Carney's budget needs 2 more votes. Here's the local funding that could get it passed
CBC
Prime Minister Mark Carney insists the federal budget was crafted to contain a number of measures championed by MPs from other parties, and that those olive branches will become apparent in the coming days.
With one MP already crossing the floor to join the Liberals, Carney now needs only two more votes, or abstentions, to pass his budget.
The unanswered question is whether any of those measures will convince enough opposition MPs that letting the budget pass is in their interests.
“There were differing degrees of input which we received from the various opposition parties,” Carney said in Ottawa, the day after Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne tabled his first budget.
“I know, in fact, that there’s a lot in this budget that reflects the input from those parties from specific projects to certain programs and reinvestment in them,” he said. “So those parties are aware, and part of this is a process of digesting the budget.”
While that digestion takes place, at least one Bloc MP, four Conservatives and as many as three NDP members now face the prospect of getting funding for projects in their ridings if the budget passes.
Bloc Québécois MP Alexis Deschênes will have to consider if the budget’s support for the Exploramer Shark Pavilion in Sainte-Anne-des-Monts, Que., and the Chantier Naval Forillon shipyard in Gaspé are worth his vote, or at least his abstention.
The budget also promises funding for the Filipino Community and Cultural Centre in the Vancouver area. While a specific location has yet to be chosen, NDP interim Leader Don Davies's riding boasts a large Filipino population that would surely welcome the project.
Vancouver-Kingsway was the federal riding where the Lapu-Lapu Day Filipino festival turned tragic when 11 people were killed in a car-ramming attack. Davies's riding might not get the centre, but with such a large community in his electoral district, he’ll have to consider whether he really wants to vote it down.
Similarly, the lone NDP MP in Alberta, Heather McPherson, must consider whether support for the Rapid Fire Theatre in her riding of Edmonton-Strathcona will tempt her to either abstain or vote for the budget.
NDP MP Gord Johns, who represents the B.C. riding of Courtenay-Albernihas, been a vocal supporter of implementing a clean technology tax credit for the use of biomass to create energy. The budget pledged to make that happen.
He’s also advocated for the federal government to establish an aerial firefighting fleet. The budget pledges to lease four aircraft at a cost of $257.6 million to “bolster provincial and territorial aerial firefighting capacity.”
Then there are the four Conservative MPs who might be looking closely at budget measures that hit close to home. They include:
More generally, opposition MPs have to consider if the overall moves in the budget merit its survival.
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