Zooming out on budget 2024

On April 16, the Government of Canada presented its 2024 budget.

This isn’t a “we read all 430 pages of it so you don’t have to” kind of post. There are plenty of great round-ups that talk about the big individual initiatives.

But here are four cross-cutting themes we noticed on our read.

1. The legislative and consultation agendas are going to be crowded

With a lot of new policy past the halfway point of the government’s mandate, managing the legislative and consultation agendas will be challenging.

• The legislative calendar is already crowded, and Budget 2024 proposes more than 60 different measures that require legislative changes (many of which will be through omnibus budget implementation bills) and dozens of consultations.
• There are many new commitments to develop and deliver new initiatives in 2024 or at least provide updates in the Fall Economic Statement.
• With a limited number of sitting days in the house, and a limited number of cabinet meetings available for decisions, things are going to get crunchy.

2. Federal-provincial relations are never boring

This budget requires a lot of cooperation with provincial governments.

• Signature programs like a National School Food Program are essentially transfers to provinces and territories to have those governments run the programs.
• Through the Canada Housing Infrastructure Fund, Minister Fraser continues to lead a high-stakes game of strongly-worded letters and large checks to push provinces and territories to make changes within their own jurisdictions (such as zoning changes or tenant protections).
• When it comes to implementation, much of this budget depends on relationships with provinces and territories.

3. The spending review that wasn’t

The 2023 budget promised a federal spending review. The budget tells us that this wasn’t a major exercise like the Commission on the Reform of Ontario’s Public Services a decade ago: this was a much more modest approach.

• The first phase saw departments look for savings, particularly in ‘travel and consulting’. The results phase were announced in FES, and detailed in 24–25 Estimate and departmental plans: $15.8 billion in savings over five years, and $4.8 billion ongoing.
• The budget said the 2nd phase will focus on reducing the size of the public service by 5,000 positions through attrition, and asking departments to cover operating costs through existing resources (essentially, an across-the-board budget cut target).

4. Sometimes when everyone knows something it really is true

• Journalist Paul Wells once wrote that it’s a reliable rule that “if everyone in Ottawa knows something, it’s not true.”
• Clearly there’s an exception to every rule.
• We (and everyone else) have been hearing for the last 8–10 months that the 2024 budget was going to be “a housing budget”. Well, that nearly 60-page first chapter tells us sometimes you really can believe the rumour mill.