Budget 2021: Maybe less than it seems.

The 2021 budget is an excellent summary of the Trudeau government. It excels at posturing but is weak on delivering results. We have seen this repeatedly on issues including climate change, child care, feminism, democratic and transparent government, Aboriginal reconciliation, and youth. Instead of a great “reset” fundamentally transforming our society, the budget presents a wide range of spending initiatives without the focus on one or two major issues that is the hallmark of major societal or organizational change. The political artistry of the prime minister is in posing as an agent of radical change while implementing incremental refinements unless circumstances force his hand. Perhaps Canadians should be grateful.

Childcare is a good place to start, since that is most prominently displayed in the budget’s showcase window. Leading up to the budget, Trudeau and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland repeatedly said that now was the time for decisive action to create a national childcare program. Instead, they have delivered only a hypothetical down payment for a program that ultimately will depend on provincial cooperation. Some provinces cannot undertake any new spending or simply prefer giving money directly to parents rather than to state-run bureaucracies. A national childcare program therefore remains more aspiration than reality.

Childcare is emblematic of how this government boasts about its feminist credentials. But all its loud talk failed to prevent working women from their worst ever setback during a recession. Neither has this government shown leadership in protecting women in the military from sexual harassment (although the budget will spend another $158.5 million over five years to try, try again). The prime minister did appoint the first female finance minister — though only after not naming the first female governor of the Bank of Canada at precisely the moment when the governor became the one indispensable Ottawa decider: the government’s entire post-pandemic agenda could be derailed overnight by a significant move up in interest rates.

There is no more striking example of the distance between government rhetoric and outcomes than climate change. Despite years of championing its commitment to greening the economy and radiating hostility to our fossil fuel industry, the government had to report last week that Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions rose again in 2019, continuing an unbroken string of increases dating back to its taking office in 2015.

Nurturing young people was so important to the prime minister that he kept this ministry for himself. But results for young people on his watch have been calamitous: house prices so high that they can no longer aspire to home ownership, the largest loss of jobs in history, and interruptions of schooling and socialization that have opened wounds that will take years to heal.

The government has always said reconciliation with Aboriginal peoples was its top priority. But even such basic promises as ending boil-water advisories have not been kept. Trudeau offered Jody Wilson-raybould the Indigenous Services ministry even after she had publicly stated she could never administer the Indian Act.

The 2015 election was supposed to be the last under a first-past-the-post system. Within a year the government reneged on that promise. More critically, it completely failed to deliver promises of more transparency and democratic accountability, instead tightening control from the Prime Minister’s Office. Even Stephen Harper’s PMO never interfered with the Attorney General’s prosecution of a case.

The two areas where the government acted decisively — renegotiating NAFTA and dealing with the pandemic — were in response to events outside its control and were largely crafted by civil servants. In every other instance, the Trudeau government has had as much trouble with the “vision thing” as the administration of George H.W. Bush did.

How can a 724-page budget document that rains down oceans of red ink not be transformative? Despite the deficits, program spending is forecast to rise only from 14.1 per cent of GDP to 14.9 per cent, as the vast majority of the hundreds of spending initiatives are limited to targeting key electoral constituencies, not the majority of Canadians. Meanwhile the government scrupulously avoided raising almost any taxes.

Targeted spending and dodging tax hikes are typical of election budgets. Avoiding taxes also reflects Canadians’ doubt that they got good value for all the government spending undertaken during the pandemic. As British economist Robert Skidelsky observed recently, “How much tax people are willing to pay is a reasonably reliable indicator of how much they think the state is worth.”

Overstated, strident criticism of this government for its supposedly radical activism plays into its modus operandi, which is poaching left-wing rhetoric but making largely superficial, token actions. It is unclear whether over-promising but under-delivering is a deliberate strategy or simply demonstrates disinterest in the gritty daily grind of governing. The answer may have been given at the recent Liberal Party Conference. Pundits wondered why the prime minister singled out only the Conservatives for attack, when it was more likely votes could be shaken loose from the NDP. It may be that enmity with the Conservatives is how the prime minister proves his bona fides with progressives while doing little in terms of actual governance. Paul Wells captured the essence of Trudeau in a Maclean’s cover story in 2019: The Imposter.

RESULTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE ON JUSTIN TRUDEAU’S WATCH HAVE BEEN CALAMITOUS.