Olds & District Chamber of Commerce president Mark Johnson isn't very impressed with the federal budget.
He says the budget, announced Tuesday March 19, offers little for central Albertans, and Olds residents in particular.
"Just in everything I've been able to find, Alberta and Saskatchewan have been pretty much ignored in the budget," he said during an interview with the Albertan.
Johnson said a couple of measures intended to help people upgrade their skills in the workplace might be of some help.
For example, the Canada Training Benefit is designed to provide Canadians with funding to help them pay for retraining courses.
Each year, workers between 25 and 64 years of age who make between $10,000 and $150,000 will get a tax break for job retraining. They will earn a maximum tax credit of $250 a year, up to a lifetime limit of $5,000.
That money can be used to cover up to half of the cost of training, such as fees for college courses or other professional training programs.
"We need some of that in Alberta here — especially Central Alberta. That helps some of these people who are unemployed right now so they can get back to work. I think it'll help some, but I think they could have done more," Johnson said.
"There's nothing to help our farming community to make it easier. Even around the carbon tax; nothing to help the farming community at all."
The budget does include $2.15 billion to help farmers who lose income as trade deals with the U.S, Europe and the Pacific Rim make it easier for egg, dairy and poultry products from those countries to enter the Canadian market.
The budget also includes a new “shared equity” mortgage plan. And the feds have raised the amount people can borrow from their RRSP (registered retirement savings plan) to put toward a down payment.
Qualifying buyers could see the government pick up part of the cost of their mortgages to lower their monthly payments. The amount of that help would depend on the buyer's income and whether they’re purchasing a newly-built or existing home.
However, critics say in essence, the shared equity plan caps the price of a home that could be purchased under the plan to about $500,000.
Changes are also being planned that would enable Canadians to raise the amount they can take from their retirement savings plans to fund the purchase of their first homes, from $25,000 to $35,000.
People whose marriages or common-law partnerships break down would also be able to pull money from those plans a second time.
"The home buyer's credit that they're proposing, I talked with some mortgage brokers about that and because of how it's designed, it's almost like a second mortgage on the property, which will prevent these first-time home buyers it's supposed to help, they're going to be locked in even tighter than they were," Johnson said.
"So it's going to remove some of the equity that they were having on the property when they go to sell.
"Also, they're not going to be able to port mortgages. Like, 'OK, I bought my starter home, I want to move up to another home. I want to take this mortgage from this home and move it.'"
Michael Merritt, the chief administrative officer of the Town of Olds, predicts the doubling of the Gas Tax Fund, announced by the federal government "may result in an additional $500,000 for the Town of Olds."
Johnson doesn't think that will make much difference in the community.
Johnson noted the goal of the chamber of commerce is to encourage residents to support local businesses, and he doesn't see much in the federal budget that he believes would do that.
"How can we get more people in the doors of our local businesses? And there's nothing here that's going to help them," he said.
