Federal deficit grows as Liberals spend on pharmacare, job retraining
Posted March 19, 2019 1:11 pm.
Last Updated March 19, 2019 1:24 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
The federal Liberal government is spending billions of dollars on everything from pharmacare to helping workers learn new job skills to easing the burden on first-time home buyers in its final budget before voters go to the polls in October.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government, which is bringing in more money than forecast, is spending all that and then some, projecting a $19.8-billion deficit for the 2019-20 fiscal year.
That’s $200 million more borrowing than anticipated in a year that was supposed to see the federal books deliver a surplus, according to the Liberal election platform from the 2015 campaign.
Finance Minister Bill Morneau says the government needs to deal with what he calls growing concern around the world that good jobs won’t last, children will be worse off than their parents and that living longer will mean a crushing financial burden.
So it’s sprinkling billions of dollars across a variety of programs meant to help people at every stage of their lives.
The budget’s single biggest-ticket item, however, is nearly $4 billion in aid for dairy and poultry farmers impacted by new free-trade deals.
National Pharmacare
The Trudeau Liberals say they are moving toward national pharmacare by creating a new national drug agency to lower medication costs.
The federal government says the new agency will help negotiate better drug prices and drive down the cost of medication for Canadians by up to $3 billion in the long term.
The plan, contained in the federal budget, also involves creating a central list of drugs considered cost-effective and a strategy to lower the price of high-cost drugs used to treat rare diseases.
The federal government says prescription-drug spending in Canada has spiked over the past 30 years _ up from $2.6 billion in 1985 to
$33.7 billion in 2018.
The Liberals say the measures in today’s fiscal blueprint will help build a system to ensure Canadians get prescription drugs they need.
The plan comes after a federally struck expert panel issued a report laying out what it called the “building blocks” of pharmacare, including the recommendation that Ottawa oversee an agency to roll out a national drug plan.
MORE TO COME
