The Carney government presented Parliament Tuesday with a plan to spend about the same amount of money in the fiscal year ahead as the Trudeau government did in its final year — about $486 billion, a plan that left the Conservatives unimpressed.
“Just like Justin Trudeau, Mark Carney’s spending is absolutely out of control. In fact, it’s worse,” Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre told reporters outside the House of Commons.
And indeed, the spending plan tabled Tuesday is almost certain to change when it is updated in the fall when it will likely include nearly $24 billion in spending commitments for this year that the Liberals promised during the election campaign.
There was no evidence that the spending plan tabled Tuesday contained, for example, $3.5 billion that campaigning Liberals said they would spend this year on a Trade Diversification Corridors Fund.
During the campaign, the Liberals promised to boost CBC’s funding by $150 million a year but, in the spending plan tabled Tuesday, the CBC’s budget is up by just $42 million to $1.43 billion. The minister responsible for the CBC, Steven Guilbeault, declined to answer questions Wednesday about his department’s spending plan.
Still, even without those platform commitments factored in, the spending plan tabled Tuesday, known formally as the Main Estimates, gives Parliamentarians the first outlines of how the Carney government’s finances will differ from the Trudeau government’s.
One of the biggest changes described in the Main Estimates is the disappearance of the carbon price rebates. The Trudeau government paid out an estimated $11.67 billion in consumer carbon price rebates to Canadians in all provinces except B.C. and Quebec in the last fiscal year. The Carney government expects to see that drop to $3.5 billion, since it cancelled the consumer carbon price and rebate program after the final payout in April, in the current fiscal year. Similarly, the Canada Carbon Rebate paid to small businesses will drop by $1.9 billion this year compared to last.
But no information was put before Parliament about the how much Ottawa collected through the carbon price or, for that matter, any other taxes or fees. The government’s revenue plan and revenue estimates are typically a key part of the formal budget.
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Conservatives have criticized the Carney government’s decision to postpone that formal budget until the fall, saying, among other things, that it’s difficult for Parliamentarians to consider and be asked to vote on a $486-billion spending plan without considering the government’s revenue plan at the same time.
“With economic storm clouds moving in, how is it possible not to have a budget this spring?” the new Conservative MP for Newmarket-Aurora Sandra Cobena asked Wednesday during the first question period of the new Parliament.
The Main Estimates are part of a family of budget documents, which includes the formal budget and the fall economic statement, that are presented to Parliament at various points during a fiscal year and that require Parliamentary approval. The Main Estimates are presented to Parliament near the start of the fiscal year and then modifications and updates to the government’s spending plan, known as supplementary estimates, are presented at three other points during the year. The votes on each set of estimates are considered confidence votes.
All comparisons in this article of the Carney government’s Main Estimates are made against the Trudeau government’s Supplementary Estimates (B), which Parliament approved in December. The 2024-2025 Supplementary Estimates (B), then, would have been the Trudeau government’s final spending plan and final budget document. The Trudeau government, in its final year, was not able to present or pass Supplementary Estimates (C). Until the Public Accounts of Canada are tabled later this year, the 2024-2025 Supplementary Estimates (B) provide the most recent and up-to-date spending plans for the Trudeau government’s final year.
The Main Estimates tabled Tuesday by the Carney government do not include $74.1 billion in spending in the current fiscal year that the Trudeau government committed to in the 2024 Fall Economic Statement. Those items include spending an anticipated $28.8 billion on employment insurance benefits and $29.6 billion in Canada Child Benefit payments.
When all the spending commitments from the 2024 Fall Economic Statement are added to the spending plan described in Tuesday’s 2025-2026 Main Estimates, the projected total expenses for 2025-26 rise to $554.5 billion — again, that’s before any Liberal election funding commitments are factored in.
Among the 130 federal departments and agencies presenting funding requirements to MPs, the largest is the Department of National Defence, which is requesting $33.9 billion. The defence department is seeking approval for a capital budget of $10.9 billion, an increase compared to last year of nearly 22 per cent or $1.94 billion.
Specific details on the defence department’s capital program will be tabled in Parliament later in June as part of yet another family of budget documents known as Departmental Plans.
The Department of Public Works and Government Services is seeking a 61-per cent increase in its capital budget, from $2 billion last year to $3.3 billion in the current fiscal year. But details on its capital program will also have to wait until Departmental Plans are tabled in June and Public Works Minister Jöel Lightbound also declined Wednesday to discuss those plans.
The department of Indigenous Services — second in size only to the defence department — is looking for $25.2 billion to support approximately 700 First Nations deliver health, education, housing, social programs and other services. The Department of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs (CIRNA) seeks $13 billion — the fourth-largest spending budget across government, most of which is used to settle treaty claims and other kinds of claims by Indigenous groups.
But those departments submitted funding requirements for the current year that are significantly smaller than their estimated spending last year: $2.4 billion less for Indigenous Services and $4.87 billion less for CIRNA.
Indigenous Services Minister Mandy Gull-Masty also declined a Global News request to discuss her department’s spending requests.
The Government House Leader, Steven Mackinnon, promised parliamentarians will be given the chance to grill all ministers about the estimates.
“There will be extensive examination with ministers being accountable for those sums in the House of Commons more than that has ever occurred in recent memory,” Mackinnon said.
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