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Canada report

Liberals escape budget defeat

By JIM FOX
Published February 27, 2005

Canada's shaky minority Liberal government has escaped defeat over its budget with plans for increased spending and some minor tax cuts.

Conservative leader Stephen Harper, whose party could try to bring down the government and force an election, endorsed the budget in general but still had some complaints.

The Conservatives, who hold the balance of power in the 308-seat House of Commons with 99 members of Parliament, said there should have been more money for farmers and education. They said they didn't care for the emphasis on subsidized day care and the Kyoto antipollution accord.

Income tax cuts work out to about $400 annually over five years for middle-income earners, while there was $13-billion more for the military, $5-billion to cut greenhouse gas emissions and $5-billion for a national child care program.

Municipalities will receive $5-billion in gasoline tax revenues for road repair and transit upgrades.

The Liberals also announced a modest boost to the low-income seniors benefit, corporate tax cuts, increases in Retirement Savings Plan contribution limits, money to help immigrants settle and a reduction in the air travel charge.

Ontario police were planning to speak with killer and onetime fugitive financier Albert Walker, who is being returned to Canada from a British jail. Walker, 59, will serve the remainder of his life sentence for murdering friend Ronald Platt, whose identity he had assumed. It's alleged in Canada that Walker bilked 70 investors out of millions of dollars.

Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel, who is being deported from Canada, faces immediate arrest and prosecution for spreading hate on his return to Germany, authorities said. Federal Court Justice Pierre Blais moved to expel Zundel, 65, a German native, on the grounds he is a white supremacist hate-monger who poses a threat to national security. Zundel has spent more than four decades in Canada, the past two years in solitary confinement in a Toronto jail.

Canada's dollar took another drop over the past week to 80.7 U.S. cents, while the U.S. dollar is at $1.2391 Canadian, before exchange fees.

The Bank of Canada's key interest rate remains at 2.5 percent; the prime lending rate is 4.25 percent.

Stock markets are higher, with Toronto's composite index at 9,767 points and the Canadian Venture Exchange 1,992 points.

Lotto 6-49: (Wednesday) 5, 8, 10, 32, 48 and 49; bonus 29. Feb. 19: 12, 16, 27, 35, 39 and 41; bonus 24.

The Ontario government has passed a bill changing the definition of marriage to comply with recent court rulings on same-sex marriages. British Columbia and Quebec earlier brought their provincial laws in line with rulings allowing gay marriage.

Alberta Child and Family Services closed an Edmonton child care center that abandoned a baby in the dark and left a child unattended in a playground. The license of the Bearspaw Day Care Center was removed effective immediately, affecting children from 36 families.

Quebec antismoking groups have asked the provincial government to ban all forms of cigarette advertising when it passes amendments to tobacco laws. Antismoking laws have had some effect, as 25.9 percent of Quebec residents now smoke, down from 34 percent in 1988, they say.

Jim Fox can be reached at canadareport@hotmail.com

[Last modified February 27, 2005, 00:14:06]