What's in the new federal budget?

There is a lot of new spending. In fact, there’s $52.9 billion in new spending over the next five years. That is the total value of the package that has been unveiled in this particular budget. But they are able to do this new spending, the $52.9 billion, but still able to keep their debt and deficit targets broadly in line with the measures they set for themselves in the fall economic statement. And that’s largely because of two significant things. They have more wiggle room. Part of that wiggle room comes from tax increases that are coming in this budget. There are higher capital gains taxes in this budget affecting the wealthiest 0.13% of Canadians and and large corporations in this country. It’s not an increase in the rates, Rosie. It’s an increase in what’s called the inclusion rate. Right now, if you make money on a capital gains, you’re only taxed on 50% of the profit you make. That’s going to increase to 66% of the profit will be included in the capital gains taxation calculation. For individuals, that’s only on profits you make in excess of $250,000 a year. So that’s why it this increase only effects such a small segment of the population. But for companies it’s baseline. So that’s going to be a challenge. The other big thing is that there’s an improving economy which equals higher revenues. There was a lot of turbulence economically over the past year, but the government has gotten that soft landing it was looking for, it avoided A recession. And if you look at the numbers, tax revenues from income tax and other measures are up right across the board. So on to the deficit that I mentioned, you can see there are still large deficits in this budget right around the $40 billion mark. That’s the ceiling they set for themselves in the fall economic statement last year they call me and just at that number for the year just ended stayed just below it in future years and you see an increase in the deficits in the out years. No plan for a balanced budget. This is an attempt by Christian Freeland sort of balance what she considers to be fiscal restraint with the screaming needs of an angry and anxious Canada right now and so on, that the big focus of this budget Rosie, is housing. There’s been a string of announcements leading up to this with the release of a strategic housing strategy on Friday. There’s $23 billion in total spending in this budget. 8 billion of that is spending that goes on the bottom line. The rest is $15 billion in loans to help companies get access to capital, to help finance construction for apartments and rental properties and infrastructure. So that doesn’t get booked to the debt though to sorry to the deficit, but it is something the government has to account for. And one of the things that’s in this budget too Rose that we can talk about a bit on is some specifics on the federal lands they want to convert into housing and apartment, Canada Post properties, National Defense properties, surplus lands here in Ottawa. The other pillar that they want to focus on in this budget is economic growth and productivity. Two things to point to on this, a new electric vehicle supply chain tax credit, a continuing with this offering investment tax credits for companies to invest. This is not just to open up a plant, it’s open a plant, a battery plant and a capital plant. All three layers of the of the manufacturing chain for electric vehicles to to juice the economy and the carbon rebate for small businesses that they’ve been waiting on since 2019. There’s a promise and measures in this budget to return 2 1/2 billion dollars to 600,000 small businesses starting later this year after they filed their taxes.