On Monday April 19, 2021, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland tabled the Liberal government’s 2021-22 Budget in Parliament.
On a positive historic note, Freeland is the first female Finance Minister to table a Budget in the 154 years since Confederation.
However, this Budget is also historic in size, and with the COVID-19 pandemic hitting in 2020, it’s been over two years since March 2019 that an official budget has been tabled. Last year’s confirmed $354 billion deficit plus this year’s $154 billion projected deficit will take the national debt over $1 trillion for the first time ever.
Much of the Budget deals with plotting a path toward recovery from the pandemic. This summary includes selected parts of those broad strokes, and otherwise highlights individual and small business tax, and initiatives targeted at the individual and small business level that may affect financial planning decisions.