Opposition parties blast budget but are unlikely to call confidence vote

Another budget; another $40 billion in debt. The ninth in a row.That’s how Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre is framing Tuesday’s federal budget — the ninth “for the prime minister who promised budgets that would balance themselves.”“And what did he do with the money? He's doubled the rent, doubled mortgage payments, doubled the needed downpayment for a home… one in four kids cannot afford food and now he's adding $40 billion of new debt and new spending,” he said.“That is like a pyromaniac spraying gas on the inflationary fire that he lit. It is getting too hot and too expensive for Canadians and that's why we need a carbon tax election to replace him with a common sense conservative.”Earlier on Tuesday, Poilievre compared Prime Minister Trudeau to an irresponsible child playing with matches.“Over the last several weeks, he has been pouring fuel — and not water — on the inflationary fire that he lit. With tens of billions of dollars of new spending for the same old programs that caused the misery in the first place,” he said. .Despite the scathing remarks it seemed unlikely that the Liberal government would face a non-confidence vote on the budget any time soon.And in fact, NDP leader Jagmeet Singh said his party would continue to support the Liberal coalition.And though he took the Liberals to task for failing to tackle ‘corporate greed’ he also took credit for some of the biggest ticket spending items, including daycare and prescription drugs.“There are some things in this budget that we fought for. We spent time hearing from Canadians and we forced this government to deliver,” he said. “Let's be absolutely clear. This would have never happened but for the fact you Democrats force liberals to give this relief to Canadians, to give a bit of a break to Canadians.”“There's things that we fought for. And we're going to continue to use our power as we have throughout this minority government to fight for Canadians to make Ottawa work for you to give you some relief.”.Green Party Leader Elizabeth May said while she said the Green support some aspects of the financial plan, she — predictably — wanted to see higher taxes on wealthy individuals and high taxes on oil companies.“I will say despite individual items that we support, we can't support the budget as a whole because it is the ultimate confidence vote of any opposition party — any MP — is their confidence in the government. Overall, the budget falls far short of our hopes,” she said.“It’s not meeting the moment. We need transformative, dramatic changes to our society to be able to afford the things we need. They refuse to go to where the wealth, not just an excellent source of taxes on big oil that's clearly needed. And they pulled short of that.”.On the bright side, small businesses will finally get their carbon tax rebate.Small and medium sized businesses have been paying the carbon tax for five years, but, unlike individuals, the federal government has yet to return the money to them. After a years-long pressure campaign for the government to act, Tuesday’s budget says the money will be returned “urgently.”An estimated 600,000 businesses will receive $2.5-billion in carbon-tax rebates through the Canada Revenue Agency, but the money will be paid separately from tax refunds. The rebates will be calculated based on the province where each business is located and the number of employees it has. The program is open to businesses with 499 or fewer employees.The rebates will be annual, the budget says. They are contingent on the businesses filing their taxes.

Opposition parties blast budget but are unlikely to call confidence vote

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