A budget written for younger Canadians

Tuesday’s federal budget is an attempt by the Liberals to tackle two problems. The first is the cost-of-living strains felt by many Canadians, from grocery bills to rent to out-of-reach home prices. And in tackling that crisis, Liberals are hoping to tackle the other problem — their sagging popularity.

The title of the budget document — “Fairness for every generation” — is one giveaway. It says “every generation” but there’s a deliberate targeting of younger Canadians and the parents who fear their children will be shut out of the lifestyle they themselves enjoyed.

“Millennial and gen Z Canadians can get a good job, they can work hard, they can do everything their parents did and more, and too often the rewards remains out of reach,” Chrystia Freeland, the finance minister and deputy prime minister, said in her budget speech to the Commons.

“They look at their parents’ lives and wonder: How will I ever be able to afford that,” Freeland said.

A party that saw electoral success in 2015 with a platform aimed firmly at “fairness for the middle class” is now almost 10 years later talking about fairness for a generation of younger Canadians sidelined by the cost of living. The Liberals are clearly hoping this focus can chip away the gains made by the federal Conservatives.

It’s a tall order to restore the national dream for a segment of Canadians, especially in a single budget. But the Liberals are trying, vowing to “restore generational fairness.”

The budget acknowledges the costs confronting young families, “especially millennial parents.” It talks about making it “more affordable to get an education, save for a home, and building a career.” It speaks about a “fair chance for millennials and gen Z” who are watching the “middle class dream become less and less achievable.” It speaks about millennials and the right to disconnect from after-hours work, even speaks about them kicking “bad habits” like vaping.

That focus is seen most noticeably in the budget’s numerous initiatives on the housing front. Many of them had been announced by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his ministers in the run-up to Tuesday with the goal of building an additional two million new homes by 2031, on top of the 1.87 million it was expected would be built. That includes initiatives to boost the stock of rental apartments and affordable housing and funding worth $6 billion over 10 years for municipal infrastructure needed for new housing developments.

The budget flushes out details on the government’s intent to use public lands for the construction of housing. Canada Post alone has 1,700 properties, the defence department has more than 600 sites. Government offices nationwide are empty or underused — an estimated three million square metres of space that could be utilized for housing.

As we’ve written, it’s vital that Ottawa is more engaged on the housing file. For social and affordable housing especially, the federal government has the deepest pocket.

“I think it’s going to build a lot of homes,” Mike Moffatt, senior director of the Smart Prosperity Institute, told the Star. “This is a national problem. Canadians expect the federal government will play an outsized role.”

The focus on younger Canadians — and younger voters — continues into education with an extension to student loans and grants, rent support for students and more than $500 million for programs to help students get work experience, and another $500 million for youth mental health support. There’s targeted funding for Indigenous youth, including $243 million to improve access to post-secondary education.

In contrast to those substantive measures, the budget talks about other affordability issues — “stabilizing the cost of groceries,” “concert and sport ticket fairness” — but these seem more like a publicity-seeking teases than the promise of real action.

The budget focus speaks to a government that is mindful of the calendar — and its place in the polls. With just over a year to the next election — scheduled to happen on or before Oct. 20, 2025 — this budget is one of the last opportunities to enact substantive policy. Yes, the government will have the fall economic update and a budget next spring but by that point, there’s little time to enact promises before voters go to the polls.

So in addition to new measures, it puts a bow on several past commitments. It delivers, for example, on the promised Canada Disability Benefit, meant to provide up to $2,400 a year for low-income working age individuals with disabilities. That benefit would start next year though there are questions about the administrative burden of the program, as evidenced by the millions of dollars earmarked to cover the costs of medical forms to apply for the credit.

To help pay for the new budget measures, the budget proposes an increase in the capital gains tax that it expects to pull in more than $19 billion in revenue over the coming years. It’s targeted at those individuals with more than $250,000 in gains in a year — less than one per cent of Canadians, officials say — as well as corporations and trusts. (The capital gains exemption for the sale of a principal residence does not change.)

In 2015, Trudeau stressed helping the middle class but now focused on a demographic of younger Canadians. Will the strategy deliver electoral success? That depends on whether millennial and gen Z voters see the Liberals as the problem or the solution.

It’s a tall order to restore the national dream for a segment of Canadians, especially in a single budget. But the Liberals are trying, vowing to ‘restore generational fairness’