One of Bob Zimmer’s, MP for Prince George-Peace River-Northern Rockies, biggest concerns following today’s Federal Budget announcement is about the expected $28.5 billion deficit and Canada’s growing debt.
‘We were told it was going to be modest – ‘$10 billion’ and ‘modest’ aren’t words I put in the same sentence – but we just see that almost tripled with this the current budget again just steam rolling down the hill towards that $1 trillion total of debt. What that does to the next generation, what the interest payments are, etcetera, and just a burden it will be borne by our kids and our grandkids.”
More specific to the riding, he believes the removing tax incentives for small oil and gas companies will be detrimental.
“Some of the tax incentives are being retracted so again concerned about what that’s going to do to an oil and gas sector right now that’s just recovering and what that’s going to do to that recovery.”
Replacing aging infrastructure have become a priority for Prince George and many other Canadian municipalities roughly the same age as the city. The federal government announced a new infrastructure bank, an organization that will work with provincial, territorial, municipal, Indigenous and private sector investment partners. This bank will invest at least $35 billion over 11 years with a serious a focus on large like regional transit plans, transportation networks and electricity grid interconnections.
Zimmer would like more details on this bank and is concerned about kind of interested this could rack up.
“The infrastructure bank, what does it look like? What does that mean? What are the obligations of municipalities and our areas to obtain infrastructure funding? That’s still a big unknown for a lot of us … is interest going to be given where infrastructure should be the goal? and that’s a concern for the longevity of infrastructure in Canada that this bank this proposed.”
Ending on a high note, Zimmer was happy to hear that there is help for Indigenous and northern communities to reduce the reliance on diesel, which is soemthing that a UNBC group brought before government a few years ago.
“This proves that Northeastern BC communities CAN make a difference here in Ottawa.”
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