by Christopher Guly
OTTAWA, Feb. 28 (Xinhua) -- Remaining in the red with no short-term plan to balance the books, Canada's 2018 budget does little to provide global confidence that the Canadian government is addressing the fundamental issues facing the country's economy, a business leader said on Wednesday.
"We hoped the budget would have included a plan to eliminate the deficit in a reasonable time, and attract more international investment and enhance the competitiveness of Canadian businesses, particularly given the fact that the Americans just cut their corporate tax rate by 15 percent to make their businesses more competitive," Perrin Beatty, president of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, told Xinhua in an interview.
"Instead, we have a cornucopia of program announcements for all sorts of worthy projects but very little discussion about how to generate the revenues necessary to pay for them," he added.
This year's Canadian budget, which was tabled in the House of Commons on Tuesday, shows that despite a decline, Canada will continue to report a deficit in five years, from the current 19.4 billion Canadian dollars (about 15 billion U.S. dollars) to 12.3 billion Canadian dollars (9.6 billion dollars) in the 2022-23 fiscal year.
During his national election campaign in 2015, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised that his government would not run budget deficits of more than 10 billion Canadian dollars (7.8 billion dollars) and would balance the budget by 2019-20, just before the next general election scheduled for Oct. 21, 2019.
Neither has happened nor will happen as Trudeau aims for a second government mandate by attracting progressive voters through spending billions of dollars on programs with an activist agenda, including those that promote gender equality and benefit Canada's indigenous peoples.
Beatty, a former Canadian cabinet minister, said that by adding 18 billion Canadian dollars (14 billion dollars) to the national debt in the forthcoming fiscal year, the Canadian government's budgetary strategy suggests that spending is the best way to achieve prosperity.
"Before the 2008 recession, the federal government and the 10 Canadian provinces were in surplus," Beatty said.
"The surprising thing was that given how strong Canada's fiscal performance has been, you would think now is the time that the government would eliminate the deficit," he said.
"If you're adding billions of dollars to the deficit in good times, what does this mean when there is a downturn in the economy?" he said, adding that the government's projection is to achieve break-even around ten years later.
The Canadian government signaled in the budget document that it has its eye on international trade, especially with China.
The budget sets aside up to 75 million Canadian dollars (58 million dollars) over five years, starting in 2018-19 that begins on April 1, for Canada's foreign ministry to create a stronger diplomatic and trade-support presence in Asia, which includes increasing the number of diplomats and trade commissioners in China.
