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Federal Budget 2022

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In her second budget as Finance Minister, Chrystia Freeland has proposed a much more prudent economic plan for Canada than had been anticipated, especially when one considers her first budget in April 2021, her party’s election platform last fall, and the Trudeau government’s confidence-and-supply agreement with the New Democrats.​

This budget signals the beginning of the end of pandemic supports. The pace of withdrawal is appropriately measured, but the objective is clear: the Government of Canada is winding down the temporary measures it had introduced as a result of COVID-19.​

The budget reflects the recent agreement with the NDP, in that it signals progress on that party’s key priorities, but the impact is very focused on a select few policy commitments. In fact, the impact of that agreement is circumscribed by external considerations, which have clearly applied more pressure on the government’s choices than the confidence-and-supply agreement. We are indeed a far cry from Building Back Better.​

In the main, the 2022 federal budget is shaped by global forces that have limited the government’s scope of action and focused its attention on a few key priorities: housing, climate change and the war in Europe. This is not the budget that had been anticipated when Prime Minister Trudeau selected his cabinet and drafted their mandate letters. This is the budget the world and all its uncertainties have thrust onto Canada.

You can download our budget analysis here.

For more analysis, or support engaging government on any of the budget announcements, contact your Navigator team or reach out at info@navltd.com. ​

Employee Owned (w/Jon Shell)

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This week host Amanda Galbraith speaks with Jon Shell, the Managing Director of Social Capital Partners. SCP is making waves in Canada’s existing financial system by pushing employee ownership and wealth equality models similar to those seen in the US and the UK.

Alberta Budget 2022

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If Budget 2022 was a well-lit path, it would lead straight to the ballot box in 2023. President of Treasury Board and Minister of Finance Travis Toews, tabled his fourth budget aptly titled “Moving Forward” that defined the priorities for the UCP government as they focus on the endemic, job creation and investment attraction anchored by the Alberta Recovery Plan including the new Alberta at Work initiative which provides $600 million over the next three years to help get more Albertans working.

With the focus on working Albertans, Minister Toews pulled a page from former premier Ralph Klein by personifying a new version of an Albertan – Larry, a 30 year veteran pipefitter and family man who is out of work, barely surviving on financial supports and suffering from declining mental health and nervous about retraining and finding new work at his age. Minister Toews shared with the assembly, “Budget 2022 is for Larry and every Albertan that needs a hand up; it is for the entrepreneurs that have a vision not only for their business but for their community; it is for future generations who may never know the choices we made today so they have greater opportunities tomorrow.”

The UCP Caucus picked up energy as the minister’s budget address continued, offering loud cheers and applause when Minister Toews announced the province is back to black with a modest surplus of $500 million, a vast improvement over the sea of red ink facing the province at the height of the pandemic and the glut of world energy prices.

The positive tone of the budget was not without criticism and partisan jabs of the performance and spending habits of the previous NDP government, providing Albertans with a glimpse of the narrative that is to be expected over the next year as we near closer and closer to election season. The minister reminded Albertans of the UCP government’s fiscal pillars and shared that after much heavy lifting, “we have arrived”, sharing that the annual 4% spending increase trend from the previous government has been brought down to less than half a per cent per year and that Alberta is now delivering government services within a comparable range to other provinces.

Can the UCP government “Move Forward” from the pandemic woes of the last two years? We will have to see how many Larrys join Martha and Henry at the ballot box in 2023.

You can download our budget analysis here.

For more analysis, or support engaging government on any of the budget announcements, contact your Navigator team or reach out at info@navltd.com. 

 

 

Tasha Kheiriddin: The Rights Factory

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Navigator Principal and Vice-President of the Canadian Centre for the Purpose of the Corporation, Tasha Kheiriddin was featured in an article by The Rights Factory that celebrates the successful publishing of her new non-fiction book, The Right Path: Conservatives Can Unite, Inspire and Take Canada. The book combines interviews with prominent conservative voices and personal anecdotes that shaped Tasha’s political identity and outlook.