On Monday, prime minister Justin Trudeau was on Vox’s “Today, Explained” podcast, and one of the topics was how he is fighting populism in Canada. While you have to wade through a bunch of sales pitches about the budget in there, you get to the part where Trudeau does talk about trying to counter populism by doing the work rather than just complaining (the “everything is broken,”) and while I take his point, there are plenty of examples in this very budget where they aren’t doing the work (like the Canada Disability Benefit), or where they are promising things years down the road. “Democracies ..read more

It’s strange and uncomfortable to watch a minister of the Crown absolutely shit the bed on national television, and yet disabilities minister Kamal Khera did just that on Power & Politics yesterday when she was put up to defend the absolutely inadequate Canada Disability Benefit announcement in the budget. Khera had about three talking points prepared for the interview—and they weren’t short talking points, but they were talking points nevertheless—and she kept repeating them no matter what question was asked, remixing them slightly every time to make it look like she was not just saying t ..read more

I am a bit bemused by some of the post-budget thinkpieces out there, but the one that took the cake for me over the weekend was CBC’s “Can Trudeau’s budget restore ‘generational fairness’? Economists say don’t bet on it.” I mean, of course not. It’s one budget trying to shift the inertia of decades of wealth accumulation by one particular generation that has given no cares at all for what this leaves the following generations in their wake, and now they’re getting the vapours that the next generations may not be as well-off as them, as though a lot of them haven’t pulled the ladder up behind t ..read more

The premiers are at it again. They’ve written yet another letter to Justin Trudeau to complain about the budget, and all of the ways that it infringes on their jurisdiction, and to call for a return to a “cooperative approach” that means just giving them “unconditional federal funding.” (It was also hilarious to watch certain premiers complain about federal spending as though they also weren’t running their own deficits, while simultaneously demanding more money from the federal government). And I get that they’re concerned that the costs of these new programmes will be downloaded onto them if ..read more

In a radio interview yesterday, Pierre Poilievre claimed that the proposed federal pharmacare programme would force people to give up their existing private insurance and onto a federal programme—something that is entirely no true, and boggling as to how he could think that, particularly because the government has been pretty clear that to start, the only thing it proposes to cover are diabetes medications and devices, and contraception. (This is, of course, subject to provincial approval, because the federal government can’t do this on its own). In spite of being called out by health minister ..read more

Neither the prime minister nor his deputy were present today, as they started their cross-country sales budget, and I will say it was quite a neat trick where the one day Chrystia Freeland showed up was the day Trudeau gave all the answers, so that nobody can ask her about the budget. As for the other leaders, none of them were present. Melissa Lantsman led off, and raised the biggest gold heist in history and that the suspects are already out on bail (because they’re not violent criminals?) Arif Virani noted that they passed significant bail reform legislation already, and that the budget has ..read more

There was the extremely rare instance of a private citizen being summoned to the bar of the House of Commons yesterday to be admonished and to be ordered to answer questions—something that hasn’t happened since 1913. The person in question was Kristian Firth, one of the partners of GC Strategies, who was part of the ArriveCan imbroglio, and he was summoned for refusing to answer questions at committee and prevaricating in cases, and was accused of lying to the committee in other circumstances. As expected, this became a dog-and-pony show from the very get-go, because that’s about the level at ..read more

Wednesday post-budget, and both the prime minister and his deputy were present, as were all of the other leaders who wanted their camera time decrying the budget, Pierre Poilievre led off in French, and gave a direct-to-camera appeal of “who will pay for this orgy of spending” and claimed it wouldn’t be the wealthy, but “you, the ones who are paying too much taxes. The Speaker warned him that comments need to be directed through the chair. Trudeau insisted that Poilievre was defending the wealthy, while he was defending the Middle Class. Poilievre insisted that after nine deficits, it was not ..read more

It was Budget Day, and as per usual with this government, any fiscal room that opened up, they spent and kept their deficit figures about the same. (Full document here). There were some minor tax increases on the top 0.1 percent and corporations, but apparently not as bad as some of the business lobby feared, though the way some of them went to bat for trickle-down economics this week was…something. The overall theme has been about “generational fairness,” which they want to push as the Liberals desperately need to reclaim Millennial and Gen Z voters who are currently flocking to Poilievre, no ..read more

As the countdown to the budget release was underway, neither the prime minister nor his deputy were present, and while she had the excuse of being in the budget lock-up meeting with journalists, I’m not sure the PM’s excuse. Most of the other leaders were also present, and Pierre Poilievre led off in French, read off his slogans, and then claimed that the “millionaire prime minister’s” friends who never pay for the cost of his spending, but welders and single mothers. François-Philippe Champagne insisted that the Conservatives have no vision and no plan, and nothing but new slogans, while a co ..read more