At Issue - Carney’s 1st budget

Episode Date: November 5, 2025

At Issue special edition: Prime Minister Mark Carney unveils a budget meant to kickstart the Canadian economy. Rosemary Barton hosts Chantal Hébert, Andrew Coyne and Althia Raj.

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Donate at lovescarbro.cairbo. This is a CBC podcast. Hey there, I'm Rosemary Barton, this week on a special ad-issue podcast for the federal budget. We will build here at home, stronger industries, nation-building infrastructures, and millions of more homes for Canadians. We will protect what matters most, our people, our communities, and our sovereignty. So this week we're asking, what does Mark Carney's first budget mean for Canada's economy, the deficit, and you? Will these measures kickstart Canada's stalled economy? So what's to be made of this first budget under a Mark Carney government and the so-called generational investments?

Will they kickstart Canada's economy? I'm Rosemary Barton, here to break it all down tonight. Chantelle Iber, Andrew Coyne, Althea Raj. Good to see you all a second time today. Let's start with the budget, then we'll talk about some of the political moves that have happened today. Andrew, what did you make of whether the budget delivered on what it promised to do, which is to transform the economy in a big way? And to move the moon and the stars and, you know, six other things.

I've never heard such hype in the run-up to an election in my life. It was going to be, you know, generational and transformative. And at the same time, it was going to involve sacrifices and difficult choices. And, you know, at the end of the day, with the exception of the increase in health, in defense spending, you could pretty much imagine a Justin Trude, government delivering the same budget. It's not a huge amount of difference. There's a lot of spending, which we're now taught to call capital spending, which somehow makes it different. Well, that would be more persuasive if there'd been some offsetting cut in non-capital spending

and operational spending, but there's very little. It's $13 billion at a $500 billion budget is not a particularly impressive expenditure review. And it'd be more persuasive if we had some real indication that that capital spending was going to lead to higher productive capacity for the economy and therefore more revenues for the government. One indication of why we might doubt that is the ratio of debt costs to revenues is going to go up from six cents on the dollar a couple of years ago to 13 cents on the dollar. That's not crisis levels. In 1995, we were spending 36 cents of every dollar on interests, but it's not a particularly

appetizing trend. So that's, I think, the biggest failing is there's really not much in the way of a growth strategy in this budget. I would hope we were going to see radical tax reform. to really gin up the incentive to invest in this country, even in the face of Donald Trump's tariffs. In the end, what we got was a few warmed over things that they'd already announced on accelerated deductions with a couple of new ones. But it just really doesn't add up to that much. Althea, do you think it meets the moment?

There's like so much I want to say about what Andrew just said. Does it meet the moment? We have Thursday, too. We have Thursday, too. I don't know, because it's hard. Like, what is the moment? is the moment that we are in anemic growth, that we're facing Donald Trump, that we have elected a technocrat who has a very clear vision for where he wants to go. And he has delivered that budget. I do think it was overhyped. I don't agree that it doesn't do anything for growth. I do think it tries to get there, but it tries to get there with the heavy hand of the state and not maybe what Andrew wants to see, which is deep tax cuts and tax reform. But I do not see a scenario in which Justin Trudeau would ever have delivered this budget.

If anything, this is Mark Carney shedding the skin of Justin Trudeau and saying, like, hello, I'm a new person. And if anything, I want to be more closely aligned with Stephen Harper in terms of the public sector cuts are actually deeper than what Stephen Harper did. And some of the things that you're like, did they know they were doing this or have done this on purpose? For example, the co-pays with refugees on their health care. Remember the whole controversy with Stephen Harper and refugee health care funding? The cuts he made to that, the cuts international development, Mark Carney is breaking his promise from the last election and going deep with cuts on international development. He's even making cuts at Statistics Canada to lower the frequency of some of the data sets. So I can't see how this is a Justin Trudeau government.

If anything, it's attacking the Trudeau government legacy on climate as well. Okay, Chantal, your take. Certainly, they are guilty of overselling and under-delivering, which breaks a cardinal rule of politics. You're supposed to do the reverse. So chances are public opinion will be underwhelmed by this budget. But I side more with Althea. One is signing the Trudeau budget, the other, her Harper budget.

I think Stephen Harper, in the same circumstances, would be more likely to have crafted a budget like this than Justin Trudeau. And I also think that politically there is a rationale for presenting a budget that Stephen Harper might have been able to live with. As for the deficit and, you know, the difference between the last Freeland budget and this budget, I think you can see Donald Trump behind the lines of this budget big time in the ways that the economic situation is presented, there's no resemblance to the last full-fledged federal budget, also in the spending. We'll see, I believe that it either moves private investment

or it doesn't, and that's going to be the test of its success or failure. Okay, I'm running out time, and as I said, we have Thursday too, but what happened with Chris Dantromo today, leaving, resigning from the Conservative Caucus, crossing the floor and becoming a liberal. Andrew, how damaging is that for Pierre Puello? Well, the timing is exquisite, of course, just when you're trying to mount your attack on the federal budget, now he's going to be answering questions about this.

I think the only question is, are there other shoes to drop? There is a lot of discontent within sections of the Conservative Caucus with Pierre Puello's leadership. I don't think that's a secret. There's been rumors until now, but this is the first one who's actually broken ranks. We'll see if there's others. Althea, what are you hearing?

Well, there are names circulating, but it's hard to know if it's the beginning of the parade or if it's the end of the parade. One thing, frankly, is that this is not an election budget. The liberals had no intention of running on this budget. There is no, to use that, Christia Freeland's word, costly political gimmick in this budget. There is no nod to affordability. All the MPs are having to look, all the grid MPs are having to look back to June and July, point to the tax cut that they ran on in the spring budget to address affordability concerns. So if anybody is looking like what's in it for me directly, you're not going to find anything

there. So it is basically hoping and praying that the NDP or that the green and that a block or a conservative decides that they don't want to cost the election and they're willing to hold their noses and vote for this. Chantal, on the politics and the loss of Chris Dantromo to Pierre Paulio. I am hearing that there are others who are reflecting on this, and that I agree with Elthia. It does not look like an election platform, but it does look like a budget that is meant to attract the conservative dissidents that may be thinking that they'd rather run under a progressive conservative prime minister, i.e. Mark Carney, then under Piappoliev. And what does that mean for his leadership in the long term? do you think? I have seen nothing today from all the messages I get that it bodes well for

Pierre Puellev's leadership and that 20-point gap in the evaluation of voters of the performance of one versus the other does not both well either. Okay, there will be more to talk about on Thursday. Other things will happen. We'll do that then. Maybe we'll have more of the details of what we have looked at today. Thank you all very much for being here. That is at issue for this Tuesday. What do you think about the federal budget? Are you worried about the cuts to the public service? Let us know.

You can send us an email at ask at cbc.ca. Remember, you can catch me on Rosemary Barton Live. Sundays at 10 a.m. Eastern. We'll be back, of course, in your podcast feeds on Thursday for a regular panel. See you then. For more CBC podcasts, go to cBC.ca.