June budget will have slight changes, Flaherty says

Share

The federal budget will be presented in June and will include some changes from the document that was presented to Parliament in late March, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty says.

"There'll be a few changes that will be necessary," Mr. Flaherty told reporters after making a speech at the Bloomberg Canada Economic Summit in Toronto on Tuesday.

"We have to do an economic update because there is more data now. [It's been]a couple of months since the budget was presented. And there are some items that were in the platform that may or may not be in this budget. But they could be incorporated."

No firm date has been set to table the budget. Mr. Flaherty did not specify what changes are being considered, including what items in the Conservative election platform might be excluded from the final document.

Most of their campaign pledges, including the introduction of income splitting for families with children, were contingent on the government eliminating the deficit.

Mr. Flaherty gave assurances on Tuesday there would be no changes to Canada's deficit-reduction track.

During the election campaign, Prime Minister Stephen Harper surprised Canadians by promising to eliminate the deficit and return to a surplus by fiscal 2014-15, a year earlier than forecast in the March budget.

In doing so, the Tories predicted a surplus of $2.8-billion in 2014-15 - a forecast that has generated some doubt.

During the current fiscal year, the Tories estimate the deficit will fall to $29.6-billion. To achieve a surplus by 2014-15, Mr. Harper has vowed to wind up stimulus programs, restrain the growth of program spending and complete a comprehensive review of direct program spending in 2011-12.

Mr. Flaherty reiterated that the goal of the strategic and operating review is to find about 5 per cent savings on $80-billion of direct program spending.

While he offered few hints about the coming budget, he did say the energy-retrofit plan would remain as it appeared in the March 22 document.

Moreover, he suggested Ottawa would have to "make allowance" for the Quebec HST deal in the budget since it was an election campaign commitment.

"We still have to negotiate the agreement with the Province of Quebec, which won't be that easy. We've had protracted negotiations," Mr. Flaherty said.

Both sides want to reach a deal by Sept. 15. "We're going to work toward that and we'll provision an allowance so that we can fund the agreement," Mr. Flaherty added.