MP Martin Shields closes out 2024
By John Watson Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
As 2024 comes to a close, Bow River Riding MP Martin Shields reflects on the past year and looks to what 2025 may begin to look like.
Among his immediate concerns was the federal budget, seen by the House of Commons, Dec. 16 forecasting dramatic increases to federal debt.
“It was a little bit of a different year. Obviously, some legislation would be better than others, budget as the fall update, which we finally got … at $60 billion over and they had said $40 billion is their guideline, which, $40 billion is too much but it went over by 50 per cent,” said Shields. “That is a lot of spending and so that is problematic. It took much longer to get that fall financial update out, but at least we got it … that is problematic, that amount of deficit spending.
The federal government’s deficit for the 2023-24 fiscal year, which concluded in March, was announced at $61.9 billion as opposed to the $40.1 which had originally been promised.
Currently projected is a deficit of $48.3 billion in 2024-25, followed by a deficit of $42.2 billion in 2025-26. These represent 1.6 per cent, and 1.3 per cent of GDP respectively.
“It is one thing to spend money on things that are good, that you can see the results of, but when we see that there is a lot of the money that is spent that just is not accounted for, or it is gone – disappeared under corrupt circumstances, that is problematic,” said Shields. “Under the Indigenous set-aside fund at five per cent for Indigenous contracts, (I sit on) an Indigenous committee where it is obvious that people have used shell companies to get government grants that were meant for Indigenous businesses, that are not Indigenous businesses … and then there is no accountability for that money, or if it can’t be tracked, no accountability for those who may be committing fraud.”
Shields added the Conservative party is calling for an election, to which they are referring to as “a carbon tax election.”
The premise being that carbon taxes would be reduced on Canadians, being different than the industrial carbon tax.
“We need to remove the carbon tax. Our largest trading partner, the US, does not have a carbon tax, so we are calling for that election,” he said.
Regarding the Bow River Riding, Shields added he was pleased to see that the irrigation districts were able to access enough water for the season and not experience a shortage.
“Cattle prices continue to be very good, and so cattle producers are staying in the business mostly because the market has been very good in the sense of beef production,” he said. “There is some movement on a sense of more drilling is happening, but the price of natural gas is still pretty low. There is continued work in some parts of the (oil and gas) industry we are seeing, for example, (in) helium. We have helium being developed in this particular riding.”
Going into the new year, he added he would like to see the continued diversification of the agricultural industry in the region, suggesting more activity with growing sugar and potatoes, among others.