Major institutional investors are asking the federal government to give them a reason to invest more at home in the upcoming fall budget, say the Liberal MPs leading budget consultations across Canada.
The federal Liberals are in the midst of consultations on the upcoming 2025 budget. While federal budgets typically are tabled in the spring, this one is set to land during the fall session of Parliament.
The budget — which doesn't yet have an exact release date — will be the Liberals' first under Prime Minister Mark Carney and the first tabled by Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne, who was appointed to that cabinet position in May.
The minister and some Liberal MPs are touring Canada to solicit feedback as part of the federal government’s typical pre-budget process.
"From our standpoint, it's our first budget. We want to get the big things right," said Wayne Long, MP for Saint John—Kennebecasis and secretary of state for the Canada Revenue Agency and financial institutions.
The Liberals are hosting roundtables with CEOs from various Canadian industries, heads of chambers of commerce, union leaders and First Nations groups to feed their concerns into the fall budget process.
Long has criss-crossed the country since mid-July — part of a plan to visit 45 cities and every province and territory over a two-month span.
Long said the fiscal update will be "defence-centric" and "housing-centric" — reflecting commitments from the early days of the current government — and will expand on themes laid out in the Building Canada Act passed in June.
That legislation, which came with a push for major infrastructure projects, arrived against the backdrop of Canada's trade war with the United States and calls to build up the domestic economy and global trade routes to diminish reliance on the U.S.
Long said that in meetings with representatives from Canada's Big Six banks and the Maple Eight large Canadian pension funds, he's heard a desire to invest more at home.
He said those large institutional backers want the upcoming budget to help build the long-term confidence they need in order to put their money behind years-long infrastructure projects.
"I almost sense the frustration that they're like, 'Look, we want to invest more in Canadian industry, in nation-building projects and energy projects, but regulatory-wise, it hasn't been effective for us to do so,'" Long said.
Putting new rules in place and issuing other signals that show where the federal government wants to focus its efforts could be cost-effective ways to spur investment, Long argued.
"These are tweaks and changes we can make that I think can result in billions of dollars being reinvested back in the country," he said.
Also meeting with industry stakeholders across Canada is Whitby MP Ryan Turnbull, parliamentary secretary to Long and Champagne.
He said that in the course of those conversations, he's hearing that stakeholders want to be part of the solution to Canada's trade woes and economic uncertainty.
"We're looking to provide certainty through this budget process," Turnbull said.
He said stakeholders from the energy storage and nuclear industries are looking for Ottawa to commit to expanding investment tax credits for their sectors in the coming years.
Such signals from government can convince a business that it's worth investing in themselves, or attempting to lure outside capital, in order to build in Canada, Turnbull said.
He said he's also hearing concerns about the state of transportation infrastructure, particularly around Canada's ports.
Businesses that want to diversify into global markets need to feel confident that the federal government is going to keep critical infrastructure running at key ports like Vancouver, Turnbull said.
"If (Canada) has bottlenecks and congestion within its transportation system and can't get products to market at the scale and scope that we're going to need to in order to respond to the challenges we face in dealing with the United States, we're going to have to address that port infrastructure," he said.
Carney's mantra throughout the spring election campaign and in the early days of his leadership has been to "spend less" and "invest more."
The "spend less" side of the equation comes from his pledge to balance the operating side of Ottawa's budget in three years. Ministers have been asked to come up with savings of 15 per cent in their day-to-day spending by the end of that period.
The Public Service Alliance of Canada has warned of possible job cuts through the spending reductions and has said Ottawa ought to work with unions, not around them, to achieve its savings goals.
Turnbull said he's met with public sector unions as part of the consultation and acknowledged that there's "fear and uncertainty" among bureaucrats.
"And yet I think they also recognize that there are opportunities for improvement and efficiency and to serve the public even better," he said.
"We don't want to compromise on quality. But I do think it's a very healthy exercise for the federal government to say, where is there duplication? Where is there redundancy? Where can we get better results for Canadians?"
While it's Long's first budget at the federal level, he said he does have some experience with budgeting in general.
Not in Parliament, mind you — in a Canadian junior hockey league.
"I've never been involved in a budget for a process of this magnitude. But in previous lives, for me, when I was president of the Saint John Sea Dogs, we would go through a budgeting process also," he said.
"And a lot of the decisions we made in that budget we recognize fully would set the tone for the future. So this is the opportunity we have with this budget."
Picture Courtesy: THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick
