WEB EXCLUSIVE: Not surprisingly, Conservative Member of Parliament John Weston had glowing things to say about the budget tabled by Finance Minister Jim Flaherty in the House of Commons recently.
But his favourite thing about the document that came down on June 6 in Ottawa was the fact that, according to Weston, some provisions came about specifically in response to concerns expressed by those who live in the West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast-Sea to Sky Country riding.
As an example, he said, several months ago, firefighters in Whistler had told Weston that they’d like to see those who volunteer to help their communities as firefighters rewarded with some sort of financial incentive. Included in Flaherty’s budget—which is virtually the same document as the one tabled in March, but not adopted because of the March 25 election call—is a $450 tax credit for those who put in at least 200 hours as volunteer firefighters.
“What I love about participating in this government is that we’ve achieved many things that we’ve put forward as priorities in this riding,” Weston said. “Whistler firefighters came to me [several months ago] about that…it was a specific request and I passed it on, and I’m delighted to see it in there.”
Weston also touted a measure to ensconce in legislation a guarantee that at least $2 billion in federal gas-tax money will go from federal government to municipal governments for infrastructure each year. Until now, that funding was subject to the whim of the government of the day.
The move will give municipal governments greater certainty at budget time, Weston said.
“That is now going to be made more certain than it ever was before, and I know that [Sechelt mayor] Darren Inkster, [Gibsons mayor] Barry Janyk, [Squamish mayor] Greg Gardner and [Whistler mayor] Ken Melamed are all going to be very happy about those changes because it’s something that they asked for,” he said.
Weston said the budgetary focus is the same as it was before the election: continued economic recovery and job creation. “There’s a continuing emphasis on keeping taxes low,” he said.
During the May 2 federal election, “I’d say Canadians are rarely presented with as clear a choice as they were with this budget and what they said during the election was that economic recovery and job creation are the number one priority,” Weston said.
But not all agree that those are the only important ones. In a statement, Green Party officials trotted out concerns raised by outgoing Auditor General Sheila Fraser on May 25. Fraser pointed out that the plight of First Nations, the threat posed by crumbling infrastructure and the impacts posed by a rapidly changing climate as areas in which the federal government has consistently fallen short in recent years. She said long-term planning was needed to address them.
The Greens, though, charged that Flaherty’s budget “has no long-term vision” to address challenges in those areas.
“None of these threats are properly addressed in the budget, although some token measures are included in each category,” the party stated.
Weston said the Greens’ comments “may reflect the inexperience of whomever made those comments.” He said the gas-tax measure is part of the effort to address crumbling infrastructure, and that the ministers John Duncan (Aboriginal Affairs) and Peter Kent (Environment) are taking specific steps to address those issues, though off-hand, he could cite no specific budget items that directly address them.
Weston said Kent is taking “practical steps” to address greenhouse gas emissions by seeking sector-by-sector reductions, an approach that’s preferable to the one taken previously under the Liberals, “who made Kyoto commitments that they couldn’t keep.”
