Gerald Soroka, MP for Yellowhead shares his thoughts on the 2024 Federal Budget

Gerald Soroka, MP for Yellowhead, provided his thoughts on the 2024 Federal Budget presented in the House of Commons by the Liberals on Tuesday, April 16.

“If you like what the Liberals have been doing for the last number of years, running us deeper and deeper into debt, increasing taxes on everything, then you’re very happy with the budget,” says Soroka. “If you’re not happy about that, then like every other Canadian, [you are] very disappointed that they are not doing anything to help with inflation.”

Key highlights from the 2024 budget include:

• $52.9 billion in new spending over the next five years.
• $40 billion deficit this fiscal year, with no plan to balance the budget.
• $54.1 billion is the cost to service the growing national debt – $2 billion more than projected in the fall.
• $1.25 trillion is the new total of Canada’s national debt.

Soroka believes the Liberals are not spending money on the proper priorities in order to get the national debt under control.

“We’re endangering our social programs because of the high deficits we’re running,” says Soroka. “To put it into perspective, the GST they are going to collect this year is around 54 billion dollars. The interest to pay on the deficit alone is about 54 billion dollars. So essentially every dollar that you pay for GST is just going to interest payments, not even to pay down the deficit. And the problem is that’s working this year. Next year, the deficit is even growing higher again so interest is going to be higher on that. So GST won’t even be covering the interest in the future.”

Soroka also noted, “That’s more money than they give to provinces in transfer payments in healthcare now. So instead of improving our quality of healthcare, we are actually giving more money to bankers than we are to physicians, nurses or hospitals”

Soroka also criticized the Liberal’s plans for a Luxury Vehicle Tax on vehicle purchases over $100,000.00 CAD.

“Well if anyone has gone to buy a 3/4 ton pick-up truck with a diesel, you’re paying over $100,000. That’s a standard work truck now for most people. I wouldn’t say that’s a luxury,” explains Soroka. “That’s the reason why when they talk about the wealthy paying, who actually ends up paying is the average Canadian for a lot of these things. Its not the wealthy as they’re talking about.”

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre outlined three commons sense demands to fix the budget:

1. Axe the tax on farmers and food by immediately passing Bill C-234 in its original form.
2. Build the homes, not bureaucracy, by requiring cities to permit 15 per cent more home building each year as a condition for receiving federal infrastructure money.
3. Cap the spending with a dollar-for-dollar rule to bring down interest rates and inflation. The government must find a dollar in savings for every new dollar of spending.

When asked if he saw anything in the Budget that would benefit his constituents, Soroka said if there was, it was overshadowed by cost increases elsewhere.

“There’s always a few things here and there, but the problem is the little bit that might be in the budget that’s going to help is well offset by the added increase in costs such as the carbon tax, such as the inflation that’s happening, and interest rates continuing to be high. So whatever they’ve done hasn’t really done much to improve the quality of life for any resident.”