Government to issue fall economic statement on Monday, less than week before official arrival of winter
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OTTAWA — With the Trudeau Liberals set to deliver their long-awaited fall economic statement on Monday, they weren’t about to give the opposition a peek under the Christmas tree.
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During question period on Tuesday, deputy Opposition leader Melissa Lantsman accused the prime minister of not only losing control of the country’s spending, but also his finance minister.
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“We have a finance minister who won’t tell us what the deficit is, and a prime minister who doesn’t think about monetary policy and that seems like a match made in heaven — but then again, maybe not,” she said, citing a The Globe and Mail article describing “tensions” between the country’s top two ministers and a dynamic similar to when Bill Morneau held the role before his resignation in 2020.
“The prime minister bullies females and he bullies finance ministers — and now he’s bullying a female finance minister. How much longer is she going to put up with that?”
Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland attempted to insist the party was indeed united, but was drowned out by raucous laughter from the opposition benches.
“Mr. Speaker, the only would-be bullies in this House are directly opposite, but I’m very comfortable standing up to them,” she said.
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“I look forward, together with my colleagues, to tabling the fall economic statement on Monday in this House.”
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In a news conference earlier on Tuesday, Freeland declined to answer if the fall economic statement would meet her deficit targets, but insisted the statement will show a declining debt-to-GDP ratio.
Lantsman then challenged Freeland over the numbers expected in that report, asking her to reveal how big the deficit will be.
“It’s the finance minister who said over and over again that she would not go over her self-imposed guardrail of a $40-billion deficit, now the parliamentary budget officer says that’s yet another broken Liberal promise,” she said.
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“I can give her another opportunity to prove she can communicate — she can stand up here and tell us what the deficit is at the moment.”
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Freeland, however, didn’t take the bait, repeating her previous statements that she looks forward to presenting the fall economic statement on Monday, saying the numbers will show the government is maintaining its fiscal anchor.
“I expect the debt-to-GDP ratio we projected in the spring budget … will be met,” she said.
Next up was Conservative MP Dominique Vien, who again urged the government to reveal Canada’s deficit, again hinting that there are tensions between Freeland and Trudeau over the PM’s refusal to abandon inflationary spending.
“Can (the PM) do any good and at least tell us how much the deficit exceeds the announced $40 billion?” she asked in French, to which Freeland again repeated that the fall economic statement was dropping on Monday.
A string of Tory MPs followed Vien to grill the government over the deficit, including Jasraj Singh Hallan, Luc Berthold, Michael Chong, Michelle Ferreri, Lianne Rood, Pierre Paul-Hus, Rick Perkins and Marty Morantz.
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