It's Go Time: Coalition United

It appears the budget is not acceptable. Here is the Budget Plan that the Coalition leaders feel are not rich enough. Here is the budget in brief here

The Next Phase of Canada's Economic Action Plan—A Low-Tax Plan for Jobs and Growth

Supporting Job Creation by helping businesses and entrepreneurs succeed, keeping taxes low, investing in projects of national importance, and maintaining Canada's brand as one of the best places to invest. Budget 2011 advances these priorities by:

• Providing a temporary Hiring Credit for Small Business to encourage additional hiring by this vital sector.
• Extending the work-sharing program and the Targeted Initiative for Older Workers to help Canadians in some of the hardest hit areas stay in the workforce.
• Supporting the manufacturing and processing sector by extending the accelerated capital cost allowance treatment for investments in manufacturing and processing machinery and equipment for two years.
• Renewing the Best 14 Weeks and Working While on Claim EI pilot projects for one year.
• Extending the temporary 15-per-cent Mineral Exploration Tax Credit for an additional year (until March 31, 2012) to continue to help companies raise capital for mineral exploration.
• Providing renewed funding of almost $100 million over two years for research, development and demonstrations of clean energy and energy efficiency.
• Contributing $150 million toward the construction of an all-season road between Inuvik and Tuktoyaktuk that completes the Dempster Highway, connecting Canadians from coast to coast to coast.

Supporting Families and Communities so that all Canadians enjoy a high standard of living and our communities stay vibrant and safe. Budget 2011 invests in these goals by:

• Enhancing the Guaranteed Income Supplement (GIS) for those seniors who rely almost exclusively on their Old Age Security and the GIS and may therefore be at risk of experiencing financial difficulties. This measure will provide a new top-up benefit of up to $600 annually for single seniors and $840 for couples. This measure represents an investment of more than $300 million per year, and will improve the financial security of more than 680,000 seniors across Canada.
• Attracting more health care workers to underserved rural and remote communities by forgiving up to $40,000 of the federal component of Canada Student Loans for new family physicians and up to $20,000 for nurse practitioners and nurses.
• Introducing a Family Caregiver Tax Credit and Children's Arts Tax Credit to support Canadian families.
• Introducing a Volunteer Firefighters Tax Credit for volunteer firefighters who perform at least 200 hours of service in their communities.
• Providing nearly $870 million over two years to address climate change and air quality, including the extension of the ecoENERGY Retrofit – Homes program that will help homeowners make their homes more energy efficient and reduce the burden of high energy costs.

Investing in Innovation, Education and Training to promote research in leading-edge technologies and to provide Canadians with the opportunity and incentives to acquire the skills needed for jobs in today's labour market. Budget 2011 makes important progress on these priorities by:

• Providing $80 million in new funding over three years through the Industrial Research Assistance Program to help small and medium-sized businesses accelerate their adoption of key information and communications technologies through collaborative projects with colleges.
• Establishing 10 new Canada Excellence Research Chairs. Some of these new chairs will be active in fields relevant to Canada's Digital Economy Strategy.
• Increasing the budgets of all three federal granting councils by $47 million annually, including support for indirect costs.
• Improving commercialization and supporting demonstration of new technologies in the marketplace by supporting research links between colleges, universities and businesses.
• Enhancing and expanding eligibility for the Canada Student Loan and Grant Program for part-time and full-time post-secondary students.
• Helping apprentices in the skilled trades and workers in regulated professions by making occupational, trade and professional examination fees eligible for the Tuition Tax Credit.

Source here

Preserving Canada's Fiscal Advantage in order to be able to invest in the priorities of Canadians, to keep Canada's economy growing strongly, and to maintain low interest rates. Budget 2011 advances these objectives by:

• Reaffirming the Government's plan to return to balanced budgets without raising taxes, cutting transfers to persons, including those for seniors, children and the unemployed, or cutting transfers to other levels of government that support health care and social services, Equalization, and the gas tax transfer to municipalities.
• Identifying savings that reach over $500 million annually from the 2010 round of strategic reviews. Together with measures to restrain the growth of National Defence spending, the first cycle of strategic reviews has resulted in $11 billion in savings over seven years and more than $2.8 billion in ongoing savings.
• Protecting the integrity and fairness of the Canadian tax system by closing tax loopholes.

The coalition will suggest their plan provide a better roadmap. Will they run on one platform and provide a full costed coalition agenda or will they wait until the Throne Speech if the Conservatives fail to secure a majority?

Related articles

• Small businesses offered a break on taxes (thestar.com)
• Modest budget aims at stability: Flaherty (cbc.ca)
• Tories offer cautious budget - but opposition parties say no (calgaryherald.com)