From the financial services sector’s perspective, this year’s budget was a rather tame affair. There were no great policy shifts and no big tax changes.

Rather, the government tinkered around the edges, closing some loopholes and making minor adjustments to the tax code. The budget continued to step up the fight against tax evasion and its close cousin, tax avoidance. It also promised to address tax advantages enjoyed by some high earners.

On the regulatory front, the government also was quiet. Work continues on some of the post-global financial crisis reforms that were agreed upon by the G20 in the wake of the crisis, such as shoring up financial stability by taking steps to prevent taxpayer bailouts of big banks and guarding against systemic harm if a critical piece of financial infrastructure runs into solvency trouble. But securities regulation wasn’t mentioned at all in the Trudeau budget; nor was the treatment of retail clients by the big banks.

The one segment of the financial services sector that did get some attention is the venture capital (VC) industry, which was granted its wish for a new government initiative to help drive VC investment, which replaces an old program that’s about to expire.

The feds also pledged to fund a national artificial intelligence (AI) strategy that’s designed to help attract researchers to Canada. While not explicitly targeting the financial services sector, AI appears to hold great promise for the sector and may yet have an indirect impact in the years ahead.

To some extent, this budget surely reflects the rise of policy uncertainty in the world in general, but particularly in the U.S. It appears that the federal government doesn’t want to extend itself too far in any one direction when it’s not clear where the economy of our biggest trading partner is headed.

If Canada’s economy was booming, things may well have been different. But in the prevailing low-growth environment, the government is wise to accept that it has limited room to operate. There isn’t much scope for grand vision.

For now, boring is best.

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