"It was shocking."

That is how Provencher Member of Parliament Ted Falk describes the federal budget unveiled Monday afternoon by the Liberal government.

Falk says it was alarming to hear confirmation of a $354 billion deficit for last year, followed by an anticipated $154 billion deficit for this year.

"Which is a phenomenal amount of money," says Falk.

He notes the Liberals announced plenty of different spending initiatives but did not present a plan for repayment of that debt.

"We know deficit budgets lead to increased debt and there has to be a repayment plan for that debt and that's one glaring omission from the presentation that we heard," he says.

Falk notes he also would have liked this budget to address Canada's crumbling infrastructure and wishes the Liberals would have listened to the requests from provinces.

"I know all the provinces had asked for increased health care transfers and lots of them are facing a significant increase in their costs because of COVID-19 and so they had requested increases in their budgets which they already felt were not adequate to run their existing programs," he explains. "I would have liked to have seen a little bit more consideration given to the provinces' requests, that didn't happen."

Meanwhile, Falk has taken issue with the $30 billion announced for early learning and child care.

He notes when the Conservatives first introduced the Universal Child Care Benefit years ago, they put emphasis on giving parents the ability and choice to make decisions based on what is best for their families in regards to child care. The Liberals eventually changed the name of that program to Canada Child Benefit and increased the funding. He notes now the Liberals have come out with a national daycare program which is basically a "big government knows best, approach."

"I think that really is not a positive thing," says Falk. "I think the approach of supporting families with children, the way we've been doing it the last dozen or so years, has been effective. It's not discriminatory to parents who make the decision to have one of the spouses stay home and provide primary child care. But in fact it treats families equally in the aspect that it gives them all the same amount of money to raise their children and make decisions on what's best for their families."

Also, as part of Budget 2021, Falk says the Liberals plan to increase old age security benefits. The Conservatives had proposed increasing old age security benefits by $110 for seniors. However, the budget proposes an increase of $64 per month.

Falk says the agriculture sector has again been left out of the budget.

"It's been something I've criticized every year," says Falk. "And no mention of our natural resource sector that's really hurting."

Whether it is oil and gas or mining and forestry, Falk says these traditional sources of economic activity were pretty much left out of the budget.

"For me that was very disappointing," he says.