Budget looks beyond Trump

Photo: The Canadian Press

If there's an example in Wednesday's federal budget of the challenges President Donald Trump presents to the Liberal government's lofty goals, it's in the measly five paragraphs dedicated to Canada's newly fraught relationship with the United States.

After the usual platitudes about common values and interests, there's a pledge the government will continue to build on long-standing environmental co-operation with the U.S. to "address climate change, as well as enhance the quality of our air and water."

The document was likely already at the printers when word surfaced this week that any day now, Trump plans to start dismantling the very projects in the U.S. designed to tackle those things.

Chief among them: gutting funding for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, withdrawing from the Paris climate change accord and, perhaps most significantly for Canada, axing a program that helps keep the water in the Great Lakes safe to drink for 40 million people on both sides of the border.

The 2017-18 budget seeks to guard against the same surge of anger that propelled Trump to victory last fall, laying out plans and strategies to bolster the skills and confidence of Canadians anxious about what lies ahead.

But to what extent Trump's actions could fuel those fears, the Liberals have so far steered clear of trying to address.

The most obvious example is taxes. Trump is poised to overhaul the U.S. tax system in a bid to increase competitiveness. How the Liberals could move in response to that isn't in the budget; they've only plucked the low-hanging fruit identified in the broad tax expenditure review.

"It is the one area of the budget where they are moving more slowly than they said they were going to," said Scotiabank economist Jean-Francois Perreault.

In the fiscal projections embedded in the budget, it is noted repeatedly that Canada's economy depends on the broad global state of affairs, yet the fact that the Liberals are aiming to shrink deficit levels in the coming years hints they're betting on strong global economies.

As part of its focus on skills and innovation, the government sets out a target: grow Canada's goods and services exports — from resources, advanced manufacturing and others — by 30 per cent in 2025, a modest increase from what they are now.

While the focus is on opening new markets in Asia and the benefits that will eventually flow through the Canada-EU free trade agreement, the U.S. market is still number 1 in Canada's books.