Canadians will learn Tuesday the entirety of the federal Liberal government’s new spending plans – and how they intend to pay for them – when Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland tables the 2024 federal budget.

Vowing to not grow the deficit while maintaining other fiscal guardrails, heading into budget day there are strong indications that in order to help finance what’s been a weeks-long blitz resulting in nearly $40 billion in promised measures, the Liberals will unveil new or higher taxes for wealthier Canadians or corporate Canada.

Remarking on the expectation of some form of individual wealth tax, and or excess profit taxes in today’s budget, former Bank of Canada governor David Dodge said the fiscal document is “likely to be the worst” in decades and “pointing us in the wrong direction,” when it comes to economic growth.

However, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was emphatic on Monday, while speaking to a business crowd about what’s to come, that his government feels now is the time to make investments in housing, job growth, and other affordability measures preoccupying the minds of many pinched millennials and Generation Z.

“Millennials and Gen Z now make up the majority of Canada’s labour force. They are our economy … They now feel like middle class stability is out of reach. We need to meet this moment, because that can’t be allowed to happen,” Trudeau said.

The Liberals have ruled out increasing taxes on the middle class, and have stated they’re mindful of not knocking the Bank of Canada off its track towards reducing interest rates.

The fall economic statement projected the deficit for 2023-24 to be $40 billion, decreasing slightly in 2024-25 to $38.4 billion, and then holding steady at $38.3 billion in 2025-26.

What have the Liberals promised?

Deciding to preview for Canadians large portions of what will be in today’s budget, the prime minister and members of his cabinet have selectively teased out bits and pieces through a series of near-daily announcements since late March, with a targeted focus on “generational fairness.”

Close to half of the tens of billions of dollars pre-promised for housing, health, and child care are loan-based and will require provincial buy-in.

The largest element that was pre-announced was a raft of housing measures that were stitched up into a new “plan to solve the housing crisis,” revealed on Friday.

Promising to build 3.9 million homes by 2031, the housing strategy includes a bevy of measures and billions of dollars for building more homes and making it easier to own or rent.

Among the biggest ticket housing commitments:

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  A $15-billion top-up to the Apartment Construction Loan Program;
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  $6 billion for a Canada Housing Infrastructure Fund;
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  $1 billion in loans and $470 million in contributions for a new rental protection fund; and
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  Topping up the Housing Accelerator Fund by $400 million, plus $600 million for a series of new homebuilding innovation efforts aimed at scaling up modular and prefabricated homes.

Policy-wise, this package also promises to:

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  Enact “public lands for homes” and industrial homebuilding strategies;
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  Launch a Canadian Renters’ Bill of Rights and Tenant Protection Fund;
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  Allow 30-year mortgage amortizations for first-time homebuyers purchasing new builds; and
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  Permit homeowners to add secondary suites, among other renter and RRSP limit reforms.

As for social program spending boosts, the Liberals have also promised:

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  $1 billion over five years to fund a new national school food program intended to provide meals to 400,000 more kids;
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  $500 million for a new youth mental health fund to help community organizations provide more care; and
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  $1 billion in loans and $60 million in grants to build or renovate child-care centres, as well as $48 million to extend student loan forgiveness for early childhood educators.

When it comes to national defence and intelligence, the budget will include:

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  $8.1 billion over the next five years as part of the long-term defence policy update intended to increase military spending to 1.76 per cent of GDP by 2030; and
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  $2.4 billion to build capacity in artificial intelligence, largely for computing capabilities and technical infrastructure.

The upcoming budget will also be a key political document.

The deliberate focus on younger Canadians with this budget is an indication the Liberals are looking to win back the straying voters that helped elect them, while shoring up other centrist supporters with vows to spend wisely.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has maintained a double-digit polling lead over the Liberals with his largely economy-focused partisan attacks, and efforts to wedge the NDP for continuing to prop up the minority government on confidence votes.

Once the budget is tabled – a key matter of confidence – expect debate on it and the coinciding implementation legislation to take top billing.