2012 Canadian federal budget
The Canadian federal budget for fiscal year 2012–13 was presented to the House of Commons of Canada by Finance Minister Jim Flaherty on 29 March 2012.[20] Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada announced in April 2012 that it would close the Cereal Research Centre operated at the University of Manitoba.[25] In November 2012, the Treasury Board president Tony Clement stated that the federal government had cut 10,980 public service jobs, of which 7,500 were by attrition or not replacing employees who had quit.[27] Flaherty explained that the one-year extension on the Mineral Exploration Tax Credit and Small Business Hiring Tax Credit introduced in the 2012 budget are business incentives "to compel Canadian corporations to invest some $525 billion of dead cash back into the economy."[28] In their analysis of the 2012 budget the Canadian Labour Congress argued that "non-financial corporations" have used their federal incentives and tax cuts[note 1] to "buy up their own shares, to increase dividends, and to increase their cash holdings" which amounted to "close to $500 billion of surplus cash" that they were not investing in job creation.