Conservative Red Deer-Lacombe MP Blaine Calkins is slamming the Liberal government’s economic and fiscal update.
Calkins believes the Liberals have no plan to address the cost-of-living crisis. Instead, the government is doubling down on its “high-tax, high-deficit agenda, which will cripple our economy and lead to a higher cost of living,” he added.
Calkins particularly objects to Liberal under-projections for inflation. In the government’s budget it was forecast to be was 3.5 per cent, “but today’s update now forecasts it at 7.6 per cent…
“It is clear the government doesn’t understand how to deal with this extremely serious problem or understand the fear and hopelessness this is causing in Canadians from coast to coast.”
Calkins also feels the energy sector was forgotten in the update, despite the Liberal government’s acknowledgment that commodity prices are due to rise in the coming years.
Liberal plan to tax and spend more, is like “pouring inflationary gas on the fire,” he added.
According to Canada’s Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland, the federal government has an economic response plan with “unprecedented measures to meet the unprecedented challenge of the pandemic.”
Canada has exceeded its goal of creating a million jobs, has the second-fastest jobs recovery in the G7; and has recouped 106 per cent of the jobs lost at the depths of the pandemic, said Freeland. This compares to only 83 per cent in the United States.
Freeland also added that Canada’s Gross Domestic Product is expected to return to pre-pandemic levels by the first quarter of 2022.