Budget: Highlights of the 2012 federal budget
Postmedia News
Compiled by Kirsten Smith and Dan Neutel
March 29, 2012
Reactions to federal budget:
What’s Missing in Budget 2012?
Canadian Coalition for the Rights of Children
April 13, 2012
Federal budget drags Canada into age of austerity: Think tank
CCPA – Alternative Federal Budget
March 29, 2012
OTTAWA—All Canadians will pay the price for a federal budget that will result in significant job losses, weaker environmental protection, and unnecessary cuts to cherished public services, says the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.
The CCPA says once the government’s three rounds of spending cuts are fully implemented, they will have resulted in a total of over 70,000 full-time job cuts (35,000 in the public sector and 37,000 in the private sector) and could raise the unemployment rate to 7.8%.
“This may be a 2012 budget but it’s got the 1930s written all over it,” says CCPA Senior Economist David Macdonald. “Federal austerity, combined with provincial austerity budgets, will create a fiscal drag on Canada’s economy.
“We are dismantling public programs and peeling back income supports such as Old Age Security without asking profitable corporations and the wealthy among us to do their part. We saw a similar story unfold in the 1930s and it didn’t end well. History is repeating itself.”
“After six Harper budgets, the corporate share of federal revenue has fallen to 1930s levels, millionaires are paying taxes at rates last seen in the 1920s, and the top 1% are capturing more of the gains from growth than at any time in history,” says CCPA Senior Economist Armine Yalnizyan.
“This budget fails to address the pressures of a middle class losing ground and young people struggling to find work,” says Yalnizyan. “It takes us backward in terms of retirement and environmental protection. With the exception of education and water needs for First Nations, it ignores the need to repair our aging infrastructure. The books will be balanced, but we’ll all pay the price.”
2012 budget cuts not in the Canada’s best interest, says economist
Georgia Straight
By Stephen Thomson
March 29, 2012
The federal government’s 2012 budget includes cuts that will create unnecessary “austerity” for Canadians, says a B.C. researcher with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.
“It makes no sense that we’re making cuts at a time when we are ahead of schedule in balancing the budget,” Iglika Ivanova, economist and public interest researcher with the think-tank….
“It shows clearly that the cuts are not motivated by economic or fiscal necessity. They are motivated by ideology, by a desire to shrink the size of government, and that’s why we’re seeing cuts,” she said….
“What I think this budget does basically is bring austerity unnecessarily to Canadians.”
Ivanova said the government is trying to balance the budget soon to meet pre-election promises like introducing income-splitting measures and increasing the annual contribution limits to tax-free savings accounts.
“They’re trying to save money by cutting services for the people who are struggling, from the more vulnerable Canadians, so they have money to offer tax cuts to the wealthier Canadians,” she said. “That’s something that cannot be explained by economic necessity. It’s not in the best interest of Canada.”