INDEPTH: ECONOMIC & FISCAL UPDATE
Update politics: An update by many other names
CBC News Online | November 14, 2005
What exactly did Ralph Goodale deliver on Nov. 14, 2005?
The Liberal government is calling it a fiscal and economic update, which is usually delivered at this time every fall. A finance minister takes a look back at measures he or she had announced in the budget for the ongoing fiscal year, and updates the public on the actual revenue and expense numbers that have been recorded so far. The theory is that based on those numbers, the government can and should make small mid-year corrections in order to carry out its initial intentions.
Others are referring to Finance Minister Ralph Goodale's Nov. 14 update as a mini-budget, similar to the one Paul Martin introduced in October 2000 when he was Jean Chrétien's finance minister. The 2000 mini-budget contained a package of voter-friendly tax-cut accelerations and other spending plans. Chrétien called an election just a few days later, which the Liberals handily won.
Adding to the evidence for calling Goodale's package more than an update, Finance Department officials confirm that it contains $39 billion in new spending and tax cuts over the next five years. Not exactly a "mid-year correction," when you're operating on that kind of scale.
There is usually no parliamentary vote on a fiscal update; a government cannot fall because the opposition parties don't support it. However, any money-based legislation that arises from a substantial package of mid-year changes – implementing tax cuts or new spending initiatives, for example – would have to make its way through the House of Commons in the same manner as a budget vote. That exposes Martin's minority government to defeat, since such money motions are automatically considered no-confidence votes.
Given that the three opposition parties are already vowing to defeat the Liberals if Martin does not agree to dissolve Parliament in early January and launch the country into an election, some are calling Goodale's Nov. 14 statement something else entirely: an election platform.
Under that way of thinking, if the Conservatives, Bloc Québécois and NDP succeed in bringing about an election, the Liberals have the upper hand. They can tell voters that Martin's government tried to introduce measures to save them money and invest in important initiatives such as post-secondary aid, immigrant services and trade supports, but the three opposition parties stood in the way.
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