REGINA – Federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty was happy to call the budget “boring” – but civic and provincial leaders aren’t all that impressed.
“What I’ve seen so far is a lack of detail, and that is somewhat disappointing,” said Regina mayor Michael Fougere.
He was waiting to see what a renewed Building Canada Fund would have in store – a promise from Flaherty – but the money wasn’t unveiled in Tuesday’s announcement.
“When you want to build an economy, build a capacity as we have here in western Canada and Saskatchewan, we’re looking for support on infrastructure.”
Fougere says the budget is also missing critical support for housing, adding that the City of Regina has contracts totaling $120-million that may have a murky future.
In a growing province, Saskatchewan’s Finance Minister was pleased with additional support for skills training – but Ken Krawetz was also hoping for more of a commitment to infrastructure.
Expectations have already been tempered for next month’s provincial budget, and now the commitment from Ottawa may be very little.
“When you don’t have dollars to expand capital projects, you either delay them for one year, you put them on old, or you don’t spend as much,” said Krawetz.
Labour groups were asking for improvements to the Canada Pension Plan and greater access to employment insurance, but the Saskatchewan Federation of Labour calls it a failing budget.
“This is (Flaherty’s) tenth budget and he’s describing it as ‘do-nothing’. I think Canadians are expecting more than ‘do-nothing’,” said SFL president Larry Hubich.
With their own budgets to approve over the next five weeks, it may be up to both the city and the province to do something.
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