Mini-budget offers assurances Canadians need

With winter coming and COVID-19’s second wave already sweeping the nation, the biggest worry for Canadians is how they’ll survive the next four months.

How they’ll pay to do this, revive the economy and then make Canada better than ever are all important issues, to be sure. But what matters more than anything else is getting through the coming weeks and months in robust health and financially solvent.

This is where the federal mini-budget unveiled Monday shines most and provides the supports and reassurances for which people yearn. This was Chrystia Freeland’s first big test since replacing Bill Morneau as finance minister in August. On balance, she deserves high marks for focusing most on the here-and-now, then ordering her priorities accordingly.

Guiding Canadians through the pandemic has to top Freeland’s agenda. And here she deserves a grade of A. More than $14 billion has been tagged this year and next to pay for the COVID-19 vaccines Canadians long for. Freeland’s fall fiscal statement is chockfull of new measures, too, including a boost to the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy and an extension to the emergency rent subsidy. There will be belowmarket interest rate loans to hard-hit businesses such as tourism, hospitality, arts and entertainment while an aid package is being negotiated for our struggling airlines.

None of this will come cheap. The overall bill for COVID-19-related policy measures will hit $490.7 billion. That will saddle Canada with a staggering $382-billion deficit in the current 2020-21 fiscal year and a $121-billion deficit in the year after. Yet, not only is this affordable, given the size of Canada’s economy and today’s historically low interest rates, it’s needed. With the pandemic fires still burning, this is no time to turn off the federal government’s spending hose.

Next, Freeland’s mini-budget aims at delivering the economic recovery Canada is depending upon. Here, the finance minister has earned a solid B-plus with a three-year stimulus package of between $70 billion and $100 billion. That money will be targeted at worthwhile measures such as home retrofits and building a nationwide recharging system for electric vehicles.

Unfortunately, Freeland’s mini-budget is weaker in explaining how the federal government will get its financial house in order. On this count, she deserves a C, at best. Yes, there’s a commitment to reducing the deficits and Freeland at least offers a precise forecast for when the reductions will happen. But the lack of a firm plan for cutting deficits and debt leaves a worrying hole in her fiscal forecast.

Many Canadians will be even more disappointed by Freeland’s failure to provide detailed plans for rolling out expanded or new social programs. The Liberals have not even started to introduce the enhanced, nationwide daycare system they claim to support, an initiative that would help working women, maximize labour-force participation and drive an economic recovery. Nor did the longtime Liberal pledge to develop a national pharmacare program merit a single word in the mini-budget. The minister’s performance here deserves another C.

These criticisms, however, do not significantly detract from the overall value of Freeland’s first big statement as finance minister. Progressives wanting the “reset” and rebuild Prime Minister Justin Trudeau waxed eloquently about in August will have to wait. Conservatives desiring the so-called “fiscal anchor” for balanced books will have to be patient, too.

Canada has a pandemic to get through now and Freeland has just provided an impressive plan for achieving this.