Canadian Federal Budget is prepared and presented annually by the Canada Government. The Federal Budget reflects the planning of the government regarding the expenditure and its anticipated revenue collection for the fiscal year. It also contains the future budgetary plan of the government. Canadian Budget has been going through a deficit for quite some time now, though it has been reduced currently and at present it amounts to CAD$500 billion approximately. The fiscal year begins from March and the budget is normally released at the last week of February that is before the commencement of new year. Followed by this budget session the provincial budgets are also released. The provincial budgets are released after the Federal one because the provinces depend on the Federal government for their monetary resources.
Release of Canadian Budget
The annual budget of Canada is conventionally read out by the Minister of Finance at the meeting of the House of Commons. The budget that is announced by the Finance Minister awaits the vote of all the members of the House of Commons. If the members give their consent only then the budget will be passed and implemented otherwise the budget falls through making the position of the government weak as well.
In case the majority party forms the government the budget is almost always passed without any suggestion but unfortunately it is not the same when the minority forms the government. The minority party provides special concessions for the other parties allied with the government. The opposition does not receive an opportunity to object the budget released by the majority government. But if the budget is released by the minority government then they have to provide some relevant incentives to the opposition to pass the budget.
In Canada it was a norm to present an alternative budget against the main budget presented by the Federal Government. Presently, this is being done by the leftist organization known as the Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives. The opposition party exists only to pick up certain flaws from inside the budget. They do not provide any other budget report in the form of option to the people.
The Budget Process
The budget process used to be a secret process. Utmost care was taken so that no information which was extremely confidential was divulged. But these days the information within the budget is revealed even before the official announcement to incorporate the issues which are popular among the public. The budget preparation process is extremely complex and more so because a number of monetary issues have to be addressed in the budget.
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