Canada’s finance minister is not giving a clear indication of when we can expect to see the budget.
“We said no earlier than April so by definition it could be later,” Joe Oliver told Tom Clark in an interview on The West Block.
READ MORE: Federal budget to be delayed until April: Oliver
The minister said he wants as much data and facts as possible before making final decisions but has continued to insist the budget will be balanced.
When pushed on why he needs to wait if he already knows the outcome Oliver said “that’s one of the outcomes. The other outcome of course is how we get there, what our policies will be.”
Options for reaching a balanced budget do not include going back on new promises made to families last fall, Oliver said.
“We want to make life more affordable for Canadians. And we felt, and we continue to feel, that that’s an important measure which we’ll honour,” said Oliver.
But dipping in to the $3 billion contingency fund is an option.
“The contingency fund is there for unexpected and unavoidable shocks to the system and the oil price decline, which was a dramatic one, would fall in that category,” Oliver told Clark.
WATCH: TD bank’s Randall Bartlett says surplus contingent on contingency fund
A report by TD bank earlier this month projected Ottawa would run a $2.3-billion shortfall next fiscal year rather than the $1.6-billion surplus predicted by the government in November.
With the contingency fund in play the bank’s senior economist now says a balanced budget is possible.
“We’re expecting that the government is going to show that they will balance the budget or even have a surplus in 2015-16, and a lot of that is going to ride on I think the contingency reserve that they have,” Randall Bartlett said in an interview on The West Block.
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