The Canadian Federal Budget for 2015-2020, “Strong Leadership: A Balanced-Budget, Low-Tax Plan for Jobs, Growth and Security,” is propaganda: it does very little else other than subsidize business profits.
A national debt of $668 billion in 2015, with $212 billion being refinanced this year, belies any claim of a “balanced budget”.
Taxes are at a 50 year low, corporate income tax rates have been dropped from 22.12 per cent to 15 per cent, and “small business” (gross annual revenues of $10 million) income taxes are 11 per cent, (9 per cent by 2019). The government is instead making its revenue in underhanded ways, like raiding $23.1 billion from our Employment Insurance this year.
Private businesses are being extravagantly supplied with public money, but that will not result in either an enduring boost to the economy, or in well-paid, plentiful jobs.
Huge increases in the funding for National Defence (annual escalator from 2 per cent to 3 per cent) will be spent on military campaigns abroad, and on anti-terrorism, surveillance, policing, and security domestically.
But those huge Armed Forces budgets will not keep us safe, instead they will only serve to alienate, to escalate and to polarize groups already in conflict.
This Budget 2015 does not show “Strong Leadership.” It does not even mention: climate change, the end of fossil-fuels, ecosystem services, green jobs, renewable energy, strategies for clean water, local food, and livable cities, human rights, or meaningful international aid.
Please, get out at vote this October 19, the future of Canada is riding upon it.
Amanda Patt
Fruitvale