Achi news desk-
When it comes to day-to-day affordability, New Brunswickers are feeling the pressure
“Right now I get about $23,000 a year from my pension, CPP and old age and that’s not enough to live on because I have about $200 after I pay my bills,” said Neal Milne. “We need to supply services and funds, like maybe a guaranteed annual income for people in Canada because people don’t have any money.”
Clarence Richard was getting ready to pick up groceries on Wednesday and he says he noticed that the cost of everything was going up.
“Grocers, we jump from one store to another because you have to shop for sales,” he said. “There’s nothing coming down. They put the gas up for delivery and what not, I know they have to charge, but the thing is if they put the gas down, or the diesel down , are they going to put the goods down? I doubt it.”
With the claim of “Equity for Every Generation,” the federal government announced this year’s fiscal budget, but communication and public policy professor Jamie Gillies expected something more.
“I think in general if you’re a family and you either have a mortgage and you own your own residence or you’re renting, there are probably some little things here that you can count that would be worth it, but again, I think it is not dramatic enough to convince the public that we are not living in an affordability crisis,” he said.
“I see it’s tinkering around the edges so they’re trying to present an optimistic budget to get people on an affordability basis when it comes to things like taxes and other things, but I think they have a way to go to climb. because of the huge increase in the cost of living over the last two years and I don’t think this budget does enough to address some of those concerns.”
The Disability Benefit has received mixed reviews across the country, but the New Brunswick Coalition of People with Disabilities (NBCPD) calls it a good first step.
“For many people we will no longer have to choose between food or medications,” said NBCPD chair Shelley Petit.
When broken down, it means that people living with disabilities will receive an extra $200 a month.
“After I sat back and thought about it, I thought $200 a month, it’s not huge, but it’s something,” Petit said. “It’s going to help with bills, it’s going to help with living a better life and that’s $6.1B from the federal government to start with. $1.4B annually thereafter on a portfolio that has no federal responsibility. It is the responsibility of the states.
“There is also clear language in the budget that this must be the amount because anything more than that they were very concerned about provincial clawback.”
Although she says they want more money, she feels that people with disabilities have been recognized during this budget and that they are really considered when making a plan.
“Out of $54B in additional spending I think it was, that’s a ninth of it,” he said. “We had one ninth of that. For the first time of really big recognition, that’s the beginning.”
Overall, Gillies saw this budget as a “catch-all” in terms of affordability issues, saying it generally focused on smaller things.
“I think the public is actually demanding almost popular solutions to affordability,” he said. “Things like they really want the federal government to get involved in rent control, they really want the federal government to do something about food prices, about gas prices and in some respects, the federal government can’t really intervene , that’s a huge disruption to the economy, so what I think they’re trying to do with this budget is pick things, smaller things, that would be somewhat beneficial for people from an affordability perspective.”
He added that this did not come off as an election year budget and he suspects that Canada will see something more dramatic in early 2025.
