Yesterday, Canada’s Finance Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland announced the 2023 federal budget “A Made-in-Canada Plan”. With the pandemic in the rear-view mirror and financial uncertainty on the horizon, the Federal Budget takes a targeted look at sustainable spending while continuing to follow-through on programs, all while bringing the deficit down.

The 2023 federal budget looks at key investments in green technology, on our path to a net[1]zero economy, along with healthcare spending, to stop the struggle of our over-capacity system. With inflation slowing, the budget attempts to strategically spend to stimulate the economy to help Canadians manage the expected economic turbulence on the horizon. The federal government is expecting a deficit of $40.1 billion in budget 2023-2024, a small reduction from the 2022 budget of $43 billion. The federal government is projecting deficits to come down throughout the subsequent years.

Budget highlights include:


• Banning Cosmetic Testing on Animals: In Budget 2023, the government proposes to amend the Food and Drugs Act to ban cosmetic testing on animals. The proposed amendments would prohibit: testing cosmetics on animals in Canada; selling cosmetics that rely on animal testing data to establish the product’s safety, with some exceptions; and false or misleading labelling pertaining to the testing of cosmetics on animals.

• Lowering Credit Card Transaction Fees for Small Businesses: In Budget 2023, the government is announcing that it has secured commitments from Visa and Mastercard to lower fees for small businesses, while also protecting reward points for Canadian consumers offered by Canada’s large banks.

Pets Canada members* will have also received an email invite from the CFIB to an upcoming webinar that will discuss the impacts of this budget on small to medium businesses.  

*Independently owned, Canadian-based members of Pets Canada automatically receive business discounts and resources via a complimentary membership with the Canadian Federation of Independent Business

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