Budget surplus is the result of Conservatives’ cuts

The NDP will fight the ill-advised approach of the conservatives who chose to gut the fiscal capacity of the government to help people and to create and maintain good jobs in Canada.

“We’re now in an election year so, nothing that Mr. Oliver said today is actually going to have to be measured against the real world. He can put up a lot of figures, almost all of which are within the margin of manoeuvre of his $3 billion contingency funds,” said Tom Mulcair.

The return to surplus reinforces the serious choices we’re facing. The NDP believes we should be investing in people and job creation, not tax cuts for the wealthiest. Tom Mulcair has concrete proposals like the Affordable Childcare Plan, better retirement security and pension protection and a plan to reinstate the federal minimum wage.

“The Conservatives like to tell us that there's going to be a surplus, but let's look at how we've gotten there. The sums of the cuts and the sectors where they restricted the government's capacity and then we see that the reference to a surplus is more because it's based on cuts, cuts to veterans affairs, cuts to the inspection of food and real inspections. These are things that the government has gotten out,” added Tom Mulcair.