Albrecht pans 2018 budget

The 2018 federal budget has been dubbed the Seinfeld budget by some wags because it’s about nothing.

For Kitchener-Conestoga MP Harold Albrecht, Tuesday’s budget was a missed opportunity.

He notes the Liberals are raising taxes on more than over 90 per cent of Canada’s middle-class families, and this budget announces new tax hikes on local businesses. Trudeau is also borrowing an additional $18 billion, failing to balance the budget by 2019 as he promised. And despite all the spending, middle class Canadians are no further ahead, with Canada’s GDP growth slowing to two per cent by the end of the year, he argued.

“The Trudeau Liberals’ recent budget is a failure to deliver for Canadian families. Instead of getting their spending under control, they plan to borrow more money from hardworking Canadians – adding billions more to the national debt,” said Albrecht in a release.

The deficit for this fiscal year is $18 billion, which is three times higher than what Trudeau promised during the 2015 election. With the budget not projected to be in balance again until 2045, these additional deficits will add $450 billion to Canada’s national debt over the next 27 years, the Conservative MP noted.

“Small businesses across Waterloo Region and Canada need a tax system that is fair and straight-forward in its application. Our chamber has been consistently informed by our membership that new rules are making the system more complex and time consuming for companies who should be focused on growth and job creation,” said Art Sinclair, vice-president of the Greater Kitchener Waterloo Chamber of Commerce, echoing some of Albrecht’s critiques.