Federal budget focuses on growing the economy

Vaughan Weekly
February 19, 2014
By Angela Gismondi

Canada’s Finance Minister Jim Flaherty tabled Economic Action Plan 2014 last Tuesday.

Vaughan MP Julian Fantino, Minister of Veterans Affairs said the federal budget focuses on job creation, economic growth and keeping taxes low, with the ultimate goal of achieving a balanced budget by 2015.

“It’s a modest approach to getting where we need to be and to balance the budget by 2015,” said Fantino. “I think it’s steady as she goes. We’re staying focused on the economy, creating jobs and helping small business, not going off and spending money that creates more debt.”

“While Canada has the strongest job creation record among all G-7 countries, with more than one million net new jobs created since the depth of the global recession, too many Canadians are still looking for work. That’s why Economic Action Plan 2014 will continue our Conservative government’s focus on creating more jobs and growing the economy in Vaughan and across the country.”

Fantino explained that while the NDP and Liberals were publicly calling for the federal budget to include new tax hikes on Canadians and more deficit spending, the government rejected both demands. Economic Action Plan 2014 contains no new taxes on families and businesses, while also continuing to ensure government spending was efficient and effective as possible.

“We do not want to put an additional burden on taxpayers,“ Fantino explained. “As we’ve seen in places like Greece and Detroit, not having one’s fiscal house in order can lead to incredible economic instability, dramatic cuts to government programs and higher taxes.”

As part of the process, Fantino held consultations with local businesses and organization to gather input.

“It’s nice to be able to confer and solicit input and have these meetings ongoing with the community,” Fantino stated. “These meeting are very helpful. All levels of government should respond to the issues that are important on the ground and you can only get that from consulting with people on what the government is or should be doing.”

Economic Action Plan 2014 includes key measures to support Ontario families and strengthen our economy, while keeping taxes low and returning to balanced budgets in 2015, including:

- Launching the Canada Job Grant: so that Canadians can get the skills training they need to get in-demand jobs.
- Creating the Canada Apprentice Loan: which will provide apprentices in Red Seal trades access to over $100 million in interest-free loans each year.
- Launching a Job Matching Service: this new service will automatically match Canadians looking for work with employers looking to hire them.
- Increasing Paid Internships for Young Canadians: investing $55 million to create paid internships for recent graduates in small and medium-sized businesses and in high-demand fields.
- Helping Older Workers Get Back to Work: investing $75 million in the Targeted Initiative for Older Workers to support older workers who want to participate in the job market.
- Cutting Red Tape for Small Business: cutting 800,000 payroll remittances for 50,000 small businesses.
- Making Landmark Investments in Research and Innovation: $1.5 billion over the next decade for research at universities through the Canada First Research Excellence Fund.
- Conserving Canada’s Natural Heritage: investing in Canada’s national parks and historic canals, conserving recreational fisheries, expanding tax relief for the environmental conservation of lands, encouraging clean energy generation with tax relief to new green technologies, and more.
- Supporting Families: enhancing tax relief for families adopting a child, expanding tax relief for health-related services, capping wholesale wireless rates to make service more affordable, cracking down on cross-border price discrimination, and more.
- Strengthening Communities: improving broadband in rural and remote communities, establishing a $200 million National Disaster Mitigation Program to help communities prepare for natural disasters, introducing a Search and Rescue Volunteers Tax Credit, and more.
* Standing Up for Victims of Crime: implementing the Victim’s Bill of Rights and proving funding for a DNA-based Missing Persons Index.