OTTAWA, May 25, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Canada’s Conservative leader and Prime
Minister Justin Trudeau’s main rival in upcoming elections pledged Friday to
balance the government’s budget within five years, backtracking on a previous
target.
An average of several recent polls give the Tories a six percentage point
lead over the Liberals ahead of the October ballot.
Andrew Scheer previously vowed that balancing the budget could be done
within two years, but now claims “Trudeau has made an even bigger mess of the
budget than I thought possible.
“And he has made the job of cleaning it up that much more difficult,” he
said in a speech to the Canadian Club in Vancouver.
Canada’s economy surged after the Liberals took office in 2015 and
unleashed a massive stimulus. But growth is forecast to slow this year.
Finance Minister Bill Morneau in his March budget pointed to 900,000 new
jobs created since 2015 and the lowest unemployment rate in 40 years.
The government’s fiscal deficit, however, is projected to balloon to
Can$19.8 billion (US$14.7 billion) — after Trudeau abandoned his 2015 pledge
to run a few small deficits and return to balance this year.
Still, Canada’s debt-to-GDP ratio is lower than its G7 counterparts and is
expected to fall over the coming years from the current 30.7 percent.
Scheer said “even the most optimistic projections don’t have the Liberals
balancing the budget for 20 more years.”
“But if Canadians elect a Conservative government this fall, we will
balance the budget in about a quarter of that time,” he said.