Morneau builds bridges in visit to Washington

Broad talks in meeting with Mnuchin

Federal Finance Minister Bill Morneau says he will be pressing ahead with budget plans, including possible adjustments to Canada’s tax regime, despite gleaning few specifics during a meeting Wednesday with U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin in Washington about what shape U.S. tax reform will take.

Morneau said Canada’s tax system has been subject to an “ongoing review” by the Trudeau government over the past year, with the objective of determining whether it is “efficient and fair.”

He declined to talk about what specific reforms are under consideration.

“Our budget will be coming out in the not-so-distant future and at that time we’ll be looking forward to talking to Canadians,” Morneau said. “I’m not at this stage prepared to talk about what those measures might or might not be.”

Morneau told journalists after his first bilateral meeting with Mnuchin that tax issues — including a controversial border tax — were discussed broadly, but that there were no details about exactly what the U.S. administration plans to do or when changes would be put in place.

“He talked at a high level about the importance of tax reform and some of the different ideas, but did not go into detail about how that might be moved forward into legislation,” Morneau said. “So without details, of course, I didn’t express a strong position one way or the other.”

Morneau said the initial meeting was geared toward developing a relationship with Mnuchin, so Canada’s views would be taken into consideration by the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump.

“I did get agreement from the secretary that we could continue our dialogue and express our point of view, which of course we will do as we have more information,” Morneau said.

“We will always defend Canada’s interests.”

He acknowledged that the U.S. administration’s actions could have an impact on Canada’s economy, but said now is not the time to judge or react to what those might be.

“Without details, it’s not a time for us to express support or opposition or even insights into the impact on the Canadian economy,” he said.

“Our goal right now is to develop a strong relationship so that as secretary Mnuchin and his colleagues are considering actions, we’ll have the ability to talk about those actions, how they will impact our economy and potentially other economies.”