Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative government will bring down the federal budget at approximately 4 p.m. (EST) today.
The following faculty members at the University of British Columbia have expertise in key areas related to the federal budget and are available to comment:
Prof. James Brander, Sauder School of Business, Strategy and Business Economics Division
Contact: 604.822.8483; james.brander@sauder.ubc.ca
“The biggest issue for the current budget concerns the tradeoff between maintaining economic stimulus until the economic recovery is secure while moving to reduce the deficit before it gets out of control and without significant tax increases. Getting the timing right is a challenge and any expenditure control always creates negative political fallout.”
Dr. Robert Belton, Dean, Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies
Contact: 250.470.1070; robert.belton@ubc.ca
“The Olympics cost $8 billion and served to show our best to the world and generate national pride in our accomplishments. Meanwhile, the average Canada Council operating grant for arts organizations in 2009 was $35,000. If we had spent that Olympic money on the arts, which serve the same purpose, we could have supported 22,857 groups. Once we identify the relative bang-for-the-buck-coefficients fairly and objectively, we might just find that investment in the arts actually makes more sense. It’s time to adjust our thinking about investing in the arts.”
Prof. Allan Tupper, Head, Dept. of Political Science
Contact: 604.827.3387 ; allan.tupper@ubc.ca
Areas of expertise: Canadian national politics, provincial politics and public policy
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