Opposition leaders have signalled they will not support the Conservative budget, making a spring election all but inevitable.
The budget, tabled Tuesday by Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, had been carefully crafted to try to meet the NDP halfway in a bid to avoid a trip to the polls, but it was also designed – sprinkled with targeted tax credits for families, for example – to serve as a campaign platform if the government is defeated in a no-confidence vote, which could come as early as this week.
Rejection of the budget came faster than many observers expected, but the Tories have made it clear there are no plans to make amendments.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper "just doesn’t get it,” NDP Leader Jack Layton said after the release of the document. “The NDP will not be supporting the budget as presented."
Mr. Layton said Mr. Harper “had an opportunity to address the needs of hard-working, middle-class Canadians and families and he missed that opportunity.”
The NDP Leader added that the budget falls far short of the four conditions he had set for NDP support: elimination of the federal sales tax on home-heating fuel; measures to greatly increase the number of doctors; a big boost in pensions for poor seniors; and restoration of the home eco-energy retrofit program.
Mr. Layton said the government could yet survive by agreeing to amend the budget to respond to NDP concerns, but added that scenario is “difficult to imagine.”
Mr. Flaherty immediately said the Conservatives have no plans to change the budget.
Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff and Bloc Québécois Leader Gilles Duceppe also rejected the budget.
Mr. Ignatieff said: "We don't believe the budget is credible and we're forced to reject this budget."
He took the Tories to task for producing a budget that spends "a thousand times more" on jets than on helping kids get a university education.
"There's nothing on affordable housing, or childcare. This is a government that doesn't seem to be listening to what Canadian families are telling us."
Mr. Duceppe agreed, saying his party "certainly can't accept" what's being offered in the budget.
Budget action to confront Ottawa’s long-term challenges, such as planning for higher costs and slower revenue growth due to an aging population, took a back seat in the proposals presented earlier by Mr. Flaherty, as did a thorough accounting of where future cuts might be proposed.
The budget maintained Mr. Flaherty's forecast from last fall for Ottawa’s books to be balanced sometime in 2015 – including a 25-per-cent drop in the deficit this coming year by ending stimulus spending. It also increased the surplus the federal government is projected to record in 2015-16 while holding out hope the budget could be balanced earlier than expected, depending on the results of an across-the-board review of government spending.
A Conservative official had said in a briefing to reporters during the lockup for the media that there is nothing in the budget that the opposition couldn't support.
"There is no poison pill in this budget," the government official said. "We don’t believe an election is what the economy needs, or what Canadians want."
The Conservatives' budget appeal to the NDP – which amounted to nearly $1-billion over two years – included help for low-income seniors via an extra $300-million a year in enhancements to the Guaranteed Income Supplement.
While that amount was less than half of what Mr. Layton had asked for in that area, there was also a $9-million tax incentive to encourage more doctors and nurses to work in rural Canada and $400-million for a one-year extension of the ecoEnergy program to encourage home renovations that reduce electricity and heating costs.
The budget included other potential overtures to the NDP, including added Employment Insurance benefits and an end to oil-sands subsidies. However, it did not act on the party’s full list of demands.
