Presented | 26 April 1993 |
---|---|
Parliament | 34th |
Party | Progressive Conservative |
Finance minister | Don Mazankowski |
Deficit | $38.5 billion[1] |
‹ 1992 1994 › |
The 1993 Canadian budget was a Canadian federal budget for the Government of Canada presented by Minister of Finance Don Mazankowski in the House of Commons of Canada on 26 April 1993. It was the fifth budget after the 1988 Canadian federal election and would be the last before the 1993 Canadian federal election.
The budget was presented amid poor economic conditions and soaring federal deficit. Two month earlier, Brian Mulroney had announced his intention to resign as soon as a new Progressive Conservative leader is elected.
On 18 June 1992 the Spending Control Act received royal assent. That act provided for a legislated ceiling for federal program spending from 1991–1992 to 1995–1996. Few programs were excluded from the scope of the Act (notably Unemployment insurance).[2] It is a complement to the Expenditure Control Plan announced in the 1990 budget and extended in 1991.
On 2 December 1992 Minister of Finance Don Mazankowski tabled an Economic and Fiscal Statement in the House of Commons of Canada which:[3]
The budget did not brought sweeping tax changes but introduced some technical changes for corporations :
The budget planned for $7.5 billion of expenditure cuts over 5 years. Most of the cuts were however announced in the December 1992 Economic Statement[3] ($5.3 billion) and few cuts were contained in the 1993 budget ($1.2 billion):[15]
The budget was poorly received, and described as "stand pat",[16] "do nothing",[17] "non-budget"[18] and a "lame duck".[19] Claude Picher, from La Presse, pointed out that the 100-pages long budget was one of the shortest budget ever and strongly criticized its lack of substance, overoptimistic economic forecasts and unimaginative measures.[18]
Preceding the budget, Mazankowski had stated that government revenues would decrease compared to 1992 as a result of "slow economic growth, continued high unemployment and low inflation".[20]
The Canadian Bond Rating Service downgraded Canada's federal debt rating from AAA to AA+,[16] and the budgetary deficit for the fiscal year was expected to be $32.6 billion. Mazankowski stated that the rating service had based its decision on "erroneous information".[16]
The value of the Canadian dollar declined with respect to the United States dollar in the foreign exchange market the day after the budget speech,[16] and interest rates "climbed sharply".[17]
The spending cuts announcements of the December 1992 Economic Statement and the 1993 Budget were included in the Government Expenditure Restraint Act, 1993 No. 2 which received royal assent on 2 April 1993.[21] Tax measures for both the December 1992 Statement and the April 1993 budget would not be voted until after the 1993 Canadian federal election when bill C-9 received royal assent on 12 May 1994 after the bill passed third reading on 19 April 1994. The bill was adopted on division as no party in the House of Commons were keen to reject tax measures announced by a previous government and that had been in effect, for some of them, for more than a year.[22][23]