Feds to show smaller deficits
OTTAWA — The Trudeau government will release fresh projections Tuesday pointing to smallerthan-anticipated deficits as part of a crowd-pleasing economic update the Liberals are likely counting on to draw attention away from their embattled finance minister.
But despite the economy’s surprisingly strong performance in early 2017, the government still isn’t expected to provide a timeline to bring the federal books back to balance.
Some experts have predicted the growth surge will provide the government with an additional $10 billion on its bottom line in each of the next couple of years, compared to the federal forecasts in the March budget. In the spring, Ottawa projected deficits of $25.5-billion for 2017-18 and $24.4 billion for 2018-19.
A senior government official said the fall fiscal statement will show an improving fiscal outlook in the coming years, even though Ottawa also plans to announce new measures Tuesday alongside the updated predictions.
The new policy measures will be aimed at ensuring the socalled middle class sees benefits from Canada’s economic growth and will provide tools for them to continue contributing to the economy, said the official, who declined to elaborate before Tuesday’s announcement.
The Liberals are likely hoping the document contains enough good economic headlines to distract the public from the conflict-of-interest controversy that continues to stalk Finance Minister Bill Morneau.
The issue has forced Morneau to promise he’ll sell at least $21 million worth of stock and place his other assets in a blind trust in hopes of quieting allegations about how he handled his personal fortune when he entered public office in 2015.
Opposition MPs have called on the ex-Bay Street executive to disclose whether he recused himself from making decisions on pension legislation that they allege will likely benefit his former human resources company, Morneau Shepell.
“While the opposition obsesses about my personal finances, I’m going to continue to focus on what’s going on for Canadians — that’s what we really care about,” Morneau said Monday as he faced another barrage of ethics-related questions in the House of Commons.
“What we’re going to be able to report on tomorrow is excellent news for Canadians.”
Morneau “desperately wants to change the channel,” something he hopes to do with Tuesday’s economic update, New Democrat MP Alexandre Boulerice said Monday during question period.
“But he has broken any trust that Canadians could have had in him. It’s crystal clear: he tabled legislation that could benefit his company and himself directly.”
Conservatives, including MP Mark Strahl, repeatedly asked Morneau if he received written approval from the ethics commissioner permitting him to introduce legislation that could benefit the publicly traded company the minister built with his family.
“It is very telling that not a single Liberal member thought that the finance minister introducing the very legislation he had lobbied for as chairman of Morneau Shepell could present a bit of an ethics problem,” Strahl said.
This isn’t the only controversy Morneau has been grappling with in recent weeks.
He’s also been busy promoting the government’s efforts to address complaints about his package of proposed small-business tax reforms. Morneau was forced to tweak and even back off some of the proposals after an angry backlash from doctors, farmers, tax experts and even Liberal backbench MPs.