Algoma-Manitoulin-Kapuskasing MP, Carol Hughes writes a regular column about initiatives and issues impacting our community.
Budget 2023 was released earlier this week. It’s a budget that comes at a time when a global inflation crisis is making life a lot more unaffordable for too many people and the expectation of a shallow recession to come.
Too many people are slipping through the economic cracks as the costs of groceries continue to remain high. Housing is persistently expensive. And through these issues, we must continue to find appropriate ways to mitigate climate change.
With this budget, we see an attempt to address many of these issues, but the government may not have tackled these problems at all if it wasn’t for the Supply and Confidence Agreement (SACA) with the NDP.
On dental care, we are seeing that agreement in action.
The new measures in this budget mean that children under 18, seniors, and people with disabilities will be able to access essential dental care, saving families up to $1,247 per year. While the Liberals voted against dental care twice before, the SACA ensured that the government would have to make providing affordable dental care a priority for those who need it most. This is a measure that will have a significant impact on people’s lives and livelihoods, saving families money, and giving people a chance to address significant oral health issues without breaking their bank account.
With inflation disproportionately affecting those who are least able to afford it, one of the best ways to help those individuals is to increase the GST rebate.
When New Democrats first proposed doubling the GST rebate, the Liberals voted against it. They eventually conceded that doubling the GST credit could help a significant number of Canadians, particularly as inflation increased the revenue generated through the GST.
This budget once again doubles the GST tax credit for eligible recipients, putting up to $467 back in 11 million Canadian’s pockets. It’s a measure that will not solve inflationary woes but will ensure that people are better able to keep up.
The budget also features significant investments for a co-developed Urban, Rural, and Northern Indigenous Strategy. This is designed to help Indigenous people living out of their communities find a safe and affordable place to call home.
There’s also a larger push towards building a green energy economy and ensuring that workers are at the forefront of that economy. We’ve pushed the government towards attaching strings to their proposed clean economy tax credits that are designed to accelerate green energy investments to ensure that the jobs created in this industry are high-wage, union jobs. Clearly, we need to change our energy economy towards more renewable sources and ensuring that people working in these industries are paid well will go a long way in building a resilient green economy.
On a similar token, this budget finally includes something that labour organizations and workers have been requesting for decades: an end to scab labour. The Canadian Labour Code will finally be amended to prevent the use of replacement workers in federally regulated workplaces.
The budget certainly isn’t perfect by any stretch. One issue Parliamentarians have recently heard a lot about has been April 1st excise tax increase (6.3 per cent) on alcohol.
Last week, a motion was passed in the House of Commons to cancel the tax hike. Budget 2023 addresses this issue somewhat, but limits the excise tax increase to two per cent, rather than cancelling it entirely.
The budget does commit to prioritizing a “red dress alert” system to notify the public when an Indigenous woman or two-spirit person goes missing, which is another item that the NDP had pushed for but commits zero money to it. The 2.5 million over five years committed to establishing a Federal-Provincial-
There’s nothing to bring down excessive internet or cell service costs, still among the highest in the world. There’s also nothing to ensure the richest Canadians can’t hide their money in offshore tax accounts.
The word “pharmacare” literally does not appear in the budget, even though when tabling it, the Minister of Finance mentioned they still plan to deliver a National Universal Pharmacare Program as promised by the Liberals.
It is impossible to go through all the ins and outs of the budget within this column, but what is clear is that without the NDP pushing the government every step of the way, the majority of measures that will prove beneficial in helping Canadians would not have materialized.