What to expect in the 2018 federal budget
Families, women, environment, First Nations among those to benefit from costly promises
OTTAWA — Finance Minister Bill Morneau has said science, gender equality and preparing Canadians for the jobs of the future will be key themes in Tuesday’s federal budget. Here are some more details on what it is expected to contain. PATERNITY LEAVE: The budget is expected to include a five-week “use-it-or-lose-it” incentive for new fathers to take parental leave and share the responsibilities of raising their baby. The goal is to give parents a greater incentive to share childrearing responsibilities so that new mothers can more easily return to the workforce. SCIENCE: The budget is also expected to include a major financial boost to basic scientific research across Canada, which would address some of the concerns outlined last year in a national review of the state of fundamental science. That review recommended phasing in $1.3 billion more for researchers, scholarships and facilities over four years. The research community also thinks the budget could include new efforts to support young and Indigenous researchers, as well as help advance the role of women in science. ENVIRONMENT: Since the government feels it has checked climate-change financing off its long environmental to-do list, Ottawa is expected to shift its funding focus to other international obligations on the environment, such as the UN Convention on Biological Diversity. PAY EQUITY: The government is expected to detail the cost of its long-held promise to achieve proactive pay equity in Canada this year. The exact figure remains to be seen, but the price tag on closing the gender wage gap in the public service and federally regulated workplaces, which together employ nearly 1.2 million people, will likely be significant. SOCIAL PROCUREMENT: The budget could include an effort to increase procurement opportunities for female entrepreneurs, following the recommendation of the Canada-U. S. women-in-business group created by Justin Trudeau and U.S. President Donald Trump. STILL IN THE RED: The Liberals blew through their 2015 campaign promise to keep the annual deficit below $10 billion in their first federal budget, and their ability to stick by their commitment to return to balance by 2019 remains in doubt. The latest federal forecast, released last October, projected a $14.3-billion deficit for 2019-20, and doubts persist that Tuesday’s budget will show a revised timeline for getting back to black. GENDER-BASED ANALYSIS: The Liberals have also put this budget through a gender-based analysis, which involves thinking about how a certain measure might affect men and women, or boys and girls, in a different ways, while accounting for other intersecting factors such as income, ethnicity, disability and sexual orientation. MEDIA: The budget is also expected to devote $50 million over five years to support local journalism in underserved communities across Canada, according to media reports. HOUSING IN INDIGENOUS COMMUNITIES: The budget is also expected to devote big money to tackle the acute housing shortage in Indigenous communities, where homes are often overcrowded and in bad repair. CYBERSECURITY There are high expectations from government and industry insiders that the budget will include large investments to help bolster Canadian cybersecurity defences at a time of heightened online threats around the world. The budget is set to fund a multidepartmental effort to strengthen the ability to protect and respond in the event of an attack.