Three sources familiar with the matter have said a deepening rift between Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his finance minister about coronavirus spending is also fuelled by disagreements over the scope and scale of proposed green initiatives.
Mr Trudeau and Finance Minister Bill Morneau were scheduled to meet today in a bid to sort out their differences, said a fourth source aware of the meeting.
Reuters Newsagency reports the sources requested anonymity given the sensitivity of the situation.
Mr Morneau and his team have pushed back against other Cabinet ministers about how much funding was needed, including to what extent the recovery could be helped by investing in environmental projects, the people added.
Mr Trudeau, who campaigned on a platform to tackle climate change, believes the 2021 budget should have an ambitious environmental element to start weaning the heavily oil-dependent economy off fossil fuels and he recently hired former Bank of England Governor Mark Carney as an informal adviser, aides say.
The appointment, coupled with a Globe and Mail report that Mr Trudeau and Mr Morneau had clashed over the amount of money Ottawa is spending to combat the coronavirus, led to speculation about the future of the finance minister.
Reuters reports Mr Morneau, 57, has been in the job since the Liberals took power in late 2015.
Asked for a reaction, Mr Trudeau’s spokesman Cameron Ahmad noted that the prime minister had issued a statement saying he had “full confidence” in Mr Morneau, who confidants say is alarmed by ballooning budget deficits.
An official working for Mr Morneau said the finance minister was in constant touch with the Trudeau team on policy files.
“There are always discussions, but that’s typical,” said the official, adding that Mr Morneau had been clear “that we would need to invest for recovery.”
Environment Minister Jonathan Wilkinson along with Infrastructure Minister Catherine McKenna, a former environment minister, have met with top civil servants to discuss options that could involve billions of dollars in extra spending, said one of the three sources.
Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault also attended the meetings.
Mr Morneau’s resistance to expensive environmental initiatives reflects his roots in Bay Street, Toronto’s financial centre, and a view held among right-leaning Liberals that deficits are out of control.
“The idea of greening the economy just by spending money on every project you have in front of you is not really serious,” said a fifth source sympathetic to Mr Morneau’s position.
Possible budget measures range from investments to help provinces reduce their carbon footprints, boosting research into clean technology and encouraging the construction of efficient buildings.
“Mr Morneau has been saying: ‘We need to get a grip.’ And that isn’t always popular,” said one of the three sources familiar with the matter.
Canada’s budget deficit is forecast to hit US$253.4 billion, the largest shortfall since World War Two, this fiscal year.
Total coronavirus support is nearly 14 per cent of gross domestic product.
“He was not very keen on a huge deficit; that’s not what he wanted as his legacy,” said a sixth source familiar with Mr Morneau’s thinking.
Problems between a finance minister and colleagues with ambitious proposals are not unusual.
“Every single department in government that spends money ends up butting heads with Finance,” said the fifth source.
Reuters reports Mr Morneau is feeling increasingly isolated at the Cabinet table, with no close allies, according to the source.
Adding to Mr Morneau’s challenges, several Cabinet members were upset when he disclosed he had forgotten to repay travel expenses covered for him by a charity at the heart of an ethics probe, one of the three sources said.
Mr Morneau and Mr Trudeau are facing ethics inquiries related to the charity.
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