All the federal budget speculation that’s fit to print + MORE Apr 21st

OTTAWA – More newcomers will have access to federal loans to help get their professional training up to Canadian standards as part of today’s federal budget.
A government source tells The Canadian Press that the pilot foreign credential recognition loan program is set to be made permanent.
The program dates back to the 2011 election campaign, when the Conservatives promised to do more to help internationally-trained workers find jobs in their field once they arrived in Canada.
Or, as the Tories often put it, to ensure that doctors don’t come to Canada and end up driving cabs.
An often-cited problem was the fact that many immigrants didn’t have the financial means to take the exams or courses required by Canadian regulations and lacked credit history to get bank loans to cover the costs.
In 2012, the government introduced a three-year pilot loan program aimed at solving those problems and provided up to $15,000 in support.
The money can be used for anything from covering tuition for training to the price for licensing exams, even child care if it means a person can go back to school to upgrade their skills to match Canadian standards…

IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde says government spending is needed to boost growth ( AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
Finance Minister Joe Oliver skipped the annual spring gathering of the world’s top economic officials in Washington last week. It was just as well. He would not have liked what the International Monetary Fund (IMF) had to say.
The IMF was once a reliable ally of policymakers who see balanced budgets and lower taxes as the answer to every economic problem. The institution in the 1980s and 1990s was the champion of the “Washington Consensus,” the name given to the kit of free-market policies the IMF would force on any country in need of a bailout.
But the IMF has become far less doctrinaire under the leadership of Christine Lagarde, the former French finance minister. Lagarde had a simple message for finance ministers: Unless you are broke, you should be using fiscal policy to generate economic growth. The IMF predicts the global economy will expand 3.5 per cent in 2015—about the same as last year, but dramatically slower than the five per cent rates that preceded the financial crisis…

It’s the day you’ve been waiting for! (Probably.)
At last, at long last, it is finally federal budget day. Let the debate – over everything from unemployment, to tax-free savings, to child care benefits, to stimulus – begin (and then we can hash it all over again tomorrow morning.) Wholesale trade numbers will also be out for Canada today.
It’s also a busy week in company news, as second quarter earnings season picks up. Yesterday, Rogers (which owns Maclean’s) reported quarterly earnings, coming in under expectations at $225 million, and down 17 per cent from the same period last year – even as overall revenue was slightly up. The company blamed some of the losses on the CRTC’s regulatory changes. The long-running hearings on the Canadian telecommunications industry, Let’s Talk TV, have highlighted Canadians’ changing relationships with their TVs (and phones). In other company news, yesterday Guy Laliberté confirmed Cirque du Soleil will be sold for $1…

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With a valuation of $1.5-billion and a high risk factor, the new owners will have to hope for a solid reception to their shows