Conservative MP David Sweet says the 2010 federal budget released last week is designed to continue to nourish the country’s “very fragile (economic) recovery” while also “bringing government finances back into balance.” But Liberal candidate Dan McLean, who will face Sweet in the next federal election in the Ancaster-Dundas-Flamborough-Westdale riding, says it represents nothing but “more of the same” with no relief in sight for middle-of-the-road Canadians, pensioners or small business owners.

Neighbouring NDP MP Chris Charlton (Hamilton Mountain) also took a swipe at the budget, saying that it abandoned seniors in poverty to give banks and oil companies billions in corporate tax cuts. In a press release issued last Friday, Charlton said: “Budgets are about choices. (Prime Minister) Mr. Harper has chosen to enrich banks and oil companies, the most profitable corporations in the country, with billions in spending on corporate tax cuts rather than help lift seniors out of poverty by increasing the Guaranteed Income Supplement. Instead they are promising nothing more than to consult seniors about their poverty.” That action, she said, is “a stalling tactic.”

The budget offers $3.2 billion in personal income tax relief, largely through raising the basic personal tax exemption, the amount that can be earned before being taxed, to $10,382. Lower taxes for low- and middle-income seniors are also included.

“There’s tax relief for the two lowest tax brackets,” Sweet said of the government’s efforts to help low-income Canadians.

McLean charges that Finance Minister Jim Flaherty’s plan to “grow us out of the deficit” over the next five years might well prove to be another example of the government looking at the economy “through rose-colored glasses.” Banking on a global recovery might lead to a few unwelcome surprises for the Conservatives on the economic front, he warned, noting that the economy is still under considerable duress in the United States, Canada’s biggest trading partner. McLean said there’s still a lot of truth in the old saying, “When the U.S. catches a cold, Canada gets pneumonia.”

Sweet contends the government’s plan to reduce the deficit from $49.2 billion in 2010-11 to $1.8 billion by 2014-15 is achievable. The Finance Minister gets projections of job and GDP growth from multiple sections, he explained, adding that “our base projections are on the conservative side.”

“Where are they going to make the cuts to deal with the deficit,” McLean asked, suggesting that the plan to cut that much money from future budgets isn’t realistic. “I don’t see how this budget is going to do anything for us. There’s really no job creation in the budget, nothing there on clean energy or the environment and nothing for pensioners.”

The budget earmarks $4 billion for job creation including more employment insurance benefits and training opportunities. The temporary Work Share program has been extended another year, having saved 225,000 jobs so far, Sweet said.

As for measures being taken to cut back on the deficit, he said the $7.7 billion in infrastructure stimulus spending this year will close the program and a three-year freeze has been put on MPs’s salaries as well as their office budgets. There is also a comprehensive review underway for savings on administration and program spending.

Military spending is also projected to drop next year as Canadian troops withdraw from Afghanistan. McLean questions whether the savings will be as much as projected because some Canadian troops will stay in Afghanistan to rebuild after the withdrawal, he said.

Sweet credits the government’s Economic Action Plan (EAP), introduced in 2006, for setting the stage for Canada to become “the most attractive place to do business” because of lower corporate tax rates.

“Canada has the most competitive tax rate for new businesses in the G-7,” he stated.

McLean doesn’t believe that the budget, which will be debated in Parliament for the next few weeks, will lead to a federal election. “Canadians don’t have the stomach for an election,” he said, noting that the Liberals will oppose the budget but not to the extent of joining with other opposition parties to bring the government down over it.