On April 16, 2024, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland delivered the 2024 federal budget.
What most political observers have failed to realize is that this budget will determine much, much more than simply the federal government’s spending priorities for the next year.
This is really an election budget. It is filled full of progressive initiatives. Touted as a budget for Gen Z and Millennials, the budget contains some key commitments, including:
- Unlocking nearly 3.9 million homes by 2031 through initiatives such as converting unused federal offices to housing; building homes on Canada Post properties; possibility building on National Defence properties; and building apartments.
- Taxing vacant land to encourage more home building.
- Updating housing cost calculations in the Canada Student Housing program.
- Increasing taxes on capital gains.
- Offering disability benefit amounts up to $200 per month for low income, working-age individuals with disabilities.
The budget also contains a number of new laws and amendments, including:
- Establishing a ‘right to disconnect’ to limit work-related communication outside of scheduled working hours.
- No more switching fees for home internet, home phone and cell phone plans.
- Cracking down on the payday loan industry.
- Harsher penalties for car thieves.
Much of the credit for this positive shift in priorities goes to Jagmeet Singh, leader of the federal New Democratic Party (NDP). Unfortunately for Singh, this success seems unlikely to result in higher polling numbers for his party. There is already some indication that potential NDP voters could switch to voting Liberal if current Conservative strength holds.
However, even the potential for voters to ultimately switch to the Liberals in the 2025 federal election might not be enough to save Trudeau. All recent polling shows that support for Trudeau is far behind that for federal Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre. If these numbers do not improve soon for the Liberals, the knives will come out for Trudeau, given the fact that the election is at most only 18 months away.
Certainly right-wing voters dislike Trudeau intensely, although they are unlikely to vote Liberal in any case. More of a problem lies with previous Liberal voters, such as the Newfoundland woman who summed up her change of opinion , saying, “I just cannot take Justin Trudeau anymore.”
If the goody-filled budget fails to narrow the polling gap appreciably, and narrow it soon, Liberal back benchers will begin saying publicly what they have been saying privately for many months – every Prime Minister has a shelf life and Justin Trudeau is now well past his best before date. The metaphorical starting gun will have been fired for contenders to come out of hiding and to begin openly campaigning to replace him.
Do not be surprised if one of the first out of the gate is former Bank of Canada Governor, Mark Carney. I have long predicted that he is the one who will succeed Justin Trudeau.
One school of thought is that Poilievre’s numbers are as high as they are mainly due to the public dislike of Trudeau, rather than a broader dislike of the federal Liberals. Fingers crossed that no matter who ultimately replaces Trudeau, Poilievre’s polling numbers drop like a stone, if/when the federal Liberals finally get around to choosing a fresh, new face.
If nothing changes, next year Canadian voters will be faced with choosing the less bad of two poor options for Prime Minister.
Daily atmospheric CO2 [Courtesy of CO2.Earth]
Latest daily total (April 22, 2024): 427.21ppm
One year ago (April 23, 2023): 423.64ppm
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