Before it starts
Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne tables the federal budget in the House of Commons on Thursday, Nov. 5, around 4 p.m. ET (1 p.m. PT), The Hill Times reports. He announced the date in question period on Oct. 20, Investment Executive reports. It’s the second budget of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government.
How to follow along: CPAC carries the budget speech and reaction live. The documents post on budget.canada.ca once the budget is tabled. We’ll read them and post the measures that matter for tech here, newest first.
What Champagne has hinted at. Speaking at the Canadian Club of Toronto this week, he said “this is a budget about entrepreneurs,” and promised to simplify life for small and medium-sized businesses, BetaKit reports. On the SR&ED research tax credit, which was expanded last year, he said “we’re going to go beyond.” He gave no specifics.
What tech and business groups have asked for (requests, not confirmed measures), per BetaKit:
- The Canadian Federation of Independent Business wants the small business tax rate cut from 9 per cent to 6 per cent, and the income threshold for that rate raised from $500,000 to $700,000.
- Investor groups, including the Canadian Venture Capital and Private Equity Association and the Council of Canadian Innovators, have proposed letting people defer capital gains tax when they reinvest, and a tax break for investing in startups modelled on the U.S. “qualified small business stock” rule.
The backdrop: The Parliamentary Budget Officer now expects a $63.3-billion deficit this fiscal year, Investment Executive reports.
What we’ll look for: SR&ED and other innovation tax changes; any new money for AI computing (Ottawa already has an $890-million program for a public AI supercomputer and a stake of up to $1.6 billion in Cohere); telecom and affordability measures following Ottawa’s telecom roadmap; and anything on startups, venture capital, cybersecurity or digital services taxes.