Federal Liberals are pounding the pavement ahead of the October election, with Public Services Minister Carla Qualtrough in Penticton Tuesday pushing the positives of their 2019 budget, while trying to shake the shadow of ongoing scandals in Ottawa. 

She spoke at Sprott Shaw College, highlighting a funding program for mid-career training that is part of the recently released budget.

"This transformational new program will provide working Canadians with a non-taxable training credit of $250 per year up to $5,000 over their career," Qualtrough said. 

It’s part of what the government calls their “investing in the middle class” approach.

"Right this year, employees are starting to accumulate that. If you're working and contributing to EI, you'll start accumulating the $250 this year," she explained. "So next year, if you wanted to take a week off and use $250 toward training, that will be captured next year. And it just kind of rolls out over the next four years until you hit the four weeks." 

She said it will encourage Canadians to keep improving their job skills and even expanding their employment options long past their time in school. The 2019 budget also includes an interest-free six-month grace period after a student loan borrower leaves school. 

But Qualtrough has found the federal SNC Lavalin scandal and questions about Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s conduct hard to shake.

"I have the luxury of sitting next to him in the House of Commons, I speak with him every day, he's a good man, he's a man of integrity, and he kind of admitted that he wished he would have done things differently, and we're moving on," Qualtrough said. "But certainly it's a distraction, and I wish we had more questions about skills than SNC for sure."

Qualtrough briefly toured the school campus, speaking to a few students and staff members, before departing.