates to small to medium business taxes, which will fall from 11 per cent to nine per cent.

“That’s leaving the money in the pockets of the people who create the jobs, that employ the people in the riding of Prince Albert,” he said.

“It’s better spent by them than by government and that’s what we’re doing.”

Federal NDP candidate Lon Borgerson, who will run against Hoback in the next election, said his party put that idea forward months ago.

Borgerson said another idea the government’s budget borrowed from his party was the extension of compassionate leave under employment insurance from six weeks, to six months. Compassionate leave allows an employee to care for loved ones who are dying.

“That’s something we’ve always supported,” Borgerson said.

The budget, which Borgerson and other critics have labeled an “election budget” – meaning its goal is to win votes come election time – has also been widely panned for appealing to people who are already wealthy.

“It’s just a big question as to whether people will buy it. And I just don’t see an awful lot for regular people,” he said.

Borgerson used the family tax cut, which will help only 15 per cent of parents who he said “need it least, it’s the high earners,” as an example.

He also referenced the near-doubling of annual contribution limits to tax-free savings accounts from $5,500 to $10,000. Again, this favours high earners, he said.

While Borgerson supports the budget’s move to expand the universal child-care benefit, he said the NDP has pushed for decades to put a national child-care program into place and that has yet to happen.

This would include funding of $15 per child per day, spaces in early-learning programs led by trained people, he said.

Many, like Borgerson, have criticized the budget for not providing enough for “regular people.”

In response, Hoback pointed out some of the many changes made by the government: income splitting, a new child-care expense deduction by $1,000, and the increase to the child tax benefit.

The child tax benefit will give families with children six years old and under $160 per month and give those with children between the ages of six and 17 $60 per month.

This is a substantial increase that helps all families, Hoback said.

He added that university students will be treated more equally, thanks to the budget.

“[In the past] if parents made too much money you couldn’t get a student loan, but now the student is independent. Working and making money now has no financial bearing,” Hoback said.

One of Borgerson’s biggest criticisms of the budget is that many of its announcements won’t come in the current fiscal year. Instead, they will be “put off to the future.”

The Conservatives have touted the budget as balanced, with a $1.4 billion surplus which is “very exciting” for Hoback.

However, Borgeson was quick to say “that’s kind of rich, when you consider they’ve had seven years of deficit budget.”

He said the feds had to borrow $2 billion from a contingency fund to “barely scrape through with a balanced budget.”

In the government’s defence, Hoback said the government’s been fiscally prudent since Canada was hit with 2008’s global recession.

“We can now get back to a balanced budget instead of a deficit that lingers and linger,” he said.

Borgerson’s final issue with the budget related to “not one single mention” of the “biggest crisis” of our time – climate change.

-With files from Thia James and Sarah Stone.

claskowski@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @chelsealaskowsk

by Chelsea Laskowski

P.A. federal election candidates react to budget

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