Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland is to table her mid-year budget update in the House of Commons today focused heavily on driving investment to Canada’s clean energy industries in response to new American tax incentives signed into law last summer.
The government is already further ahead financially than expected as inflation and a stronger economic recovery drove up tax revenues.
But after years of expensive COVID-19 relief packages, Freeland is retreating to what the government believes is a fiscal position warranted by the need to reduce deficits and prepare for the likelihood of an economic recession in 2023.
“Obviously, I’m not going to scoop the minister of finance, but it is a fall economic statement that will ensure fiscal responsibility,” said Rachel Bendayan, a Liberal MP from Montreal and the parliamentary secretary to the associate minister of finance.
Freeland isn’t expected to do more to help Canadians weather the cost-of-living crisis. In September she offered up $4.5 billion to temporarily double GST rebates, create a dental care benefit for most kids under the age of 12, and offer a one-time top-up of $500 to a national low-income renters’ allowance.
That GST aid will start being felt Friday as the deposits begin to land in the bank accounts of 11 million low and moderate-income families. The legislation to create the dental benefit and housing allowance top-up is still before the Senate.
The government has signalled the mini-budget will be quite mini, focused on targeted investments rather than grand-scale new programs.
It will include a new tax on corporate stock buybacks to encourage companies to invest in their own operations and introduce new or enhanced tax incentives to aid the growth of clean energy including hydrogen.
Both are part of the Inflation Reduction Act President Joe Biden negotiated and signed into law in August. Industry players have repeatedly warned the government that Canada needs to match the U.S. or investment will flee south and put Canadians out of work.
The act includes nearly US$400 billion in tax incentives, grants and loan guarantees for clean energy sectors including electricity production, electric cars and battery manufacturing.
It also includes a one per cent tax on corporate stock buybacks, something Freeland is expected to mirror in today’s update. That falls well short of the windfall tax the NDP want Ottawa to impose on corporations they say are getting wealthy at the expense of Canadian families.
Matt Poirier, senior director of policy and government relations for Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters, told a House of Commons committee Tuesday the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act comes with red flashing warning lights all over it for Canada’s manufacturing sector.
Poirier said Canada’s response in the fall economic statement needs to include matching programs on this side of the border, or “at least signal to industry that the fix is on the way.”
Innovation Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne said Wednesday the government is on top of it.
“We will remain competitive,” Champagne told reporters following the Liberal caucus meeting. “We know that the Inflation Reduction Act in the United States and the CHIPS act is a catalyst for us to do more.”
The CHIPS act, also signed into law in August, provides US$280 billion to spur domestic research and manufacturing of semiconductors.
The Liberals have faced criticism for pandemic spending going on longer than necessary and potentially fuelling inflation. At the same time, Canada’s strong economic bounce back from the COVID-19 recession has been attributed in part to the fiscal response.
The Conservatives have led the charge against the Liberals for spending too much but the Liberal caucus is also showing signs of concern.
Thunder Bay — Rainy River MP Marcus Powlowski said it’s not so much about “reining in” spending because that presupposes that the funds Ottawa offered up to help people get through COVID-19 was out of control, “which I don’t think is the case.”
Still, Powlowski said it’s a different time now with interest rates higher and debt costs going up.
“There’s more of an opportunity to be frugal now,” he said.
Former parliamentary budget officer Kevin Page said he expects the fall economic statement to be a traditional mid-year update but could also be an opportunity for Ottawa to review its targets and rules for spending.
“It is important for monetary and fiscal policy to be working in a coherent manner,” Page said in an email.
Freeland has said on multiple occasions that the federal government will be focused on fiscal restraint as the Bank of Canada works on bringing inflation down with interest rate hikes.
Since March, it has raised its key interest rate six consecutive times, bringing it from 0.25 per cent to 3.75 per cent. The central bank has also signalled interest rates will have to go higher to bring inflation to its two per cent target.
The good news for the federal government is that its finances have been improving substantially over the last year. The same inflation that forced Canadians to pay more for groceries, gas and home heating costs helped drive up government tax revenues.
Federal coffers have also profited from Canada’s strong economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic and high corporate profits.
PARIS (AP) — French judicial authorities are investigating the disappearance of two Paralympic athletes from Congo who recently competed in the Paris Games, the prosecutor’s office in the Paris suburb of Bobigny confirmed on Thursday.
Prosecutors opened the investigation on Sept. 7, after members of the athletes’ delegation warned authorities of their disappearance two days before.
Le Parisien newspaper reported that shot putter Mireille Nganga and Emmanuel Grace Mouambako, a visually impaired sprinter who was accompanied by a guide, went missing on Sept. 5, along with a third person.
The athletes’ suitcases were also gone but their passports remained with the Congolese delegation, according to an official with knowledge of the investigation, who asked to remain anonymous as they were not allowed to speak publicly about the case.
The Paralympic Committee of the Democratic Republic of Congo did not respond to requests for information from The Associated Press.
Nganga — who recorded no mark in the seated javelin and shot put competitions — and Mouambako were Congo’s flag bearers at the opening ceremony of the Paralympic Games, organizers said.
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — A linebacker at Division II West Virginia State was fatally shot during what the university said Thursday is being investigated by police as a home invasion.
The body of Jyilek Zyiare Harrington, 21, of Charlotte, North Carolina, was found inside an apartment Wednesday night in Charleston, police Lt. Tony Hazelett said in a statement.
Hazelett said several gunshots were fired during a disturbance in a hallway and inside the apartment. The statement said Harrington had multiple gunshot wounds and was pronounced dead at the scene. Police said they had no information on a possible suspect.
West Virginia State said counselors were available to students and faculty on campus.
“Our thoughts and prayers are with Jyilek’s family as they mourn the loss of this incredible young man,” West Virginia State President Ericke S. Cage said in a letter to students and faculty.
Harrington, a senior, had eight total tackles, including a sack, in a 27-24 win at Barton College last week.
“Jyilek truly embodied what it means to be a student-athlete and was a leader not only on campus but in the community,” West Virginia State Vice President of Intercollegiate Athletics Nate Burton said. “Jyilek was a young man that, during Christmas, would create a GoFundMe to help less fortunate families.”
Burton said donations to a fund established by the athletic department in Harrington’s memory will be distributed to an organization in Charlotte to continue his charity work.
West Virginia State’s home opener against Carson-Newman, originally scheduled for Thursday night, has been rescheduled to Friday, and a private vigil involving both teams was set for Thursday night. Harrington previously attended Carson-Newman, where he made seven tackles in six games last season. He began his college career at Division II Erskine College.
“Carson-Newman joins West Virginia State in mourning the untimely passing of former student-athlete Jyilek Harrington,” Carson-Newman Vice President of Athletics Matt Pope said in a statement. “The Harrington family and the Yellow Jackets’ campus community is in our prayers. News like this is sad to hear anytime, but today it feels worse with two teams who knew him coming together to play.”
DETROIT (AP) — Joe Schmidt, the Hall of Fame linebacker who helped the Detroit Lions win NFL championships in 1953 and 1957 and later coached the team, has died. He was 92.
The Lions said family informed the team Schmidt died Wednesday. A cause of death was not provided.
One of pro football’s first great middle linebackers, Schmidt played his entire NFL career with the Lions from 1953-65. An eight-time All-Pro, he was enshrined into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1973 and the college football version in 2000.
“Joe likes to say that at one point in his career, he was 6-3, but he had tackled so many fullbacks that it drove his neck into his shoulders and now he is 6-foot,” said the late Lions owner William Clay Ford, Schmidt’s presenter at his Hall of Fame induction in 1973. “At any rate, he was listed at 6-feet and as I say was marginal for that position. There are, however, qualities that certainly scouts or anybody who is drafting a ballplayer cannot measure.”
Born in Pittsburgh, Schmidt played college football in his hometown at Pitt, beginning his stint there as a fullback and guard before coach Len Casanova switched him to linebacker.
“Pitt provided me with the opportunity to do what I’ve wanted to do, and further myself through my athletic abilities,” Schmidt said. “Everything I have stemmed from that opportunity.”
Schmidt dealt with injuries throughout his college career and was drafted by the Lions in the seventh round in 1953. As defenses evolved in that era, Schmidt’s speed, savvy and tackling ability made him a valuable part of some of the franchise’s greatest teams.
Schmidt was elected to the Pro Bowl 10 straight years from 1955-64, and after his arrival, the Lions won the last two of their three NFL titles in the 1950s.
In a 1957 playoff game at San Francisco, the Lions trailed 27-7 in the third quarter before rallying to win 31-27. That was the NFL’s largest comeback in postseason history until Buffalo rallied from a 32-point deficit to beat Houston in 1993.
“We just decided to go after them, blitz them almost every down,” Schmidt recalled. “We had nothing to lose. When you’re up against it, you let both barrels fly.”
Schmidt became an assistant coach after wrapping up his career as a player. He was Detroit’s head coach from 1967-72, going 43-35-7.
Schmidt was part of the NFL’s All-Time Team revealed in 2019 to celebrate the league’s centennial season. Of course, he’d gone into the Hall of Fame 46 years earlier.
Not bad for an undersized seventh-round draft pick.
“It was a dream of mine to play football,” Schmidt told the Detroit Free Press in 2017. “I had so many people tell me that I was too small. That I couldn’t play. I had so many negative people say negative things about me … that it makes you feel good inside. I said, ‘OK, I’ll prove it to you.’”
