FEDERAL BUDGET AIMED AT LONG-TERM VISION
Finance Minister Bill Morneau tabled a federal budget Tuesday that charts a clear course for the Liberals to the 2019 election, an aspirational road map designed to ensure that no woman, scientist or national wildlife area gets left behind.
“It is a plan that puts people first — that invests in Canadians and in the things that matter most to them,’’ Morneau told the House of Commons in his budget speech.
The document, which details a $18.1-billion deficit, including a $3-billion adjustment for risk, also shows the Liberal government is doubling down on the idea that spending money — even borrowed money — is good for the longterm future of Canadians. Once again, there is also no timeline for getting back to black.
“We’ve shown to Canadians that making investments in them, making investments to allow more Canadians to be working, has exactly the positive impact that we want it to have,’’ Morneau told a news conference Tuesday when pressed on that point.
The Liberals are making that argument most strongly when devoting those dollars to causes near to their progressive hearts, as well as to those of Canadians who might be thinking about casting a ballot their way in October of next year. The budget, as expected, puts a large emphasis on gender equality, particularly with efforts to increase the participation of women in the workforce as part of a longer-term plan to grow the economy and prepare for the consequences of an aging population.
“We know that the way to best impact our long-term demographics is to get every Canadian with a real and fair chance not only work, but to have really good work, and we start with women,’’ Morneau said before the budget was tabled.
“If half of our population are held back, we’re just not going to be as successful.’’
One big part of that plan is to introduce up to five weeks of leave — with employment insurance benefits that come with a starting cost of $1.2 billion over five years — for new fathers, as a way to help break the pattern of mothers automatically taking on the greater share child-rearing responsibilities, and losing earning power as a result.
It also includes measure to boost the number of women entrepreneurs, as well as those in the trades and the fields of science, technology, engineering and math.
The budget, for the first time in Canadian history, also went through a full gender-based analysis, which involved thinking about how every single measure would impact men, women, boys and girls in different ways, while taking other intersecting factors such as age, ethnicity, income and disability into account. The Liberals are also promising legislation that would enshrine gender-based analysis in the budget-making process, forcing themselves — and, technically, future governments — to repeat the exercise every year and continue tracking their progress on equality.