Prime Minister Mark Carney’s first federal budget takes a big swing at making Canada’s economy a more attractive place to invest with billions of dollars for infrastructure and new tax opportunities for business.Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne tabled the long-anticipated budget in the House of Commons on Nov. 4. He said it’s time for “bold and swift action” to build Canada’s economy for an uncertain future.“There is no place for withdrawal, ambiguity or even standing still,” Champagne said in French in his budget speech.Opposition parties largely panned the federal budget in early reactions on Nov. 4, creating a political challenge for Carney’s minority Liberals.The political calculus to pass the budget shifted on Nov. 4, when Nova Scotia MP Chris d’Entremont resigned from the Conservative caucus, after telling Politico he was considering joining the Liberals.Carney needs just a handful of extra votes, or abstentions, to get the budget through a confidence vote.The 406-page budget — the title of which repurposes Carney’s election slogan “Canada Strong” — includes almost $90 billion in net new spending items over five years. Most of the spending is aimed at bolstering Canada’s economy and securing its sovereignty in response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s protectionist policies.TD Bank senior economist Francis Fong said Budget 2025 marks a departure from Liberal spending plans of the past, which typically would offer an array of smaller spending measures spread across various industries and demographics.“It should be very clear to Canadians that Prime Minister Carney is really just focusing on competitiveness and trade. And I think that’s a very positive thing,” Fong said.The budget’s new spending is aimed squarely at boosting productivity and funding cross-country infrastructure projects that would help businesses reach new markets and reduce their reliance on the United States.That includes $5 billion over seven years for a national trade diversification corridor and $1 billion over four years for Arctic infrastructure.Budget 2025 also adopts a measure not yet in legislation from the Liberals’ fall economic statement last year — to allow businesses to write off the full tax costs of some machinery and technology upfront, freeing up cash flow.That measure — one of a series of moves designed to attract business investment to Canada — pushes back against Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, a landmark piece of U.S. legislation attempting to lure more businesses to relocate south of the border.Champagne told reporters at a press conference before the public release of the budget on Nov. 4 that Canada is the “most competitive jurisdiction” in the G7 for investment, based on the country’s low marginal effective tax rate — how much tax is applied per dollar of business investment.What remains to be seen, Fong said, is whether those businesses will bring their money to Canada, and whether domestic firms can take advantage of new national infrastructure to reach global markets like Europe and Asia.Fong said Carney is “swinging for the fences” with this budget, but the plan itself lacks details on tax and regulatory reform.“The real question is, if we build it, will they come? And there wasn’t a lot of detail in this budget in terms of how are we actually going to incentivize the firms to make those investments to take action and diversify trade,” he said.Most major spending items in this budget — billions for defence and a one-percentage-point income tax cut delivered in July — were already telegraphed ahead of time, leaving few surprises in the document itself, Fong noted.The minority Liberal government will need to secure support from outside its caucus in order to pass the budget, which automatically becomes a confidence vote in the House of Commons.Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said following Champagne’s speech in the House that his party wanted to see an “affordable budget” that capped the deficit at $42 billion. He said Conservatives will not support Budget 2025, which he said would drive up costs for Canadians.Poilievre said he would put forward an amendment to cut the bureaucracy and kill measures maintained in the budget, such as the industrial carbon price. (ICE TORONTO)

Fonte notizia: https://www.canadianmanufacturing.com/