Guelph MP Lloyd Longfield’s town hall meeting on the 2016 Federal budget drew roughly 100 people to Innovation Guelph Tuesday night.
Longfield was joined at the head table by Vaughan-Woodbridge MP Francesco Sorbara and BDO Canada accountant Fred Richardson. The trio touched on key points of the budget before opening the floor for questions for the second half hour of the hour-long event.
Much of the preamble centred around the Liberal plan to bring money to the middle classes. Tax cuts, tax shifting, infrastructure investments and the new Canada Child Benefit that takes effect later this year are all part of how they will do that, Longfield and Sorbara said.
“Nine out of 10 families will get more money under the new Canada Child Benefit,” said Sorbara.
“A strong middle class is a strong Canada,” Sorbara said. “We’ve asked the 1 percent (in income) to give a little more and we think that is fair.”
The town hall was one of several planned by Longfield to gauge the sentiment of locals on key issues. In this case it was the most recent budget, as the House of Commons prepares to debate it next week.
During question period, one woman said she would have liked to have seen even more done to shift a greater tax burden on the wealthiest of Canadians to benefit the middle and lower classes.
“I was personally surprised where those cutoffs were,” the woman said of where the highest tax rate starts. “It could have been set lower.”
Sorbara replied that “if the aim is to look at equality … it’s a great first step.”
The questioner said that it’s important the Canadian Revenue Agency enforce the new tax structure: that people “want to feel that the system is fair.”
“Once they’re caught, they need to be treated the same as everyone else,” she said of tax cheats.
The subject of the Liberal budget exceeding their election promise to keep the deficit to $10 billion was not broached by any of the audience, which was mostly an older, pro-Liberal group.
In fact it was Longfield that brought it up the deficit, at least partially expanding on the situation by pointing out that a recent report showed that slumping oil prices had a negative impact of $14 billion on the Canadian economy in the past two years.
One question centred around veterans benefits.
“Veterans haven’t been looked after very well … what’s the plan?” the mother of a military member asked.
Longfield replied that the first Liberal budget centred on improving infrastructure for veterans affairs, with new centres opening and more staff being added.
“The plan for our first budget was to get the infrastructure in place, but we’re not finished,” Longfield said.
Another person brought up how the government treats First Nations, saying the government has to do more than just throw money at the problems they face.
Longfield said there would be other town halls on particular issues in the future.