It has been 734 days since a federal budget has been introduced in the House of Commons. For the opposition Conservative Party of Canada, they are wondering why no budget has been introduced when other G7 countries have introduced budgets throughout the government. 

Dr. Robert Kitchen is the Conservative MP for Souris-Moose Mountain. He says the lack of a budget over the past two years is very troubling and extremely challenging. He is wondering why, if the federal government is talking about transparency, why aren’t they practicing it. 

“I spoke in the House about it on the C-14 legislation which was being put forward by the Finance Minister, and in that, way down at the bottom, is where they’re actually changing the amount of money that the government can borrow, and increasing it to $1.83 trillion,” Kitchen said.  

The limit would be increased by over $600 billion from where it is now, and the Conservative Party is wondering where it is going to be spent. 

“When this Prime Minister came into power, in the first four years he added over $100 billion to the debt, and in this past year he’s added pretty close to $400 billion, and our national debt has grown to over $1 trillion,” Kitchen added. 

Kitchen said transparency is needed, as his constituents, and all Canadians, are wondering how the government will get out of the challenges presented by such a debt-load.  

The lack of the budget is also having an impact on the economy, according to Kitchen, with companies not having the confidence to invest in Canada as they don’t know what the direction of the government will be. 

“They've scared away parties that might have been interested in purchasing and investing in Canada, and all those investment dollars have headed south,” Kitchen explained, pointing to how Chevron Canada has had trouble attracting investors into the Kitimat LNG project, with no parties willing to purchase 50 percent of the project.  

Parliament will be meeting this week, before a two-week break for Easter. They will then resume on April 12th, and continue through until June 9th, with the possibility of the session extending to June 23rd. At this point, there is no set date on the calendar for the introduction of a federal budget into the House of Commons.