{"id":56895,"date":"2015-07-25T13:43:37","date_gmt":"2015-07-25T05:43:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=56895"},"modified":"2015-07-25T13:43:37","modified_gmt":"2015-07-25T05:43:37","slug":"federal-government-well-ahead-on-path-to-surplus-harper-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2015\/07\/25\/federal-government-well-ahead-on-path-to-surplus-harper-says\/","title":{"rendered":"Federal government ‘well ahead’ on path to surplus, Harper says"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Prime<\/a>
Prime Minister Stephen Harper (Photo: PM.GC.CA)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

OTTAWA — The federal government is “well ahead” of its own projections for a balanced budget this year, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Friday, two days after the federal budget watchdog warned a slower-than-expected economy will keep Ottawa in the red until at least 2016.<\/p>\n

And while Finance Minister Joe Oliver didn’t respond to a call from the Liberals to prove his projections for a small surplus are intact, Harper insisted his government’s balanced budget pledge isn’t merely an election-year fairy tale.<\/p>\n

“I think it’s more than speculating,” Harper told a news conference in Regina.<\/p>\n

“We are well ahead of track, we’ve run a significant surplus — $4 billion in the first two month of this fiscal year,” he said.<\/p>\n

“Our budgeting is very conservative and we are well on track to realize a balanced budget this year.”<\/p>\n

Liberal finance critic Scott Brison has called on the government to back up that claim by making public the Finance department’s latest budgetary projections in front of a parliamentary committee.<\/p>\n

While Oliver responded to the request Friday, he didn’t say whether he’ll provide a fiscal update before the expected Oct. 19 election — or at all.<\/p>\n

In a letter to Brison, laden with Conservative party talking points, Oliver noted the federal treasury reported a $3.9 billion surplus in April and May of this year.<\/p>\n

He also repeated his months-old mantra — that the government remains on track for a balanced budget this year.<\/p>\n

The Parliamentary Budget Officer warned on Wednesday that Ottawa could see a budget deficit of $1 billion in the current fiscal year, based on a downgraded Bank of Canada economic forecast.<\/p>\n

The Conservatives tabled a budget in April that predicted a $1.4-billion surplus this year, but the budget officer’s calculation raised doubts about the projection.<\/p>\n

And without updated numbers, the opposition parties are shying away from making their own pledges to balance the books in 2015.<\/p>\n

Brison has said he can’t say with certainty that the Liberal party, if elected to govern, will produce a balanced budget this year without updated numbers from Finance.<\/p>\n

“Then, and only then, are we able to predict with certainty what we’re capable of doing in terms of balancing,” Brison said in an interview Thursday.<\/p>\n

The New Democrats had said they would deliver a small surplus in 2015-16 under their policy platform.<\/p>\n

But NDP Leader Tom Mulcair appeared to step away from that pledge Friday, saying in a television interview his party will have to make “tough choices,” and will balance the federal books over time.<\/p>\n

“Over the life of our promises… We’ll be able to balance the budget,” Mulcair told the CBC, giving the example of his party’s child-care plan, which he said the NDP would roll out over eight years.<\/p>\n

Oliver cast doubts on the policies of both opposition parties, repeating in his letter a link the Conservatives have been trying to make between the opposition fiscal platforms and the economic crisis that has recently plagued parts of Europe.<\/p>\n

“The situation in Greece is another reminder that we remain in a fragile global economy,” said Oliver.<\/p>\n

“Both the Liberals and NDP would have had Canada join the list of countries now owed billions by Greece.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

OTTAWA — The federal government is “well ahead” of its own projections for a balanced budget this year, Prime Minister …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":56891,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1482,18,483],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-56895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking","category-news-ca","category-politics","mauthors-the-canadian-press1"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56895"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56895\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}