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The Canadian federal budget for fiscal year 2014–15 was presented to the House of Commons of Canada by Jim Flaherty on 11 February 2014. This was the last budget presented by the Finance Minister before his resignation in March and death in April. At the end of the fiscal year, the government was surprised to post a budgetary surplus of $1.9 billion. This however would later be overturned to a small deficit of $550 million due to improper accounting methodologies for the Government's unfunded pension obligations, as pointed out for years by the Auditor General.

Programs

The budget cut CA$3,100,000,000 from the Department of National Defence budget allocated for procurement of equipment via the Canada First Defence Strategy. Flaherty stated the funds would be restored in the future when "key purchases will be made".

The government announced a plan to establish the National Disaster Mitigation Program, which it would begin funding in the 2015–2016 fiscal year under the 2015 budget. The program "will invest in structural mitigation projects" and provide residential flood insurance in conjunction with provincial, territorial, and private insurance plans.

The budget established the Canada First Research Excellence Fund, which was to receive $50 million in the 2015–2016 fiscal year for research funding at post-secondary institutions. Four grant councils, including the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, would receive a combined $46 million annually.

Taxes and tariffs

The proposed budget increased excise taxes on cigars, cigarettes, chewing tobacco, and tobacco sticks, and also imposed a tax increase on duty-free tobacco products. Flaherty stated that the increase was to account for the effects of inflation since 2002, and would be indexed to inflation every five years. the Tax took effect 12 February 2014. The budget allocated $92 million of tobacco tax revenues over five years to establish the Geospatial Intelligence and Automated Dispatch Centre and to install sensors to detect movement of contraband tobacco products in high-risk areas.

The budget included a reduction in sick leave benefits for public servants, a doubling of the Public Service Health Care Plan premium for retired civil servants, and increasing eligibility requirements to reduce enrollment in the program. The government said it also expected to replace the sick leave benefit program with a short-term disability program in future collective bargaining with public sector unions, and included in the budget the expected compensation savings from that change.

The small business hiring tax credit was eliminated by the budget, as was a tariff for mobile offshore drilling systems.

The tax credit for adopting children was increased to CA$15,000. Search and rescue personnel with 200 hours of service per year received a tax credit similar to that received by volunteer fire fighters in the 2011 budget.

"Immigration trusts" were eliminated by the budget. These trusts were used by immigrants to shelter investment income from Canadian income tax. Graduated tax rates for testamentary trusts were also eliminated.

Business

The Automotive Innovation Fund was increased by $500 million over two years. The budget also allocated $78 million per year for five years for the Canadian Food Inspection Agency to improve inspections and establish the Food Safety Information Network.

The budget bill also included a proposal to update some regulations. The Food and Drug Regulations would be amended to redefine the term beer to "reflect innovation" in brewing. It updated the compositional standards, allowing the use of flavouring ingredients such as nutmeg by craft breweries.

Intellectual property laws relating to trademarks, service marks, and patents were changed for consistency with the Madrid Protocol, the Singapore Treaty, the Nice Agreement, the Patent Law Treaty, and the Hague Agreement.

The budget document also stated that Service Canada would operate the Canada Job Grant, which had been announced in the 2013 federal budget, in jurisdictions with which the federal government failed to secure agreements.

Notes

1. ^ CablePulse24.
2. "Archived - Annual Financial Report 2014-2015". www.fin.gc.ca. Retrieved 21 October 2018 – via Government of Canada, Department of Finance.
3. "Archived - Annual Financial Report 2014-2015". www.fin.gc.ca. Retrieved 21 October 2018 – via Government of Canada, Department of Finance.
4. ^ "Annual Financial Report of the Government of Canada 2017-2018". www.fin.gc.ca. Retrieved 21 October 2018 – via Government of Canada, Department of Finance.
5. "How to react to Canada's surprising budget surplus". Globe and Mail. 14 September 2015. Retrieved 28 September 2015.
6. ^ Cudmore 2014.
7. ^ Wingrove, Blaze Carlson & Mackrael 2014.
8. ^ Fekete 2014.
9. ^ Curry 2014.
10. ^ May 2014.
11. ^ Janus 2014.
12. ^ Golombek 2014.
13. Payton 2014.
14. CBC News & March 2014.

References

• Cudmore, James (11 February 2014). "Budget 2014: Military wings clipped again". CBC News. Retrieved 11 February 2014.
• Curry, Bill (11 February 2014). "Federal budget takes aim at erasing deficit by 2015". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved 11 February 2014.
• Fekete, Jason (11 February 2014). "Federal budget unveils major tax hike for smokers that will see jump in cost of cigarettes, tobacco and cigars". National Post. Retrieved 11 February 2014.
• Golombek, Jamie (11 February 2014). "Federal Budget 2014 targets wealthy's tax breaks". Financial Post. Retrieved 12 February 2014.
• Janus, Andrea (11 February 2014). "Fun facts from Budget 2014: Good news for microbrews". CTV News. Retrieved 12 February 2014.
• May, Kathryn (11 February 2014). "Canada budget 2014 looks to slash public servants' benefits in effort to save billions". National Post. Postmedia Network. Retrieved 11 February 2014.
• Payton, Laura (11 February 2014). "Budget 2014: Flaherty comes close to surplus while keeping promises vague". CBC News. Retrieved 11 February 2014.
• Wingrove, Josh; Blaze Carlson, Kathryn; Mackrael, Kim (11 February 2014). "13 must-know items from the 2014 federal budget". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved 11 February 2014.
• "Highlights from Flaherty's 2014 federal budget". CP24. The Canadian Press. 11 February 2014. Retrieved 12 February 2014.
• "N.B. 1st Atlantic province to sign Canada Job Grant agreement". CBC News. 15 March 2014. Retrieved 22 January 2015.

External links

• Budget 2014 at Finance Canada

• Canadian budgets
• 2014 government budgets
• 2014 in Canadian politics
• 41st Canadian Parliament
• Premiership of Stephen Harper