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Brad Redekopp said it was quite the day in Ottawa Tuesday with the King in town to give the Liberal Government’s Speech from the Throne.
“Even just walking around the streets, there were people everywhere, of course, streets blocked off and security everywhere,” explained the Conservative MP for Saskatoon West.
Redekopp was in the House to listen to the speech the King gave, and later he didn’t seem impressed with the contents.
“A throne speech isn’t a plan, a plan is a budget. There was no indications in that throne speech that there was going to be a budget any time soon, which makes it difficult to understand how all these things are going to get paid for,” said Redekopp.
He said Canadians want to know how much these promises will cost them and what they’re going to have to give up to get these things.
The federal government has said it won’t be issuing a spring budget, and will instead put together a fall financial update. No word on when that would be presented.
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The speech did include a promise to keep federal spending growth to less than two per cent, but after it had reached as high as nine per cent for several years.
“Two per cent growth is better than nine per cent growth, but it’s a snippet, it’s a gesture, how does it all fit into the big picture and what does that mean for the bottom line because, at the end of the day, the bottom line is what really matters,” said Redekopp.
He was disappointed there was no specific mention of Western Canada, pipelines, or C-48 and C-69. Redekopp said it was concerning given that unity is so important in the country right now.
There were several mentions of public safety in the throne speech – things like tightening up border security, addressing fentanyl and guns, and making bail harder to get for repeat offenders on home invasions and car thefts. Bail reform was one of the asks from Premier Scott Moe in a recent letter.
Redekopp said Canadians do want the government to get tougher on crime, but these promises are coming from a government where half the cabinet was also part of the Trudeau government that Redekopp said got the country into its mess.
“It’s hard to understand how part of the Trudeau government from before, ministers from Trudeau’s government, that brought us the problems that we have that we’re now trying to solve, is somehow going to solve that,” he explained.
Saskatoon West Conservative MP Brad Redekopp. Oct. 21, 2019 (CKOM file photo)
Guns got a bit of time in the speech, talking about changing firearm licensing, protecting law-abiding gun owners and Indigenous hunting rights, and taking away weapons licenses for those convicted of intimate partner violence and those who are the subject of a protection order.
Redekopp said some of the was confusing because there are provinces like Saskatchewan which already have robust firearms programs – for example, he said Saskatchewan already revokes the gun licenses of people convicted of intimate partner violence
“I think there’s a lot of work to be done on firearms in terms of the Liberal mindset because they don’t seem to understand how it really works and who the problems really are,” he said.
Getting immigration under control was one of the five priorities Redekopp said he’d heard from people in Saskatoon over the last few months, and it was mentioned in the throne speech, but Redekopp said it was just repeating the less than five per cent of the population target announced by the Trudeau government in the fall.
Redekopp repeated that the details weren’t there and said the Liberal government hasn’t been able to achieve its goals.
“It’s one thing to say it, it’s one thing to present a gesture, but as Mr. Carney pointed out many times, you need a plan, and we didn’t see that here today,” he said.
The other four priorities for Redekopp were getting the cost of living down, building more houses, and making Canadian streets safer, all of which were addressed in the speech. And he said he wanted to hear about unleashing Canada’s economy with things like cutting the industrial carbon tax and encouraging resource projects, which weren’t mentioned explicitly in the speech.
The Government of Saskatchewan said it was happy to see some of the priorities laid out in the throne speech — affordability, trade relationships, and building a strong, safe and united Canada.
The provincial government sent out a statement Tuesday afternoon, saying it’s encouraged by those priorities, but that it’s going to be watching to see whether the federal government takes action on the commitments.
Analyst says speech good for business
While there weren’t any big surprises, business analyst Paul Martin said most of what the federal government committed to in the throne speech would be music to businesspeople’s ears.
He said on Saskatchewan Afternoon with Justin Blackwell on Tuesday, that the Trudeau government had a somewhat adversarial relationship with business, which saw him as anti-development.
“There’s been a turning of the page here, and Carney is expressing a willingness to be far more supportive of development,” said Martin.
He pointed out there was talk about streamlining approval processes. Martin said Saskatchewan is in the middle of an expansion, and if some of the regulatory red tape can be eliminated, there would be a better chance of Canada becoming a resource superpower.
“And if it gets easier to build those projects, make a mine, develop refineries, all of these kinds of things, you’re going to see people out here that are going to salute that,” he said.
The speech included mention of reducing barriers to trade within Canada, and Martin said there’s also been a message sent to business about expanding trade outside the country. He said he hopes that will spur business to take the initiative and bring together chambers and businesses to go out on trade missions themselves.
“It really just takes one or two businesses and a community to say ‘let’s do this,’ rally up a few others. And if you have a half a dozen on a trade mission, that’s a pretty significant event,” said Martin.
The government promised to slow down federal government spending growth and introduce measures to keep it to less than two per cent — Martin said that will be tough.
“That could be, politically, the tricky part — to increase national defence expenditures, preserve all the transfers, but yet lower the cost of government. He’d better be magical because that will be quite a trick,” he said.
Martin said he thinks there’s a lot of bloat in government, but doesn’t enough if enough savings could come out of cutting that to get down to two per cent.
