Federal budget 2024: Liberals failed to tackle 'corporate greed,' Singh says

How is the opposition reacting? The NDP leader is not happy, saying the Liberals did not go after the rich and says his party is deciding whether to support this budget. The federal Conservative leader did not take questions from reporters after the budget was delivered, but he did have some scathing comments in the House of Commons. Conservatives will vote against this wasteful inflationary budget That poor that is like a pyromaniac spraying gas on the inflationary fire that he lit. It is getting too hot and too expensive for Canadians and that’s why we need a carbon tax election to replace him with a common sense Conservative government. We are. We’re concerned about the fact that the Liberals ignored the opportunity to take on corporate greed that’s making it harder for people to find a home. That is a major problem that makes life unaffordable, and the Liberals fail to use the opportunity they had to take on corporate greed. To help interpret the reaction from the opposition, our Ottawa Bureau chief Mercedes Stevenson is with me. Mercedes, what do you make of what you just heard? Do you think the NDP would really vote against this budget? Donna, honestly, I would be very surprised if the NDP were to vote against this budget and bring down the government. They had asked for certain things that the government has come through on, like pharmacare, and while this is not the national pharmacare program, that includes a lot of drugs. NDP had hoped for. We’re talking about birth control and diabetes drugs at this point. It is a major plank and it is a lot of money. The NDP also isn’t in a position to necessarily do better if we were to go to an election right now. So while I think Jagmeet Singh is not very happy about what he is seeing in terms of the lack of taxes on corporate windfall profits, I don’t see that as being enough for him to actually make the decision to vote against this budget. Of course the Conservatives will vote against the budget. That is of course to be expected. When it comes to those corporate windfall taxes, by the way, an interesting bit of information that I’ve been hearing Donna as we walk around and talk to stakeholders who are on Parliament Hill on budget day. Apparently there was a big debate about whether or not to include this right up to the 11th hour. There were some inside cabinet who thought that it was critical to include this tax on corporate windfalls, especially since the government had been making a big deal about going after grocers, sort of these fat cat corporate types as they make them out to be. And really needing to go after their profits. And then they made the decision not to. And that’s because the side of cabinet that was arguing this would actually cause capital flight and would cause corporations to potentially leave Canada one out. And the business community was lobbying very hard on this. The oil and gas business as well was doing so. And it was interesting because when I spoke to the Environment Minister a couple of weeks ago on the West Block, Donna, he indicated that they were concerned that any more taxes on oil and gas could cause those companies to leave for another more competitive market. OK. Mercedes Stevenson, thanks for that.