The federal government will table the 2026 budget on Thursday as trade talks continue with the United States after midterm elections. Conservative shadow minister for Canada-U.S. relations Shuvaloy Majumdar joins Michael Higgins to discuss the budget and more. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Michael Higgins: It’s the second budget for the Carney government. What level of investment should be expected to support long-term economic growth, and how much room do you feel the government has in that regard? Shuvaloy Majumdar: Well, they haven’t answered any of our questions about whether they’re going to blast through the fiscal guardrails that they established themselves. We know that we’re looking at staggering levels of (debt), $733 billion of national debt, the biggest national debt combined from all Canadian governments historically. Every Canadian family has to pay $6,000 just to service the interest of that national debt alone. The big decisions to deregulate and enhance growth in this country have not been taken. Whether it’s dealing with anti-development laws in Alberta or a range of tax measures that have seen a trillion dollars of capital flee to the United States over the last 10 years, over $100 billion in last year alone. The country has been in structural stagnation quarter after quarter. We’ve not seen the kind of growth that our neighbour to the south has, which is four per cent, or Europe, which is double ours at two per cent. So, even with interest rates climbing by the central bank, it’s a pretty gloomy outlook for a bank governor that we expected would plan better for this country’s economy. MH: There’s talk of support for small and medium-sized businesses. What are your expectations for how far that should extend? SM: All we’ve seen, even when it comes to tariff-affected businesses, is that the small- and medium-sized companies in this country are not being served by the government when it comes to relief measures under tariff pressures. What we see instead is a lot of big business deals for corporate insiders with Prime Minister Carney’s best friends, instead of the kind of things that unlock the backbone of this country, which is our small- and medium-sized businesses. Small businesses have been suffering under the yoke of government regulation for far too long. They have inherited an uncertain environment in which they can’t plan for the future, they can’t plan their budgets, they can’t plan the kind of decisions to grow their companies. The tax and regulatory burdens are breaking their backs, and they deserve a government that actually stands for them instead of just the big corporate financiers that the prime minister seems to be focusing on. MH: The government says it’s driving an ambitious economic agenda. On the other hand, your party is calling for cuts to wasteful spending, reduced debt and deficits, and the elimination of fuel taxes. What Canadians should maybe be asked to sacrifice for any of that? SM: Axing the gas tax, that we’re asking for today, comes at no cost because the gas that’s being distributed is American supplied. What we’re asking for is common sense in our national budgetary process. Where you axe consultants, you axe excessive bureaucracy, you axe the things that are slowing down our economy and overburdening our regulatory environment. There’s plenty of foreign aid, that I could itemise for you, that are certainly not priorities for the Canadian taxpayer today. And in all of those things, we demand a budget that actually has some focus on returning to balance at some point. This has been an out-of-control financial cycle, and often the prime minister is avoiding the kind of accountability he deserves over it because, at the end of the day, he’s had a year and a half to make the big decisions to unlock our economy and to recruit investment, and none of those things have been made. MH: A lot of the economic decisions are being driven by the trade war with the neighbour to the south. What is your party looking to come of recently renewed talks, especially in the shadow of the midterms and the Democrats taking control of both the Senate and the House of Representatives in January? SM: The prime minister has been using trade negotiations with the United States as a political foil domestically, as a cover for his policy decisions at every turn. Nothing structurally changes with the United States because no American party ran on relieving or ending the tariffs that have been imposed on Canada. They all fell short of that. I think we can expect that Congress is going to be a bit discombobulated as 70 new legislators find their feet in their chamber, both in the House and in the Senate. We don’t know what the president will do. The prime minister has our sympathy when it comes to dealing with an unpredictable president and in confronting unjustified tariffs. The big decisions that we can control are the things that affect our own economy. We should be making the big decisions now to be able to deal with Washington and with the world, and that’s much of what we just discussed in the budgetary segment here in terms of how we, as a country, can unlock and unleash economic growth, lower costs on our people, secure livelihoods, and secure their paychecks at every turn. Those are things that we can control. That’s not something that necessarily will change in the context of the new politics that we see presented in the United States. MH: Your leader, Pierre Poilievre, indicated today he’s going back to the U.S. to talk trade. How soon? Who do you see him meeting? What does he bring to the table that could move the Team Canada dynamic? SM: We have been ready to talk to anybody to achieve the objective of tariff-free trade for Canada in the United States. No American we’ve really engaged with has actually indicated support for tariffs, and I think that’s something that will have to be taken into the measure of American policymaking. Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre has been successfully nonpartisan in the United States, advocating how it is in the American interest to lower prices and lower costs. One of the main issues in the last election campaign in the United States was that the price inflation is outrunning the actual paychecks that people are earning. The costs of gas and diesel are soaring. Canada is the perfect partner for the United States in stabilising both of those major issues, and we can advocate for that at the state level, at the national level, and we’ll continue to do so in the road ahead. We’re bringing a real Team Canada approach to developing a case for Canada and the United States, which I think is a bit more different than what we see from the prime minister, who just continues to negotiate things in secret and refuses to disclose the terms on which he walked away from the deal. Or even indicating whether, at one time, better no deal than a bad deal, and then last week saying, well maybe a bad deal is better than no deal. We’re not getting a clear sense of direction from him on how he intends to successfully conclude a tariff-free access trade negotiation with the United States.
