This detail could be glossed over in their first budget, put together in a hurry and focused on the new government’s priorities. But the absence of concrete Liberal spending commitments is getting harder to ignore as the 2017-18 budget cycle gets underway. Indeed, the projections in Finance Minister Bill Morneau’s budget look a lot like Jim Flaherty’s 2009 stimulus budget. The reason is simple: Justin Trudeau’s Liberals have already chosen to live with the long-term revenue decisions made by Stephen Harper’s Conservatives. In accepting their revenue choices, the Liberals have confined themselves to making the same sort of spending choices as the Conservatives.

Source: National Post October 03, 2016 19:07 UTC