New Democrats give finance minister list of federal budget demands

OTTAWA — The NDP has released a budgetary wish list that includes scrapping income splitting and lowering the age of eligibility for Old Age Security back to 65.

NDP finance critic Nathan Cullen wrote Sunday to Finance Minister Joe Oliver, outlining what his party would like to see in the next federal budget.

Last week, Oliver said the budget won’t be released until April at the earliest, giving the government more time to evaluate the effect of falling oil prices.

Cullen urged Oliver not to delay the budget “in the hopes oil prices might recover.”

He told the finance minister the NDP would like to see less spending on government advertising and subsidies to oil companies; universal child care that would cost parents no more than $15 a day; and a federal minimum wage brought back and gradually raised to $15 an hour.

Cullen also says the government should reverse its plan to alter how it calculates payments to the provinces and territories, which Canada’s premiers and territorial leaders have said will cost them $36 billion in health transfers over a 10-year period.