Ahead of the next federal budget, the Canadian House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance (FINA) is now accepting written briefs as part of its pre-budget consultation.
Unlike in recent years, there is no theme other than the Committee stating that “Canadians are Invited to Share Their Priorities for the 2022 Federal Budget.”
It would seem that this year, organizations submitting briefs can pick whatever they want to prioritize. Of course, the current Liberal government has been making a big environment and innovation push. For companies in the space sector, one could surmise that anything related to the environment and innovations in a variety of technologies that could be construed as beneficial to Canadians will be well received.
There is however one twist. At the moment it would seem the pundits are thinking that a fall election is imminent. A good barometer to gage that sentiment will be the summer activities of MP’s. In normal years, they partake in the BBQ circuit and attending a variety of public events. With Canada now tentatively opening-up from the COVID-19 pandemic, it might be more difficult to ‘campaign.’ Listening to speeches should provide some clues as to whether an election is imminent.
If an election is called then government departments will go ‘quiet’ with no new announcements or initiatives except those already approved. The pre-budget consultation would still go forward but the committee meetings would not happen until after the election and parliament is back in session. So when crafting a brief organizations might want to take into account that they may be speaking to a different political party leading the country.
As always, organizations that want to get their message directly in front of MP’s should take advantage of this annual opportunity. Besides submitting a written brief, companies can request to appear in front of the FINA committee in the fall, or after the election, when they take up the matter.
Here are the FINA pre-budget consultation brief guidelines:
“Submissions must be no longer than 2,000 words and be based on the following template. All text contained in the submission, including, but not limited to, graphs, quotes, images and footnotes, counts towards the submission’s 2,000 words limit. Only one submission per individual or organization will be accepted. Following translation, the submissions will be posted on the Committee’s website.”
Briefs will be accepted until Friday, August 6, 2021 at 11:59 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time.