Businesses hold their breath on federal budget promises

By Jennifer Bowman

The deficit reduction plan in the federal budget won’t affect local jobs and services, said Daryl Kramp.

Kramp, MP of Prince Edward Hastings, said Tuesday the budget is exactly what the Conservatives said they would do, and he’s looking forward to be able to act on it.

The frustration of having a minority government where legislation can be blocked or sidestepped by the opposition is now over, said Kramp. With a newly elected majority government, he’s looking forward to getting a lot of things done and delivering results.

When the federal budget was released on Monday, it was announced thousands of jobs would be cut in the public service sector. The cuts are intended to help reduce the deficit that was incurred when the federal government introduced a stimulus package to decrease the impact of the economic downturn.

Public service workers aren’t sure what to expect.

“They haven’t yet identified which programs they are going to be reviewing and cutting,” said John Gordon, national president of Public Service Alliance of Canada, the union for government workers. “It’s at that point in time we’ll get a better sense of what the staff cuts are going to be, which jobs are going to be lost, which programs are going to go and which services to the public are not going to be available.”

Gordon is hoping to meet with Tony Clement, president of the Treasury Board and Minister for the Federal Economic Development Initiative for Northern Ontario, to discuss the details of the programs the government will be reviewing and cutting.

“The way I’m looking at it right now, everything is on the table, until they show me otherwise,” said Gordon.

Kramp said it won’t affect Belleville.

“Any of the federal departments that operate locally, I’m expecting it to be business as usual,” said Kramp.

Those departments include Canada Post, Skills Services, Search and Rescue, Immigration Canada, Canada Revenue, parks, and many other areas. There are 285 government employees in Belleville working in small branches of these government services. Trenton has 279 government workers, including 206 employed by the Department of National Defence at CFB Trenton.

Small business owners are also holding their breath, not for fear of losing their jobs, but to see what funding and tax incentives they’ll benefit from.

“We’re anxiously waiting to see the details,” said Bill Saunders, CEO of the Belleville Chamber of Commerce. “We applaud their efforts to reduce the budget. We expect them to live up to their commitments they made in the election, and we anxiously await the details for job creation, tax incentives, that kind of stuff.”

Kramp is pleased with the initiatives in the budget for businesses.

“For business and entrepreneurship,” said Kramp, “I was really, really pleased to see proposals such as the accelerated capital cost write-off. That’s back is, so whether it’s a company, a small mom and pop operation, or a proctor and gamble or Kellogg’s, they can take advantage of capital investments in their companies, and that means more jobs.

On both sides, the murky budget message is the same – until the details are released it’s not clear what is actually going to happen, and until then, no one knows what to prepare for.