Budget Day

I always remember people in our newsroom over the years getting all excited about the when the federal budget was about to be tabled.

They’d intently wait through the day for the finance minister in his new shoes to bring down the budget speech in the afternoon announcing the Government’s policies and spending decisions for the upcoming year.  They’d  intently listen to all of the goodies and cuts that were being announced, quickly dissect the info and then just as quickly quickly re-write the highlights in a way that we could all understand what was going on, and then broadcast the news to the listening audience on the evening newscasts.

Today’s budget announcement from Fiance Minister Bill Morneau may have actually been a lot more interesting today if not for the election of Donald Trump.  With the uncertainty of what lies ahead now for the Canadian economy based on what the Trump administration may or may not do around trade issues, the Liberals will most likely play their cards close to their chest in terms of unleashing any huge amounts of new spending programs.  We should find out where some of these infrastructure projects will receive funding they promised last year and be listening for the term “innovation” in this year’s budget.  We may see some type of a down-payment on a proposed innovation plan, but for the most part, this will most likely be a ho-hum budget for our news journalist counterparts to report on, although you can bet they will still be gathered around at 4:00 this afternoon listening and looking to pick out the nuggets announced and we’ll have the details for you just in time for your drive home from work.