MP Martin Shields criticizes federal budget

By John Watson Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

The Government of Canada has recently released its budget for the next fiscal year. Bow River MP, Martin Shields, said he is less than impressed with some of the decisions indicated in the document. 

Shields scrutinized the government for their lack of intent to balance the budget and make headway towards largely repaying national debt. 

“The initial thing in a sense, is that last fall in (the government’s) update, they said they were going to be, I think, $10 billion in deficit last fall. Now, they are (forecasting) $40-some billion in deficit,” he said. “You cannot run a business or your house that way, but they just continue to spend a lot more money than we have and that (inflates) the interest payments on our national debt.”

The federal budget is divided into six chapters and three annexes which detail how funding is to be allocated for the fiscal year. 

The focus of the first three chapters is suggested to indicate methods for making life more affordable for the average Canadian, investment in public health, and investment in affordable energy as well as growth of a clean economy, respectively. 

Some of these strategies include the new grocery rebate, the launch of a new tax-free home savings account, and the increase of grant funding to students, as well as eliminating interest on student loans.

Shields was critical of the budget particularly in the areas of the government’s carbon taxes, which he said will inevitably influence the price of food, as well as impacting how much Canadians will have to spend at the pump. 

“The ripple effect that has into our food chain is huge. When people talk about the grocery chains and their prices going up, if you go back to the ground level of farmers, the ag producers and the amount of the carbon tax, the impact is huge,” said Shields. “People are going to have to make much more drastic choices in the sense of what they can want versus what they need. The idea of a family vacation may have to be shelved because the needs of family eating come first and it is becoming more expensive.”

He added he would prefer to see Canadians being able to claim more of their paychecks overall instead of seeing significant deductions taken to satisfy taxes. 

“We prefer that people have an increase in the paycheck going home, that the government stays out of increasing payroll taxes, EI taxes, those kinds of taxes and that people have more money to take home because they are working hard.”

More information from the budget is available through the Government of Canada website, as the federal budget has since been made publicly available.