Adam Scotti

Federal budgets are, like so many things, more complicated than they used to be. The 2024 model tabled by Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland landed in: a post-pandemic, polycrisis-besieged, propaganda-addled geopolitical context; a poll-dominated, tactically polarized, propaganda-addled political context; and a post-pandemic, monetary policy-dominated economic context which, as Policy contributors former Privy Council Clerk Kevin Lynch and former White House economic aide Paul Deegan remind us, was labelled the “Tepid Twenties” last week by the International Monetary Fund. The Liberal government is headed toward an election scheduled for 2025, the 10th year of Justin Trudeau’s tenure as prime minister, an anniversary by which most governments would have, in normal times, exhausted their welcome with voters. As Policy contributor John Delacourt put it in his budget piece, “It’s like the third hour of Oppenheimer in the theatre of government, when the seats start to creak and you can hear the car keys jangle.” But, as Trudeau and Freeland are arguing, these are not normal times. With democracy under assault around the world — directly by illiberal authoritarians and right-wing populists in some places and indirectly by narrative warfare and performative propaganda globally — this government, like Joe Biden’s, has an existential argument for re-election. “Democracy is not inevitable,” Freeland told the House in her budget speech. “It has succeeded and succeeds because it has delivered a good life for the middle class.” That delivery has been framed by this year’s budget tag line, “Fairness for every generation”.

We have a full package of Budget 2024 reaction pieces for you, starting with the all-important fiscal portrait from Policy contributor and Institute of Fiscal Studies and Democracy President Kevin Page, with Yasmine Hadid and Hunter Vanderlaan. Here’s Budget 2024: The Cost of Fairness.

From Kevin Lynch and Paul Deegan, a hybrid of their annual IMF Spring Meetings dispatch and a budget reaction piece. “With the Canadian budget released during the 2024 IMF Spring Meetings,” Lynch and Deegan write, “it raises the obvious question: how does its policy priorities and fiscal actions align with the IMF’s advice?” Here’s A Global context for Canada’s Budget: The IMF’s ‘Policy Tests’.

In our political reaction pieces, we have Policy contributing writer, Counsel Public Affairs Senior VP and our favourite novelist John Delacourt with The Third Act Budget. “If a third-act twist leading to a surprise fourth act could indeed be possible for Trudeau and the Liberals,” writes Delacourt, “this budget might just be remembered as the signal moment of its turn.”

From longtime NDP strategist and Policy contributor Brian Topp, we have The Price of Progress: The NDP and the 2024 Budget, on how the party’s supply and confidence agreement with the minority Liberal government is impacted by this budget. In the end, writes Topp, “barring surprising developments, this budget will get passed.”

On the Conservative side, Policy contributor and Pendulum Group partner Yaroslav Baran invokes Marie Antoinette in Will the Budget Move the Liberal Re-Election Needle? Likely Not. “The Opposition’s reaction was predictable,” writes Baran. “The Conservatives criticized the budget as a high-spending, out-of-touch manifesto that fails to bring down tax levels to address the affordability needs of Canadians.”

From our friends at the Business Council of Canada, an excellent piece on the Indigenous Ownership provisions of the budget. “Canada must attract and incentivize more capital investment to meet the economic and energy challenges ahead,” write First Nations Major Projects Coalition Chief Sustainability Officer Mark Podlasly, FNMPC VP of Policy Shaun Fantauzzo and BCC VP/Policy Michael Gullo. “Leveraging Indigenous partnerships is one way to do this.” Here’s Budget 2024: The Competitive Advantage of Indigenous Ownership.

From Policy contributing writer and Dalhousie University Faculty of Management prof Lori Turnbull, a must-read breakdown of the all-important housing elements of the budget. While warning of the hazards — from fed-prov jurisdictional and political entanglements to the implementation factor — Turnbull writes, “There is reason to believe that the proposed federal housing strategy is a comprehensive one that could make a big difference.” Here’s Budget 2024: Housing Remedy or House of Cards?

From the Max Bell School of Pubic Policy, Master of Public Policy candidate Adrita Rahman writing in our Emerging Voices section, a standup pre-budget piece on an idea whose time has come. “Countries including the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Italy, Norway, Sweden, Mexico, Ghana, India, Kenya, Brazil, Thailand, Honduras and others,” writes Rachman, “have realized the significance of citizens budgets and have incorporated them in their respective fiscal and communications planning.” Here’s Canada Doesn’t Have a Citizens Budget. It Should.

And, last but never least, our own Policy columnist and Canadian news icon Don Newman, with the must-read budget column, A Budget for a Disenchanted Base.

Many thanks to all our contributors, enjoy the series and thank you, as always, for reading Policy.

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