Liberals to table fall economic statement but no budget just yet

Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne says the Liberal government will not table a budget when Parliament returns in the coming weeks but will instead put forward a fall economic statement.

Champagne hasn’t offered a clearer timeline for the introduction of the government’s latest fiscal plans and has not explained the delay.

The finance minister says the government will present a ways-and-means motion when Parliament returns in the coming weeks to introduce the tax cut the Liberals promised during the recent election.

The Liberals say that their “middle-class tax cut,” which will shave a full point off the lowest income bracket, is their first order of business for the new Parliament and they want to have it passed by July 1.

Staffers let TV cameras and photographers into the cabinet room following the first meeting of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s new cabinet today to watch him sign a decision note directing Champagne and others to get to work quickly on the tax cut.

Carney’s government will need to pass its ways-and-means motion through the current minority Parliament to actually bring the tax cut into effect.