Juno News - What Freeland’s budget means for Canadians

00:00:00.000 We are seeing a government that on one hand is trying to do this weird sort of like class

00:00:14.740 fighting thing where they say, oh, we're taking aim at the wealthy, we're taking aim at the rich,

00:00:19.260 we're taking aim at all of that. And as we were talking about yesterday with Ryan Mallow from

00:00:23.460 the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, they do this while trying to sort of look at the

00:00:28.880 so-called middle class, which is a group that admittedly can be a bit amorphous in politics

00:00:33.180 and say, we've got your back, we're supporting you. And this is what Jagmeet Singh is doing when

00:00:38.220 he takes aim at corporate greed. He is trying to tell all of these people that all of their problems,

00:00:42.980 all of the issues they have, the reason they can't afford groceries, it's not inflation,

00:00:47.100 it's not the carbon tax, it's not bad financial policy, bad monetary policy. No, it's Galen Weston.

00:00:53.320 Galen Weston is the reason that you can't afford groceries. Want to welcome into the show our

00:00:58.500 good friend, Catherine Swift. I got to see her in person last week at the Canada Strong and Free

00:01:03.320 Network Conference. She is the president of the Coalition of Concerned Manufacturers and

00:01:08.280 Businesses of Canada. Catherine, always good to talk to you. Thanks so much for coming on today.

00:01:13.840 My pleasure. I love to talk budget, Sandra. Just love it.

00:01:17.220 Well, you know, I've seen over the last, I don't know, 16 hours or whatever, 18 hours, a lot of people

00:01:23.820 that are with big companies, people that have worked in the tech space, entrepreneurial space,

00:01:28.540 that are saying everything that came out yesterday is just bad news for business. It's bad news for

00:01:34.020 making Canada competitive. And I wanted to get your perspective on this, I mean, from an independent

00:01:38.400 business perspective, but just in general for Canadian industry.

00:01:41.600 Yeah, it's very bad. Of course, the burgeoning deficits and debts are bad for every Canadian

00:01:51.480 and including business. So the fact that they presented this as somehow a good budget for young

00:01:58.560 people, I couldn't figure that one out because the young people are going to be paying these massive

00:02:04.480 debts deficits. And the fact that we now have our debt service is $54 billion just to pay interest

00:02:11.460 on the debt. It is taking away from any product, productive services in our economy. So that's

00:02:17.600 one aspect. This capital gains, bumping capital gains. I mean, to me, 50% is pretty rich to start

00:02:23.380 with. Bumping that to two thirds is unconscionable. And of course, business, everybody say, oh,

00:02:29.200 it'll only affect the rich and so on and so forth. Oh, no, no, no. It'll certainly affect business

00:02:34.400 investments on the part of business, assets that may have, they easily can meet that 250

00:02:40.860 thousand dollar threshold. Anybody who has businesses that have a business premise,

00:02:46.160 perhaps, or a few business premises, and they want to reorganize that, they're going to be facing

00:02:51.300 charges there. We see anyone that has a second residence, for that matter, a cottage, say,

00:02:57.920 or whatever, which a lot of free middle class people do and plan to leave it to their kids. 0.98

00:03:02.420 Well, now their kids are going to get dinged with a whole bunch more. And they overall,

00:03:07.140 the funny thing is, Freeland acknowledged our productivity problem a little while ago. Mind

00:03:11.880 you, it's so, it's the 800 pound gorilla in the room. It's pretty hard not to acknowledge it.

00:03:16.480 But what she has done in this budget is only going to worsen our productivity issue. And maybe 1.00

00:03:21.500 people think that's some sort of theoretical economic concept, but our productivity is our

00:03:26.840 standard of living. And we know our standard of living has been stagnant ever since the Trudeau

00:03:31.340 government's been in power. And what's the most important thing to enhance productivity is investment.

00:03:36.640 Investment has already fled Canada, because our government can't, we can't get anything built,

00:03:41.940 we can't get anything done. We have building permits that go on for 10, you know, you don't get

00:03:45.740 something for 10 years, it's utterly ridiculous. But we've already killed investment, this capital

00:03:51.120 gains change is going to kill it even more. And that's our standard of living again. So I just don't

00:03:56.400 get what version of economics, none I've ever seen, they're basing their thinking on. And boy,

00:04:04.500 I sure hope we have an election sooner rather than later, because I think most Canadians are,

00:04:09.140 you know, figuring out that they're getting badly hurt by this government. And it's certainly not

00:04:13.540 helping the broader picture at all.

00:04:15.840 And Chrystia Freeland, I should point out here, and you noted this in a statement yesterday,

00:04:20.100 had previously said that we were going to keep the deficit under $40 billion, as though we're supposed

00:04:25.100 to be grateful for such fiscal prudence with a deficit that's only $40 billion. Now, it came in

00:04:30.620 just under that where we're at $39.8 billion. Now, you're suspecting that if you like lift the hood

00:04:36.720 there and take a look around, there's going to be some creative accounting just to get it below that

00:04:40.500 target.

00:04:41.640 Absolutely. No, she really, the fact that she focused on it so much prior to the budget, I thought,

00:04:46.900 oh, they're going to pull some fast one here that won't be won't be apparent right off the bat.

00:04:51.680 But to make that, you know, because she's always talked about, oh, I have my guardrails,

00:04:57.160 you know, all these things that she's not supposed to go past the red line. And yet she's gone over

00:05:04.680 every red line she's set for herself since. So this one, I wasn't surprised to see it barely.

00:05:10.820 It was by $200 million, I believe that it was under the $40 billion. But I would bet serious money

00:05:20.980 today, Andrew, that that will never be achieved. When we get the final data, this isn't the final

00:05:26.260 data for the fiscal year. We don't get that till usually around September. And I think once we

00:05:31.020 see those accounts, we'll see that it's even worse. And going forward, of course, as you said,

00:05:36.520 there's clearly no attempt at all to come toward balance. There's the kind of reduction by a few

00:05:42.700 billion a year. I don't believe that'll happen either. We're going to see, again, interest rates

00:05:47.540 are a plague on Canadians right now. And the higher, the more debt they go into, the more they tax

00:05:54.400 Canadians, the higher they keep interest rates for longer. The Bank of Canada has already said

00:05:59.800 the government's fiscal policy is running absolutely contrary to the Bank of Canada's

00:06:05.240 monetary policy. So that prevents, I mean, we all want to see interest rates come down.

00:06:09.620 A lot of Canadians have yet to renew a mortgage at those higher rates, and they're going to get

00:06:13.360 hammered when that happens. Some already have been hammered. That won't happen as long as this

00:06:18.340 government pursues these kinds of policies. They're just making it worse for everyone.

00:06:23.680 Yeah, and I want to rhyme off some of the numbers here since you bring up the deficit. So we have

00:06:28.060 the projection for this budget year, $39.8 billion as a deficit. Next year, $38.9 billion. The year

00:06:38.160 after, $30.8 billion. 2027, 2028, $26.8 billion. The end of the projections, 2028 to 2029,

00:06:46.020 the budgetary deficit will be down to $20 billion. So no plan to balance the budget. And if you go at

00:06:53.300 that rate, it would probably take another decade to get there. And what's interesting too, is if you

00:06:58.380 look at the debt as a percentage of GDP, that number is relatively stagnant. It goes from, you know,

00:07:04.940 42 to 41 and a half to 40.8 to 40 to 39. So we're still going to be at 39% of our debt as a percentage

00:07:12.220 of GDP within five years if the Liberals have their way. And as you know, that is not taking

00:07:17.500 into account interest rates, which could throw a tremendous wrench. It just as, you know,

00:07:21.680 individual homeowners are beholden to changes in interest rates, so too is the government here.

00:07:26.700 So I mean, maybe they're being so reckless because they know they're not going to be around beyond a

00:07:31.040 year and a half from now, and this will be someone else's problem. But like, how do you justify

00:07:35.500 this at all? They don't, not in any sane manner. And again, I don't believe any of these targets

00:07:44.860 will be met. And I have come to believe, I don't like to wear my tinfoil hat too often,

00:07:50.580 but I have come to believe that they are making this as bad as it can possibly be for the next

00:07:56.600 government, which looks like it's going to be Pierre Poiliev government, so that they just have a

00:08:01.900 horrific time. And then of course, they'll criticize them, right? How could you ever have such a big

00:08:05.720 deficit? And let's not forget, these are the guys that were only going to run those modest 10 billion

00:08:10.020 deficits until 2019, when the budget would be balanced. Also, this budget makes assumptions

00:08:15.920 about growth in the economy that look overly optimistic. That's another consideration, because

00:08:20.520 they have to assume the economy is going to grow by, you know, X percent in the future years. And I think

00:08:26.000 we're heading for some serious trouble here. Again, investors around the world, foreign investment's a big

00:08:30.960 deal in Canada. Our dollar has fallen. And by the way, a falling dollar, we invert a lot into Canada

00:08:35.740 too. A falling dollar means more inflation, because our dollar doesn't buy as much. And it all, every

00:08:41.680 single thing they've done here is leading toward making all of these critical measures that affect

00:08:47.220 all of our everyday lives worse. And so it's very depressing, of course. But I wonder how they can

00:08:54.620 really, I wonder how they can justify it in their own minds, how they can look in the mirror

00:08:58.460 at themselves with damage they're doing. And, but what seems to be interesting is they seem to be

00:09:03.120 thinking maybe they, they almost act as if they haven't been in government for the last eight and

00:09:07.840 a half years. And Trudeau saying, oh, geez, we've got an awful lot of immigration. What could have

00:09:12.060 happened there? And Freeland, you know, commenting on, darn, we got all this, you know, debt interest 0.95

00:09:17.100 we have to pay. Who did that? And we get all this. I wonder if it's that new, there was supposedly a new 0.97

00:09:23.020 communications guy hired in the PMO back, back last year. And I wonder if this is the new strategy,

00:09:30.680 sort of pretend, you know, pretend they didn't, they didn't do any of this in the last eight and a half

00:09:34.880 years. If so, I don't think Canadians are going to be fooled.

00:09:38.760 Yeah, very well said on that. They do tend to just be very surprised that they've been at the helm for,

00:09:44.340 you know, the last eight years and things just happen. It's so Stephen Harper's fault. I think they're,

00:09:48.240 they're still blaming Arthur Meehan for the budgetary deficit, probably. Catherine Swift,

00:09:53.120 always good to talk to you. You are doing great work over there standing up for business and

00:09:58.080 industry in Canada, and we appreciate it. Thank you, Andrew. Thanks for listening to the Andrew

00:10:04.020 Lawton Show. Support the program by donating to True North at www.tnc.news.

Juno News - April 21, 2024

What Freeland’s budget means for Canadians

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