Pennies, pensions and pipelines were front and centre Thursday as Finance Minister Jim Flaherty delivered his federal budget.

Pennies are history, Old Age Security will kick in at 67 starting in 2023 and pipeline projects will be fasttracked.

Cross-border shoppers are winners with the government increasing the amount of goods that can be brought home from the U.S. without paying duty.

B.C. Finance Minister Kevin Falcon called the budget "good for B.C. and for Canada".

The government has promised to balance the books by 2015-16. This year's deficit is forecast to be about $25 billion.

Of particular relevance to resourcerich B.C. is Ottawa's promise to legislate "improvements" to the review process for major resource projects, such as Enbridge Inc.'s controversial Northern Gateway pipeline project, which proposes to transport crude oil from Alberta's oilsands to a port in Kitimat.

The government has also promised to spend more ensuring pipelines and oil tankers are safe and change immigration laws to provide skilled workers for the booming oil and gas industry in Western Canada.

Falcon said Ottawa's goal of achieving a "one-project, one-review" regulatory process is exactly what B.C. needs.

"The announcement that the federal government made where there will be discipline around the time frames of these investments, I'll tell you, is a very significant signal [to investors]," said Falcon.

"Most business would actually prefer a fast 'no' than a very long drawn-out, 'I don't know.'"

Environmental critics in B.C., who have spent the past few months protesting Enbridge Inc.'s project, were quick to shoot down Ottawa's regulatory reforms, claiming it will do nothing more than weaken the environmental-assessment process and put the province's wildlife and water systems at risk.

Kinder Morgan also wants to expand its Trans Mountain pipeline that carries oil from Edmonton to Burnaby.

"Private power projects, which do great damage to B.C.'s wild rivers and fish, could also exploit these changes as could the proposed New Prosperity Mine project near Fish Lake" in the Cariboo-Chilcotin area, Gwen Barlee, policy director for the Wilderness Committee, said in a statement.

Environmental groups are expected to come under fire from the federal government, which announced $8 million to allow the Canada Revenue Agency to audit registered charities the government deems too political.

The government also stated it would spend $101 million upgrading the Esquimalt Graving Dock, maintaining 1,300 jobs in Greater Victoria.

Included in the budget are plans to eliminate the penny (estimated to save $11 million a year) and slash 19,200 public-service jobs in the next three years.

The CBC will see its government funding slashed by $115 million by 2014-15, a 10-per-cent cut.

Jock Finlayson, executive vice-president of the Business Council of B.C., said local business will be pleased with the extension of the hiring credit, which exempts businesses from employment-insurance premiums on new positions.

The $500 million earmarked for venture capital funds will also help many local businesses, especially in the tech sector, get up and running, Finlayson said.

"Overall, I think the budget confirms that Canada is in reasonably good shape compared to many advanced economies," he said.

"I think the budget will get a thumbs-up from financial markets and business, both here in B.C. and across the country."

Meanwhile, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business said the budget offered some "positive news for small business" but did not go "fast or far" enough in tackling government spending, the deficit, public-service compensation and pensions.

The budget included no major tax reductions or increases.