The Federal Liberal Party unveiled their new budget yesterday (February 27th) and already, members of the opposition are criticizing it.

Airdrie Conservative MP Blake Richards says while there are some beneficial parts to the budget, he's not certain that the Liberals will follow through with them.

"They're sort of trumpeting all these things they might do sometime in the future rather than really seeing anything that we really feel will make a difference for Canadians. There's a lot of money being spent here but when I think Canadians will look at this budget, they're gonna say, 'i'm not sure where I see the benefit in this'."

In the Budget, the Liberals are plannning to spend $25 billion over the next 6 years, with most of the money going to Environmental and Science Services and to First Nations communities.

Richards believes that one of the budget promises, to introduce pay equity legislation for Federal workers, is a step in the right direction but he'll wait and see if the government actually takes the steps to make that happen.

Unfortunately, there was one item the Airdrie MP said was completely missing from the budget: Infrastructure spending.

"I don't even think I saw the word infrastructure in this budget once. There's a lot of people in our community that are sitting there saying 'i'm still out of work, I don't think our economy has improved a whole heck of a lot. I don't see any infrastructure that's been built in my community as a result either.' It sort of demonstrates this all talk and no action sort of situation and that's where my concerns lie with this more than anything."

Under the new budget, the Liberals are projecting a deficit of $18.1 Billion dollars which means their election plan to balance the budget by 2019 is all but lost.

Richards explains what the Conservatives would have done had they been running the country's finances right now.

"The very easy answer off the top is, we would have made sure that we had a balanced budget. That's what we left this government with 2 and a half years ago."

Yesterday, Alberta Finance Minister Joe Ceci says he was pleased with the Federal support for Children in Indigenous Reserves and the call for pay equity. He feels, however, there are still some unanswered questions as to how the equalization legislation will work and if the Indigenous funding will be enough for Alberta communities. 

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