OTTAWA – The Liberal government has unveiled its final budget before the next federal election, and as anticipated it includes a host of measures targeted at specific key voting demographics, including millennials and seniors. CTVNews.ca has analyzed the 460-page budget from cover to cover, and here’s a rundown of the key initiatives the government is promising Canadians both before they go to the polls this fall, and should the Liberals be re-elected. Do you want to buy your first home? The government says it wants to make it easier for young people to buy their first home, and promises to do that through a targeted new support system. The First-Time Home Buyer Incentive will allow buyers—who have the minimum down payment for a mortgage—to finance 10 per cent on a new home or five per cent on an existing home through a shared equity mortgage with the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation. Doing so will lower buyers’ monthly mortgage payments but like everything, terms and conditions apply. One of them: only households with combined incomes lower than $120,000 annually will qualify. Relatedly, the government wants to increase home supply and is vowing to look into ways to monitor and target tax evaders and those who use real estate to launder money, in an effort to bring down housing prices. Looking at long-term promises, the Liberals are vowing to build 42,500 new housing units in low-supply areas for rentals over the next nine years. Are you concerned about job training or student loans? The government wants to make the prospect of going back to school, or gaining new skills, more appealing. It wants to do so through a new Canada Training Benefit to chip in a small amount towards the cost of training fees. It’s a credit of $250 a year that can accumulate to help pay for future training, up to $5,000 over a person’s career. People between the ages of 25 and 64 are eligible. The feds are also setting up a new Employment Insurance Training Support Benefit that will allow people who want to get more training take four weeks every four years to do so, without coming up short on living expenses. They also want to work with the provinces to look at ways to allow people to leave a job to get more skills, and still have a job when they return. To qualify workers need to be making between $10,000 and $150,000. However, this promise isn’t set to kick in until the end of 2020. The government is also putting a sizeable chunk of money towards lowering the interest on Canada Student Loans and Canada Apprentice Loans. The interest rates will be lowered from the floating rate to the prime lending rate, starting this fiscal year. Do you care about the cost of medication? If you were looking forward to the 2019 federal budget being the one that unveils a national pharmacare program, you will be disappointed. As the government put it, this budget simply “starts us down that road” with “initial steps.” These steps include creating a Canadian Drug Agency that will be given $35 million over the next four years to look into bulk buying drugs to lower costs and determine with the provinces and territories a list of best cost per value pharmaceuticals for Canadians. The government will also take steps towards making drugs for rare diseases more affordable through launching a “national strategy,” though the funding for this doesn’t start until 2022-23. Are you a senior, or thinking about retirement? In an effort to allow low-income working seniors to keep more of what they earn, the government is pledging to table new legislation to extend eligibility for the Guaranteed Income Supplement earnings exemption. This will come into effect in July 2020 and could mean an increase up to $2,500 a year per recipient. They will also be automatically enrolling any Canada Pension Plan contributors who are 70 years of age or older and have not yet applied. This is estimated to see those seniors receive an average $300 more each month. As for pension protections, the government is vowing to introduce new measures aimed at securing workplace pensions in the case of a company going out of business. This pledge is light on details or concrete steps but will include changing federal pension law. The Liberals are also earmarking $50 million for a national dementia strategy. Do you want to do more to combat climate change? The government is partnering up with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities to offer $1 billion towards making community buildings, homes and businesses more energy efficient. It is also sending municipalities a one-time infrastructure top-up of $2.2 billion through the Gas Tax Fund. Looking to get behind the wheel of an energy-efficient vehicle? The government is creating a $5,000 federal incentive to purchase zero-emission vehicles such as electric or hydrogen-fuelled cars. This will apply to vehicles with a retail value of less than $45,000 and is applicable starting today. Are supports for Indigenous and marginalized communities important to you? Budget 2019 includes more funding to go towards the aim of Indigenous self-determination, as well as towards health, language and cultural initiatives. This includes $739 million over five years to keep up the promise of eliminating all drinking water advisories in First Nation communities; $1.2 billion over three years for Indigenous child welfare services; and $333.7 million over the next three years for Indigenous culture and language restoration. The budget also announces a new Anti-Racism Strategy with the purpose of finding ways to counter racism with things like educational materials, and setting up a new secretariat within the federal government to coordinate efforts across departments. This comes with a budget of $45 million over three years. The government is also putting an additional $20 million over the next two years for community organizations to “address unique needs and persisting disparities” among LGBTQ Canadians. Are you a farmer, an Atlantic Canadian, or live in rural Canada? There are also more micro-targeted and smaller-ticket regional items in the 2019 budget.<doc-sep>Share this Story: Federal budget 2019: Ottawa-Gatineau bridge battle revived as budget renews controversial project Federal budget 2019: Ottawa-Gatineau bridge battle revived as budget renews controversial project Photo by Tony Caldwell Article content What Ottawa residents need to know, at a glance: — The National Capital Commission will reactivate an interprovincial bridge study We apologize, but this video has failed to load. tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or Federal budget 2019: Ottawa-Gatineau bridge battle revived as budget renews controversial project Back to video — More low-rate financing will be available to spur the development industry to build residential rental units — Municipalities can access $2.2 billion more in gas tax transfer revenue as a one-time top up, helping fix or expand infrastructure — The federal government is challenging municipalities to come up with ways to speed up affordable housing construction — There could be an opportunity to grow rural tourism through a new Canadian Experiences Fund A national capital bridge battle has been revived by the Liberal government, to the chagrin of mayors on both sides of the Ottawa River. Tuesday’s federal budget proposes to kick-start the process to create a new interprovincial bridge, threatening to reopen old wounds from the last time the federal government, two provincial governments and two municipal governments tried to find a location to build a new crossing between Ottawa and Gatineau. Advertisement Story continues below This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Article content And if the National Capital Commission didn’t have enough on its plate with the redevelopment of LeBreton Flats, the federal government has tapped the agency to take the project’s lead “by refreshing existing studies and developing a long-term integrated interprovincial crossing plan.” Both Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson and Gatineau Mayor Maxime Pedneaud-Jobin said they were surprised by the mention of an interprovincial bridge in the federal budget. Watson said he has “no desire” to go down the road of another fight over where to put a crossing — a proposal to locate a Gatineau-connecting bridge over Kettle Island in east Ottawa was shelved almost six years ago after community uproar. “I think the top-down approach failed a few years ago. We have to try another approach,” said Pedneaud-Jobin. Advertisement Story continues below This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Article content He disagreed with the budget’s assertion that there is a “demonstrated need for an additional National Capital Region crossing,” and said both Ottawa and Gatineau are instead focused on investment in their public transportation infrastructure, including interprovincial links between light rail transit systems in both cities. “I think that should be the priority, not starting a process about a future bridge,” said Pedneaud-Jobin. There might be immediate pressure to build another crossing, however. The federal government says it will replace the aging Alexandra Bridge, potentially knocking out a key crossing for a significant period. However, the budget is silent on when the Alexandra Bridge replacement would happen, or if it would happen after a new crossing is built. Advertisement Story continues below This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Article content The NCC and the Ontario and Quebec governments started a project to build a new interprovincial bridge back in 2006, with the cities of Ottawa and Gatineau providing support. A new Ottawa River bridge in the east end over Kettle Island, connecting Ottawa’s Aviation Parkway with Gatineau’s Montée Paiement, was the preferred location for a new $1-billion crossing. Ottawa residents who lived around the proposed bridge corridor were worried about the impact of highway-type traffic cutting through their communities. Just months before the end of the NCC-led bridge study, and after gauging the drama in those east Ottawa communities, the former Ontario Liberal government in June 2013 said it wouldn’t support a crossing at Kettle Island. Advertisement Story continues below This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Article content All the work from the study was shelved and the City of Ottawa started looking at other ways to divert trucks from downtown and specifically from the King Edward Avenue truck route. Truck traffic in downtown Ottawa is a major part of the interprovincial bridge saga. The hope was that a new bridge would drastically reduce the number of trucks downtown, making the current truck route on Nicholas Street and King Edward Avenue much safer for pedestrians, cyclists and other motorists. The city, with the province’s financial support, commissioned a feasibility study on building a tunnel from Highway 417, through Sandy Hill and Lowertown, to the mouth of the Macdonald-Cartier Bridge. The study established that building a tunnel is possible, and would cost as much as $2 billion, but an environmental assessment has never started. Advertisement Story continues below This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Article content It was never clear which government would pay for an Ottawa traffic tunnel. The city’s transportation priority is rapid rail transit and the upper levels of government together have committed more than $2 billion for the Stage 2 O-Train expansion project. With the federal government now indicating it wants to get moving on a new interprovincial bridge, a traffic tunnel could be out of the picture. At the same time, restarting the interprovincial bridge project raises the possibility that communities could once again be pitted against each other, with downtown residents calling for a solution to having big rigs rumble through the core and east-end residents rallying against a truck-diverting bridge near their neighbourhoods. Advertisement Story continues below This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Article content The federal budget doesn’t say if the interprovincial bridge process will scout other locations for a new crossing, other than the three east-Ottawa corridors that were shortlisted in the original study. There is a growing need to provide more transportation access across the Ottawa River in the National Capital Region. The five interprovincial crossings together carry 150,000 vehicles, plus 9,000 pedestrians and cyclists, each day.<doc-sep>Indigenous groups across Canada carrying millions in dollars of debt from negotiating treaty claims with Ottawa will soon have that debt erased. The federal government announced in its 2019 budget it will be forgiving loans to Indigenous groups who have taken on debt to negotiate comprehensive claims and treaties. Groups that have already repaid the government for such loans will get their money back, Ottawa says. The total amount being repaid or forgiven: $1.4 billion. Of that, $938 million will be dealt with in the current fiscal year — by the end of March. According to the 2019 budget, tabled by Finance Minister Bill Morneau in Ottawa on Tuesday, 200 Indigenous communities across Canada will benefit from this loan forgiveness and reimbursement. A large percentage of those groups are First Nations in B.C., where there have been few treaties in comparison to the rest of Canada. The B.C. Treaty Commission's Chief Commissioner Celeste Haldane.said in a statement that the group "has long advocated for the elimination of loans in treaty negotiations. It is encouraging to see this issue finally being addressed and demonstrates real progress towards reconciliation." The commission reported in its 2018 annual report roughly $550 million in outstanding negotiation loans to First Nations. Since the commission started negotiations in the early 1990s, it has loaned money to 60 First Nations. 'Ecstatic' reactions Grand Chief Ed John, an elected member of the First Nations Summit in B.C., said he personally asked the prime minister to forgive the loans at an event for Canada 150. "As I read it, the loans will be forgiven in this fiscal year, at the end of March 2019," he said. John said he's already starting to hear from "pretty ecstatic" First Nations who are realizing they'll be free of this debt in the near future. John said his own nation, Tl'azt'en, stands to see about $2 million in loans forgiven. He said freeing up this kind of debt will allow Indigenous groups to access more capital. When asked about the symbolic significance of this move from Ottawa, John said it's further confirmation that the process to resolve the land question in Canada has been flawed. "It was wrong in the first place to take our lands without sitting down and talking with us," he said . "So we've been in this process trying to resolve this matter with both Canada and British Columbia but in doing so we've been put in this situation having to borrow money from the very governments who took our land in the first place." The federal budget marked this financial commitment under the category of "redressing past wrongs and advancing self-determination."<doc-sep>There's a $2.2 billion surprise in the federal budget for Canadian municipalities facing a long list of infrastructure needs and Mayor Jim Watson says it will mean a lot to Ottawa. The government is taking that money from its gas tax revenue and sending it directly to local governments, to be used for everything from roadwork and public transit to environmental and cultural infrastructure projects. The federal government already gives $2.2 billion to municipalities from its gas tax revenues — Tuesday's budget doubles that amount. Watson said the money amounts to about $57 million for Ottawa, and will help fund the city's LRT expansion and could mean the city will take on less debt as it moves ahead. "This is really good news for our residents and good news for the City of Ottawa," he said. "It is very good news for the City of Ottawa, the people of Ottawa, people who take transit." Ottawa hoping to build affordable housing with federal budget money, mayor says CBC News Ottawa 1:02 Ottawa mayor Jim Watson says the city is hoping to build more affordable housing with money from the federal budget, cutting down on the time families spend on a housing waitlist. 1:02 The funding will come all at once and doesn't first have to go through provinces or territories. "This is kind of a means for the federal government and municipalities to have a more direct relationship," said Sahir Khan, executive vice-president of the Institute for Fiscal Studies at the University of Ottawa. The Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) had asked for the federal budget to give them the tools to address local priorities. The federation's president Vicki-May Hamm said in an emailed statement that the gas-tax funding would be important. "For communities of all sizes, growing this transfer means better roads, bridges, transit, recreation centres and more. This is about empowering local governments to do what they do best," she said.<doc-sep>
The federal budget unveiled Tuesday contains new money to fix and eventually replace the federal government payroll system, and reveals plans to build new crossings across the Ottawa River. Here are some of the highlights. More money for Phoenix fix The government is setting aside $553 million between now and April 2022 — $374 million by April 2020 — to fix the failed Phoenix pay system, which has improperly paid tens of thousands of public servants since its launch in February 2016. That will bring the total dedicated to fixing Phoenix to $1.5 billion. The budget contains $13.7 million over the next five years to help make federal government workplaces more accessible, and devotes $6.3 million to reduce food waste in federal government offices, also over the next five years. New bridges in Ottawa's future The budget mentions two new crossings over the Ottawa River between the capital and Gatineau, but doesn't say when or, in one case, where. It singles out the 118-year-old Alexandra Bridge for replacement, but doesn't contain money for the cost of the project. The federal government is also calling for a sixth crossing in the capital region, part of a long-term interprovincial crossing plan. The work will be led and mostly financed by the National Capital Commission, along with both provincial governments and the cities of Ottawa and Gatineau. Earlier plans for a new crossing at Kettle Island in Ottawa's east end faltered. The budget also sets aside $80.4 million over the next 10 years for the maintenance and improvement of other crossings in the National Capital Region. Funding for housing, farmers Here are some other items that could affect our region. An extra $10 billion to extend a loan program aimed at encouraging lower-cost rental housing construction until 2028 is expected to add 42,500 units across the country. The budget singles out Kingston, Ont., which has some of Ontario's lowest rental vacancy rates, as an area that could benefit. Communities can vie for the new Housing Supply Challenge, a $300-million pot of money set aside to reward communities that find "new ways to break down barriers that limit the creation of new housing." Cities asking for help to house asylum seekers could find relief from a $1.18-billion, five-year fund aimed at processing claims more efficiently. Dairy, poultry and egg farmers could qualify for the up to $3.9 billion in assistance for their industries designed to offset the impact of various trade deals. Money dedicated to helping people from Nunavut access health care closer to home, such as $220 million over five years for Inuit child care, could mean fewer people travelling from the North to Ottawa to access those services. The budget also highlights a previously announced $70.8-million low-cost loan to Claridge Homes to build a 27-storey, ecologically friendly and accessible rental building at Gloucester and Metcalfe streets in downtown Ottawa. The building will include 200 rental units that will be leased below market rates.