GRIP AND GRIN — CHRYSTIA FREELAND continues her budget promo tour today in St. John’s after spending Monday manifesting Canada’s net-zero industrial dreams in the heart of Toronto’s finance district.
“We're going to build a clean electrical grid that connects Canadians from coast to coast to coast,” she said to roughly 200 white-collar workers at First Canadian Place. “We're going to make Canada the very best place in your world for businesses to invest,” she said to the crowd, seated at 27 tables, who politely clapped during the breaks in her speech. “We're going to make Canada a reliable supplier of clean energy to our allies and to the world,” she said to the luncheon audience, dining on pan-seared salmon. “We're going to build big things here in Canada,” Freeland said. — Spotted: Toronto Liberal MPs JULIE DABRUSIN, JULIE DZEROWICZ and FRANCESCO SORBARA. Oshawa Mayor DAN CARTER, former Toronto city councillor ANA BAILÃO. PMO photog ALEX TÉTREAULT. But before Freeland dropped into echoing budget key messages, JAN DE SILVA, president and CEO of the Toronto Region Board of Trade, introduced the deputy prime minister using some blunt language. “Our members worry, the budget misses the mark for large cities,” De Silva said, calling for a “robust federal response” to city budgets being blown by increased costs related to immigration and refugees and transit, infrastructure and lingering pandemic issues. — Budget blindspot: Freeland mentioned immigration twice during her 18-minute keynote. It was the first question posed to her in the friendly fireside chat at the front of the room. Nearly 45 percent of newcomers live in either Toronto or Montreal, De Silva said, a historical trend she said has had a disproportionate impact on big cities. The fiscal model for large cities, she said, is “ill equipped” to grow capacity and support surges in housing costs to help newcomer refugees. — “Canadian secret sauce”: Freeland addressed the questions with a lengthy preamble, calling immigration Canada’s “secret sauce” and a reason she’s optimistic. “I am a child of multicultural Canada,” she said. Freelan said 2022 was "the housing budget." She referred questions about revamping municipal fiscal models to her provincial counterparts. “I would urge people to ride your bike or walk or drive up the street and knock on the doors of Queen's Park. We're seeing a strong fiscal position in Ontario,” she said. “That's a good place to be seeking support if that's what the City of Toronto needs.” — Photo-op ‘n shop: Freeland later switched out of her green suit set for jeans to get on her bike to ride, with her RCMP security officer, to Toronto’s Annex neighborhood for a photo-op at a mini outpost of Galleria Supermarket, a popular Korean grocery store. Trudeau did something similar in Val-d’Or around the same time. Freeland said the store is frequented by her children, who go to school in the area. She joked she has spent a lot of money there as a result. Inside, her photo-op turned into a legitimate grocery shop. She turned down her grocery guide’s pitch to try Korean skincare items. “I don’t have time,” she said. MEANWHILE IN QUEBEC — Prime Minister JUSTIN TRUDEAU made a budget tour stop in Quebec’s Abitibi region where he told reporters the federal government initially underestimated how many Canadians would need to be covered by Ottawa’s new dental care program. The prime minister was asked why the estimated cost of the program has ballooned to C$13 billion over five years, from the C$6 billion figure included in last year’s budget. “As we’ve developed it, the initial estimate of how much it would cost has actually gone up because the need is far greater than people suspected,” Trudeau said. “But that’s why it’s so important to do it.” — Number crunch: Trudeau said 250,000 kids have taken advantage of the government’s temporary dental benefit for uninsured children under the age of 12 whose families have a household income of less than C$90,000. That benefit is set to be replaced by a permanent government-administered insurance program, which will be available this year to people under the age of 18, seniors and people with disabilities. The program will be expanded to all uninsured Canadians who meet the income requirement by 2025, as a key condition of the Liberals’ supply-and-confidence agreement with the NDP. The government estimates the program will eventually cover nine million people. — In related reading: Bloomberg’s ERIK HERTZBERG reports: Trudeau spending seen drawing out Bank of Canada inflation fight. Know someone who could use Ottawa Playbook? Direct them to this link . Five days a week, zero dollars. | 
