Many here took an interest in the election of Justin Trudeau last fall; but wondered how he would actually govern.

Well, today was Federal Budget day in Canada, so you answer has arrived.

For my American friends, in Canada, budgets are the BIG deal every year, where the government [[Finance Minister) get an hour long speech on national TV to announce the governments plans for the year ahead.

Unlike the U.S., assuming there is a majority government [[the norm in Canada), the budget WILL pass, generally without changes. [[if a budget were defeated this would trigger an election).

So this is somewhat like your State of the Union, except that the government can't really be stopped in terms of its financial priorities.

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That said, here are some of the details [[the whole thing is 269 pages)

In the 'As promised' category:

-A shift in government child benefits which will result in a material increase for low income earning families, more modest as income rises, with a small cut for those earning big $

-A boost to the low-income seniors benefit of around $75 per month.

-More funds for the 'arts' [[mainly CBC)

- An already implemented reduction in the middle-income marginal tax bracket from 22% to 20.5% [[incomes of roughly 45k-90k per year).

- Buckets of infrastructure cash, initially focused on repairing transit/sewer/water and affordable housing.

In the .....that wasn't what you said category.

- Deficit will rise to $29.4B this year [[he campaigned on holding it to around 10B)

Though, it should be said, the number probably isn't really that bad, as they have budgeted 6B in contingency reserves and used economic growth forecast that are well below consensus models. I expect this is an attempt to look good when the numbers are high, but much less high in the out years of his government. [[standard operating procedure of most parties)

- Defense procurement [[nominally, not touched), however, on a cash-basis, several billion dollars has been pushed out beyond the next election cycle.

- A few small boutique tax credits were sacked [[children's fitness/art) and [[textbooks for post-secondary); though this is largely off-set by higher grants to low income students.

- The small business tax rate was not reduced, as proposed from 10.5% to 9%

- But the plan to seriously tax stock options was also dropped.

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For readers w/interest in all the gore

This is the full document

http://news.nationalpost.com/news/ca...-full-document