Treasury Board President Anita Anand says her federal cabinet colleagues have been "very receptive" to the plan for all ministers to find $15 billion in spending cuts across government departments, as one of her colleagues vows to protect service programs from getting the axe.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his cabinet are currently amid a three-day retreat in Prince Edward Island, where they're plotting out federal priorities for the fall sitting of Parliament.
The meeting kicked off with a presentation from Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland on the broader "fiscal and economic context" underlining their plans, and a central piece of that is a Budget 2023 commitment to claw back more than $15 billion in planned spending over the next five years.
Speaking to reporters midway through their second day of meetings on Tuesday, Freeland and Anand said ministers have been having "really constructive conversations" about their need to prioritize "fiscal management and prudence," in order to be able to continue to afford some of their big-ticket spending programs such as dental and child care.
"We are really refocusing our spending from pandemic-type spending to the broader economic priorities of our country," Anand said. "In order to deliver for Canadians on these very large priorities, we need to make sure that our fiscal house is prudently managed."
Not long after Anand was shuffled in to her new economic-focused role, she sent a letter to ministers giving them an Oct. 2 deadline to identify areas to cut within their respective departmental budgets, in an effort to reduce spending by $14.1 billion between now and 2028, and $4.1 billion annually in the years following.
Speaking about her colleagues' reception to the plans to claw back spending, Anand described it as "very receptive," noting the government's finances are "ultimately taxpayer dollars."
"The exercise is extremely important, spending reviews have been part of previous governments. But what we are asking departments across the government to do is to take a look at your expenditures and determine where there is the possibility to refocus that spending," the minister said.
While the request has been on the table since the spring, with departments already working to identify cost-saving areas, Indigenous Services Minister Patty Hajdu was unequivocal in an earlier scrum on Tuesday that Freeland and Anand's savings plan won't touch her department's service delivery.
Hajdu said that while she understands Canadians want the Liberals to tighten their purse strings, as many across the country are right now, her core focus in searching for savings is to protect the programs that provide Indigenous people with essential supports.
"Obviously, we can look for duplication in terms of the kinds of roles that civil servants are playing, or various different departmental functions," Hajdu said, but "the red line is anything that affects the quality of life for First Nations people."
"For every minister, it is an exercise in thoughtfulness about how to achieve that goal without impacting services to Canadians, and my department is no different," Hajdu said.
