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National Observer
2 days ago
- Business
- National Observer
Carney won't reveal spending plans, enraging critics — but some call it savvy
The West Block of Parliament is a great place to hide. A labyrinth of hallways and alcoves, committee rooms and stairways, it's the architectural expression of Ottawa's sprawling bureaucracy. At the heart of the maze is the House of Commons, a cavernous room where parliament sits while the years-long renovation of their original seat in Centre Block, next door, is completed. Until then, West Block is where Question Period takes place – but even here, perhaps especially here, answers are hard to find. Canadians were reminded of that as Question Period resumed on Wednesday, with Prime Minister Carney in the hot seat for his debut performance. The viewing gallery was packed; prominent journalists, the mayor of Toronto, PEI's premier, senators and family members of parliamentarians all came to watch the show. The day's Big Question was why Mr. Carney won't release a federal budget before fall. By then it will have been over a year since the government released one, an unprecedented gap (outside of 2020, when Covid derailed the process). Interim Conservative leader Andrew Scheer and others in his party asked the budget question repeatedly. In lieu of an answer, Carney – perfectly at ease as he lobbed jokes and jabs across the aisle – pointed out that Pierre Polievre's 100-day plan announced during the election hadn't included a budget either. From there on, he and his finance minister, François-Philippe Champagne, took turns repeating the great news that they were delivering a tax cut and breaking down provincial trade barriers. Disappointing for those hoping for answers, but not surprising. Question Period is for sound bites and sick burns, not genuine replies. For those, you have to go outside. In this case, all the way to Rome – it was there, during his visit to greet the new Pope, that Mr. Carney gave reporters the closest thing he's given to an explanation for skipping the spring budget. 'There's not much value in trying to rush through a budget in a very narrow window — three weeks — with a new cabinet [and] effectively a new finance minister," he said. "We will have a much more comprehensive, effective, ambitious, prudent budget in the fall." He elaborated briefly this week, in an interview with Power and Politics on the afternoon of the Throne Speech. 'I'm not a fan of picking an arbitrary number and then figuring out how to spend up to it,' he told host David Cochrane, after describing a host of uncertainties looming over Canada's defence budget. 'That's one of the reasons we will have a fall budget, not a budget tomorrow.' These excuses rang hollow to NDP MP Heather McPherson. In light of the intense furor caused by the budget's delay, it's baffling why Carney invited such a storm. It didn't just dominate the first week of Question Period, it unleashed a predictable slew of withering news articles and op-eds. 'For him to constantly say that everyone is new — nobody's buying that,' McPherson told Canada's National Observer over the phone this week. 'This is literally [the Liberals'] fourth mandate, with many of the same caucus members, with almost the entirety of the financial department staff being the same.' The day after Carney's first Question Period, finance minister Champagne told Politico that the reason Liberals are waiting until fall is they want to have 'more clarity around defense, around the trade war that is happening now in the world,' referring to tariffs and the upcoming NATO meeting where Canada's defence budget is almost certain to rise dramatically. Champagne said the government is also waiting to get 'initial feedback from our initiatives on government efficiency.' McPherson didn't buy that either. 'For Mark Carney to say, 'we don't know what's going to happen with military spending' – well, you ran on a military spending plan. Is that not the military spending plan that you are now going to take to NATO?' Uncertainty is baked into the whole budgeting process, she said; it's why spring budgets are followed and adjusted by fall economic forecasts. 'There'll be changes in a lot of things. There's going to be changes next year. Do we not get a budget next year because there might be changes? That's not how budgets work, and he knows that.' Indeed, he does. A central irony to all this is that the most famous banker in Canadian history seems indifferent to the value of a timely budget. This begs a question no one asked in Question Period: Why do we need a budget now? Big, beautiful budgets According to Michael Wernick, the former Clerk of the Privy Council, deputy minister under three prime ministers, and one of the most experienced former bureaucrats in Canada, we don't. 'In practical or operational terms, the four-month delay really doesn't matter,' Wernick told Canada's National Observer in a phone interview. 'In days gone by, the budget was mostly a statement of tax measures,' he said. 'The practice of having a big, beautiful budget, chock full of just about everything the government wants to do in the coming year and hundreds of pages of implementation legislation covering everything from A to Z, is a fairly recent practice.' The day-to-day business of a government doesn't depend on a budget. Payments to civil servants, transfers to provinces, funding the various ministries and departments — all these costs go out more or less automatically. It's the new spending measures that require parliamentary approval. One example is the 1 per cent tax cut Carney has promised to Canadians in the lowest income bracket; that can only come into effect once parliament has voted for it. The same goes for increasing the defence budget, or deploying billions for new housing, and so on. Over the past two decades, Wernick explained, governments of both parties have tended to jam their entire year's goals into a single budget. 'So you've got these huge omnibus bills and a fight with parliament,' he said. 'But they're too big and they cover too many things and they're cramping parliament's ability to properly review them. The Conservatives criticize the Liberals for doing it. The Liberals criticized the Conservatives for doing it.' Those giant omnibus budget bills force parliament to either approve or reject everything at once. On top of that, rejecting a budget automatically brings down the government, forcing a brand new election – something no party, or Canadian, wants right now, regardless of how they feel about the budget. For that reason 'Breaking [the budget] up into pieces might actually lead to better scrutiny by parliament,' Wernick says. Rather than an all-or-nothing vote with the sword of a new election hanging over their decision, MPs of all parties can (for now) approve, reject or amend each spending measure on its own merits, one at a time. Not everyone agrees, of course. 'The history of accountability and democracy is really coterminous with control of the budgets over the executive branch,' says Ian Lee, an associate professor in the Spratt School of Business at Carleton University (and a onetime candidate for MP under Kim Campbell's Progressive Conservative banner). 'It's not the end of the world if a national government doesn't table its budget, but it reduces transparency; it reduces, to a small degree, confidence in the government and in the stability of that country.' 'It's about legitimacy,' agrees Christopher Ragan, founding director of the Max Bell School of Public Policy who currently teaches economics at McGill. 'I mean, if you really want a well-informed debate about spending, especially in the world of a minority government, we should probably know what the books look like. And we don't know what the books look like. The last time we saw a fiscal update was in December, and that was like a whole lifetime ago.' Uncertain times on the barbecue circuit December was before Trump's inauguration and the ensuing trade war; before Justin Trudeau stepped down; before it became clear that Canada's economic future would bear little resemblance to its recent past. That's another crucial aspect of a budget – by spelling out the state of a nation's finances, it forms the material basis for debate about how the government will spend taxpayer's dollars. But here, too, Michael Wernick feels a budget's importance is overstated. 'The Department of Finance puts out something called the fiscal monitor every month,' he points out. 'Nobody ever pays attention to it and writes articles about it, but they're obliged to put out quarterly financial statements. So every three months the department will put a snapshot out of where it is.' But what if MPs want more recent or granular information, especially given the tremendous rate of change? 'If parliament wants to hear from the minister of finance, it's a minority parliament; they just call him in front of the finance committee,' Wernick said. Still, in light of the intense furor caused by the budget's delay, it's baffling why Carney invited such a storm. It didn't just dominate the first week of Question Period, it unleashed a slew of withering news articles and op-eds that articulated valid concerns about Carney's lack of transparency, all of it entirely predictable. The work of crafting a budget is contained within the finance department — completing one doesn't hamper the rest of the government's ability to pursue Carney's ambitious agenda — so why not just release one before summer and avoid the bad press? 'The charitable interpretation is they say, 'Hey, we're busy, life is uncertain, it's too hard to do, so we're gonna do it later,'' says Christopher Ragan. 'But the thing that I fear is that what's going on in their heads is: 'We can just do this more easily without a budget. The budget is complicated, the budget is very visible, the budget invites all kinds of analysis and criticism, and why don't we just proceed as much as we can and we'll just pass these appropriations bills, which get way less scrutiny.' And that is a view that is fairly disrespectful of the whole concept of parliament.' Heather McPherson says she expects the budget to contain bad news — news the Liberals would rather avoid delivering before they fan out across the country to gladhand their constituents. 'I think the advantage for them is they don't want to have a bad budget that they have to go out on the barbecue scene with,' was Heather McPherson's take. 'They don't want to have to go to Canadians with a budget that's going to be a hard pill to swallow, and stand at the [Calgary] Stampede and have to go to Canadians across the country all summer long with a bad budget. So they're going to hide and they're going to pretend everything is still sunny ways.' 'I think his intent, his strategic objective, is to buy himself a little bit of time,' says Ian Lee. 'There's going to be a logjam this September, October, November in parliament because there's going to be so many bills tabled in Parliament to implement his agenda. And so this will buy them four or five months to figure out, you know, which gets priority?' Of all the people Canada's National Observer spoke to, Lee was among the most critical of Carney's decision to delay the budget; Lee has worked in several developing nations around the world over the course of his career, and he pointed out that one hallmark of those governments is a slipshod approach to crafting budgets. But even he acknowledged that 'if [Carney] comes up with a really good, transparent budget this fall, I don't think everyone's even going to remember that they kicked the problem down the road.' Michael Wernick, for his part, takes what Carney said in Rome, and what Champagne told Politico, at face value. 'They must have just calculated that with all of the chaos around Trump's tariffs, and the NATO summit coming in June, which could just blow a big hole in sorts of all future forecasting, then, the shelf life of a June budget would be days or weeks.' My query to the PMO also directed me to Carney's Rome statement. 'I think that would be your best bet for a concise quote from him,' a press secretary told me. In the absence of more elaborate communication from the PMO on all this, Canadians must rely on the speculation of outside experts. And for voters and government alike, that lack of transparency may prove to be a bigger problem than the lack of a budget – especially if it becomes the new story by fall.
Toronto Sun
5 days ago
- Business
- Toronto Sun
Tories seek answers on Liberal half-trillion-dollar spending plan
"Is he really committed to new fiscal discipline, or is he just like the last guy?" said Treasury Board Critic Stephanie Kusie Conservative Member of Parliament Stephanie Kusie rises during question period in House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Thursday, May 29, 2025. Photo by Sean Kilpatrick / The Canadian Press OTTAWA — The Conservatives put the government's fiscal feet to the fire during Question Period on Thursday. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. REGISTER / SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account. Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments. Enjoy additional articles per month. Get email updates from your favourite authors. THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK. Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments Enjoy additional articles per month Get email updates from your favourite authors Don't have an account? Create Account The Tories set their sights on the government's recently-tabled $486-billion spending plan, with Conservative Treasury Board Critic Stephanie Kusie asking for some conspicuously-missing details. 'This prime minister said that we would be guided by a new fiscal discipline,' she said. 'He said he would limit operational expenditures to no greater than an increase of two per cent, yet he's presented a bill of half a trillion dollars to Canadians. Single mothers, seniors, small businesses all make a budget before they spend. You would think a highly-esteemed banker would know that, and do that.' Kusie questioned how committed Prime Minister Mark Carney is to change, particularly after the past decade of former PM Justin Trudeau. Your noon-hour look at what's happening in Toronto and beyond. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. Please try again This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. 'Is he really committed to new fiscal discipline, or is he just like the last guy?' she said. Read More Tabled Tuesday while King Charles was in town, the government's 2025-26 main spending estimates outlined $486.9 billion in budgetary spending — figures missing numerous promises made during the election campaign. While the Liberals' campaign platform concerning the CBC detailed an initial cash infusion to the state broadcaster of $105 million, figures released this week only show a funding increases of less than half that number. Few details have emerged on the government's spending plans, particularly since officials said they won't table a federal budget until the fall — a walkback from previous assertions that the Carney Liberals had no plans to issue a budget at all this year. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. In response, Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne said the government is committed to their plan to make life more affordable. 'The first measure we introduced was a tax cut for 22 million Canadians,' he said, pointing across the aisle. 'There are Canadians in her riding that are going to benefit from the tax cuts. We're eliminating GST for first-time homebuyers for their new house, Mr. Speaker, and we are removing the consumer carbon price from law, Mr. Speaker. Together we're going to build Canada strong, and I hope the Conservatives will join us in that.' bpassifiume@ X: @bryanpassifiume RECOMMENDED VIDEO World Toronto & GTA Toronto Maple Leafs Weird Columnists
CTV News
5 days ago
- Business
- CTV News
PM Carney touts ‘new' Canadian government in his first ever question period
CTV's Rachel Aiello breaks down PM Carney's first question period, his tone, whether his media approach is shifting, and Poilievre's response. CTV's Rachel Aiello breaks down PM Carney's first question period, his tone, whether his media approach is shifting, and Poilievre's response. 'If you expected theatrics, we weren't going to get it': Aiello on PM Carney's first question period Prime Minister Mark Carney touted 'Canada's new government' in his first ever question period in the House of Commons. Pressed about the Canada-U.S. trade war, as well as his plans for the budget and big projects, he implored the opposition parties to back his plans. 'Canada's new government is acting immediately to grow this economy,' Carney said, in response to the third question he's ever faced in the chamber. 'Canada's new government, Mr. Speaker, is acting immediately to grow this economy, one Canadian economy out of 13, nation-building projects... working with the provinces to cooperate, we expect the support from the members' opposite.' That response came at the end of Official Opposition Leader Andrew Scheer's first round of pressing the new prime minister. He opened the historic exchange by welcoming his Liberal rival. 'This is where democracy lives, and this is where we provide rigorous scrutiny on every word he says, and every dollar he spends on behalf of Canadians,' Scheer said, before launching into his first question on Canada's retaliatory tariffs. Accusing the prime minister of 'secretly' dropping its countermeasures 'to effectively zero' – an apparent reference to the remissions approved for select sectors – Carney shot back that the federal government's trade action is tailored to 'have maximum impact on the United States, minimum impact on Canada.' 'Well, he didn't take long to pick up old liberal habits of not being able to answer questions,' Scheer then said, before probing for Carney's rationale for not tabling a federal budget until the fall. Responding, Carney noted Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre's '100 day' post-election plan didn't include tabling a budget, before saying he does intend to advance major legislation in the days ahead. As Carney's office had confirmed ahead of time, the prime minister only took the leaders' round of questions at the start of the hour of accountability, before deferring to his ministers to field the rest of the oppositions' inquiries. This is a break with a relatively new tradition implemented by his predecessor Justin Trudeau, seeing him take all the questions – and not just those asked by fellow party leaders – during question period on Wednesdays. This decision saw him face just nine questions in all from Scheer, Conservative Quebec lieutenant Pierre Paul-Hus, and Bloc Quebecois Leader Yves-Francois Blanchet, before the heat was off him and on to members of his cabinet. Ahead of the showdown, some MPs said they were excited for the first question period, expecting Carney to remain as one said, 'calm, cool, collected,' while others said they weren't sure what to expect, but hoped the tone remained respectful. Asked earlier today what he made of Carney returning to the practice of only fielding the first round of questions, Conservative MP Gerard Deltell said: 'It's not the number of answer that you give, it's the kind of answer you give that's most important.' Meanwhile, Poilievre took it all in, from his office. Speaking to reporters from the foyer beforehand, the newly seatless politician said he'd 'love to be in there.' 'It's a great place. I love the House of Commons. I love the excitement and the thrill, and I've never really been a spectator of the House,' he said. 'But I'm going to work hard to earn the opportunity to do it again.' And, stripped of official party status after his caucus dwindled to under the requisite dozen members, NDP interim leader Don Davies did get a question in about Canada's unemployment rate, but only in the final minutes of question period long after Carney stopped answering. It was answered by the Jobs and Families Minister Patty Hajdu. 'I will work closely with my partners, indeed members across this House, to make sure that all Canadians have an opportunity to thrive as we see economic change,' she said in part. With that, new House of Commons Speaker Francis Scarpaleggia rose and said: 'that completes our very first question period of the 45th Parliament.'
Globe and Mail
6 days ago
- Business
- Globe and Mail
New versus same-old as the Commons returns
You could tell Mark Carney was new to Parliament, because he was put off by the heckling. He looked ready for his first day, dressed in a dark suit and tie, showing up after most of the MPs were already in their seats and Question Period was just about to start. But he was less than even 20 seconds into his first answer when a Conservative MP yelled 'time.' And Mr. Carney paused and smiled, before carrying on. The old hands in QP have learned to keep on talking. There was a lot of old versus new on the return of Question Period in the new session of Parliament. There was some giddiness among new MPs. The new Parliament was an event. Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow and Prince Edward Island Premier Rob Lantz waited in a crowd for the doors to the visitors' gallery to open. New ministers read wooden answers. But the main theme was the Conservatives making the case that Mr. Carney's new Liberal government is the same as the old one, while the Liberals tried to deflect it. The House of Commons was back. It wasn't precisely the same dynamic, for sure. It was a Wednesday, when former prime minister Justin Trudeau would field all the questions. Mr. Carney didn't. The NDP, no longer officially a party in the Commons, was relegated to one end-of-QP question in a time slot typically devoted to queries about fisheries. Carney spars with opposition over tariffs, plan for fall budget in first Question Period Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, who spent the last months of the last Parliament gleefully taunting Liberals with calls for an immediate carbon tax election, held a news conference outside the chamber, but no longer has a seat inside. When the Liberal who beat him in the riding of Carleton, Bruce Fanjoy, rose to deliver a statement, his Grit colleagues stood and cheered him as a conquering hero. The Conservatives' leader in the Commons, Andrew Scheer, could only shrug. The Conservatives were not planning to treat Mr. Carney's government to a honeymoon, but it's a new session, and apparently they don't have A material. Mr. Scheer's first question suggested that Mr. Carney had pulled a fast one in the election campaign by talking tough about imposing retaliatory tariffs but then 'secretly' reducing them to 'effectively zero.' Too bad the question was spurious, since the 'secret' temporary exceptions and partial reductions to some tariffs had been officially announced and reported in news stories – which apparently the Conservatives still missed – and there are still tariffs being levied. But Mr. Carney followed Question Period tradition by more or less ignoring the question, anyway – responding with his well-worn line that his government's tariffs will have maximum impact on the United States and minimum impact on Canada. Mr. Scheer came back with a call for Mr. Carney to repeal Bill C-69, the Impact Assessment Act that Conservatives dub the 'No More Pipelines Act,' and Mr. Carney responded with a assertion that 'Canada's new government is acting immediately to grow the economy,' to reduce internal trade barriers, and to approve major projects quickly. Conservative MP Pierre Paul-Hus followed by waving a hand to gesture along the Liberal front bench, declaring, 'what I see in front of me are the same ministers and the same government we have had for the past 10 years.' That was the dynamic. The Conservatives called on Mr. Carney to show he's different by repealing several of Mr. Trudeau's measures – environmental measures that touched the oil and gas sector and several crime bills. Mr. Carney and his ministers replied that theirs is a new government, with a bold, ambitious agenda. But the question of whether the new Prime Minister leads the same-old government was a rerun from the election campaign, and it didn't have new zing. The Conservatives' newer attack, criticizing the government's decision to delay the budget till fall, isn't going to echo much beyond Ottawa. And Mr. Carney did fine. He had some presence as a parliamentarian. He didn't look lost. He appeared to find some appreciation for the Question Period performance skills of veterans such as Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne, whose energetic ad for a new tax cut roused Liberal cheers and earned Mr. Carney's applause. But all Mr. Carney's answers were about his big, bold plans, about making Canada's economy the strongest in the G7, and building big things. He rebuffed all questions by setting higher expectations. In future Question Periods, he will face queries about whether his government has met them.
CTV News
6 days ago
- Business
- CTV News
PM Carney touts ‘new' Canadian government in his first ever question period
CTV's Rachel Aiello breaks down PM Carney's first question period, his tone, whether his media approach is shifting, and Poilievre's response. CTV's Rachel Aiello breaks down PM Carney's first question period, his tone, whether his media approach is shifting, and Poilievre's response. 'If you expected theatrics, we weren't going to get it': Aiello on PM Carney's first question period Prime Minister Mark Carney touted 'Canada's new government' in his first ever question period in the House of Commons. Pressed about the Canada-U.S. trade war, as well as his plans for the budget and big projects, he implored the opposition parties to back his plans. 'Canada's new government is acting immediately to grow this economy,' Carney said, in response to the third question he's ever faced in the chamber. 'Canada's new government, Mr. Speaker, is acting immediately to grow this economy, one Canadian economy out of 13, nation-building projects... working with the provinces to cooperate, we expect the support from the members' opposite.' That response came at the end of Official Opposition Leader Andrew Scheer's first round of pressing the new prime minister. He opened the historic exchange by welcoming his Liberal rival. 'This is where democracy lives, and this is where we provide rigorous scrutiny on every word he says, and every dollar he spends on behalf of Canadians,' Scheer said, before launching into his first question on Canada's retaliatory tariffs. Accusing the prime minister of 'secretly' dropping its countermeasures 'to effectively zero' – an apparent reference to the remissions approved for select sectors – Carney shot back that the federal government's trade action is tailored to 'have maximum impact on the United States, minimum impact on Canada.' 'Well, he didn't take long to pick up old liberal habits of not being able to answer questions,' Scheer then said, before probing for Carney's rationale for not tabling a federal budget until the fall. Responding, Carney noted Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre's '100 day' post-election plan didn't include tabling a budget, before saying he does intend to advance major legislation in the days ahead. As Carney's office had confirmed ahead of time, the prime minister only took the leaders' round of questions at the start of the hour of accountability, before deferring to his ministers to field the rest of the oppositions' inquiries. This is a break with a relatively new tradition implemented by his predecessor Justin Trudeau, seeing him take all the questions – and not just those asked by fellow party leaders – during question period on Wednesdays. This decision saw him face just nine questions in all from Scheer, Conservative Quebec lieutenant Pierre Paul-Hus, and Bloc Quebecois Leader Yves-Francois Blanchet, before the heat was off him and on to members of his cabinet. Ahead of the showdown, some MPs said they were excited for the first question period, expecting Carney to remain as one said, 'calm, cool, collected,' while others said they weren't sure what to expect, but hoped the tone remained respectful. Asked earlier today what he made of Carney returning to the practice of only fielding the first round of questions, Conservative MP Gerard Deltell said: 'It's not the number of answer that you give, it's the kind of answer you give that's most important.' Meanwhile, Poilievre took it all in, from his office. Speaking to reporters from the foyer beforehand, the newly seatless politician said he'd 'love to be in there.' 'It's a great place. I love the House of Commons. I love the excitement and the thrill, and I've never really been a spectator of the House,' he said. 'But I'm going to work hard to earn the opportunity to do it again.' And, stripped of official party status after his caucus dwindled to under the requisite dozen members, NDP interim leader Don Davies did get a question in about Canada's unemployment rate, but only in the final minutes of question period long after Carney stopped answering. It was answered by the Jobs and Families Minister Patty Hajdu. 'I will work closely with my partners, indeed members across this House, to make sure that all Canadians have an opportunity to thrive as we see economic change,' she said in part. With that, new House of Commons Speaker Francis Scarpaleggia rose and said: 'that completes our very first question period of the 45th Parliament.'
