Finance Minister Joe Oliver is expected to announce Thursday when the federal budget will be released.
Oliver will make an announcement at 9 a.m. at the Canada Goose factory in Toronto, after weeks of speculation about the budget and its release.
In January, Oliver said he would be delaying the budget due to economic uncertainty caused by falling oil prices.
Documents obtained by CTV News show that the Conservative government plans to spend $7.5 million to promote the budget.
The expected cost of the ad campaign was included in a tender issued by the Department of Finance, CTV’s Richard Madan reported Wednesday.
When pressed about a budget release date during question period Wednesday, Prime Minister Stephen Harper didn’t directly answer the question, but said that his government has already announced some important measures, such as income-splitting for families and a boost to the universal child care benefit.
Meanwhile, Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau accused the Conservatives of sacrificing important programs such as the youth employment strategy to spend $7.5 million on budget advertising.
“When will the prime minister finally understand that taxpayer funds should be used to help Canadians, not the Conservative Party?” he said during question period.
Harper ignored the question and responded with a dig at the Liberals’ election campaign strategy.
“When it comes to the Liberal platform, I would just say that somebody has to write it,” Harper said to laughter and cheers from Conservative MPs.
