By Blaine Calkins, MP, Red Deer-Lacombe

OPINION: Federal budget neglects needs of Albertans

Apr 9, 2022 | 11:20 AM

Ottawa, ON — Blaine Calkins, Member of Parliament for Red Deer – Lacombe, issued the following statement on the NDP-Liberal 2022 Budget:

The Trudeau Liberal government has once again neglected the needs of Central Alberta and Albertans.

This is not a responsible budget – this is an NDP budget. It is a budget funded by Canadians suffering from inflation. Canadians need a break and they didn’t get one from the NDP-Liberal budget today.

We were looking for three things: 1) controlled spending to control inflation; 2) tax breaks for Canadians; and 3) substantial action on increasing housing supply. The budget failed Canadians on all of these. This is a budget that is good for government coffers, and bad for Canadians’ bank accounts.

This budget contains no plan to address the inflation crisis, or to make life more affordable for Canadians who are struggling to put food on their table, or fuel in their car. As life gets more expensive, the Liberals simply try to shift blame, and change the topic. The government’s plan to address housing affordability provides no tangible targets or deadlines. They are simply proposing a national bureaucracy imposed on the provinces and municipalities. Not one house will be built or bought this year under these NDP-Liberal programs.

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They have promised to make it more expensive for the oil and gas sector by phasing out the use of flow-through shares for oil and gas exploration and development by 2023, as they attempt to phase out this major economic driver, and all the well paying jobs that go with it.

Agriculture has once again been overlooked. Canada has the opportunity to help feed the world, particularly in light of Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine. The government should be thanking farmers for helping put food on our tables, not layering them with more red tape, and maintaining the status quo.

The NDP-Liberals’ latest budget fails to acknowledge that they have broken the justice system, making it a revolving door for criminals, and putting the needs of offenders ahead of victims and their families. Instead of focusing on cracking down on criminals, the Liberals will continue to go after law-abiding firearms owners.

This NDP-Liberal budget is just an avalanche of unfocused government spending that will only further fuel inflation and leave Canadians with more unsustainable deficits and future generations with more debt to repay.

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