This week in QP: Income splitting overshadows the budget

Jim Flaherty’s offhand remarks reveal possible Tory rift

<p>Finance Minister Jim Flaherty speaks following the signing of an agreement on securities regulation,  Thursday September 19, 2013 on Parliament Hill in Ottawa. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld</p>

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty speaks following the signing of an agreement on securities regulation, Thursday September 19, 2013 on Parliament Hill in Ottawa. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld

House of Commons
House of Commons

Budgets are important. For the duration of the government’s first two mandates, Budget Day was on everyone’s calendar as a Very Important Time—after all, if the opposition joined forces and voted against the Conservatives’ proposals, Canada went to the polls. A new era of majority government bestows much less drama on the finance minister’s big day. This week’s budget was perhaps the least impactful of any since 2006. The week was dominated not by Finance Minister Jim Flaherty’s economic plan, but instead by the government’s ongoing quest to rewrite election rules—and Flaherty’s offhand remarks about the possible ineffectiveness of a key Tory campaign pledge.

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