The federal government plans to present its 2014 budget in Parliament Feb. 11 and farm leaders expect little for their sector.
“We really don’t have any big asks this time,” Canadian Federation of Agriculture president Ron Bonnett said Jan. 27. “We would like to see some improvement in some administrative rules around programs and changes in income tax rules to help new entrants but we don’t see any big initiatives.”
When he announced the budget date in the House of Commons Jan. 27 on the first day MPs returned to Parliament Hill after a six-week break, finance minister Jim Flaherty made no extravagant promises.
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“Our Conservative government is focused on what matters to Canadians, that is jobs and economic growth,” he said. “Economic action plan 2014 will continue our focus on keeping Canada’s economy stronger by introducing positive measures to grow our economy, create jobs, keep taxes low and return to balanced budgets in 2015.”
The February budget will be a precursor to next-year’s election that is expected to project a surplus and some spending or tax cuts to lure voters in the October 2015 election.
Budget 2014 is expected to be slim on new initiatives but setting the stage for a more voter-friendly budget next year.
Bonnett said with generally positive farm income this year, it is not a time to make major demands on government.
“I would say comments about how programs are working would be premature but with commodity prices falling, we’ll see how programs like AgriStability perform in future but that for a future budget,” he said. “We have our concerns. We also want to see how the AgriRecovery program works when there are problems like disease that is now appearing in the hog industry.”
