All but overlooked in the past week of troubling economic news was federal Finance Minister Joe Oliver's unexpected nod to government stimulus spending.
The run-up to an October general election is happening amid talk of recession, international downgrades of Canada's growth prospects, weak world oil prices and several grim provincial outlooks — stormy seas for an incumbent Conservative government seeking a fourth mandate after staking its reputation on sound economic management.
A Conservative re-election plan engineered in sunnier days when a return to balanced budgets could comfortably co-exist with voter-friendly spending bonanzas is now being repurposed as a recession-fighting necessity.
Parents with children under 18 will start getting new benefit cheques — retroactive to Jan. 1 — on July 20, a one-time, pre-election burst of cash totaling more than $2.5 billion.
Conservative ministers and MPs, meanwhile, are announcing new community infrastructure projects virtually every day this summer from a variety of infrastructure funds — some of which have lain fallow for months awaiting the optimal pre-election moment for government-friendly announcements. Oliver's office says the government added more than $1.6 billion to existing infrastructure funding for 2015-16.
Economists, as is their way, are divided on whether the family benefit spending spree or the infrastructure dollars will have much economic impact this year.
But they all agree that with a new Conservative balanced budget law in place and an election looming, additional recession-fighting fiscal measures from the government are not in the cards before Canadians go to the polls in October.
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