On the issue of climate justice, Budget 2024 might have more accurately been called “Unfairness for Every Generation”, as it’s clear that the government is prioritizing the interests of corporations responsible for the climate crisis instead of the workers and communities who are being left to pay for it. 

While there are a few new climate announcements in the budget, they do not match the scale and severity of the crisis at hand. The budget introduces a fall 2024 deadline for developing a plan to phase out all public financing of the fossil fuel sector – something the Council of Canadians has been calling for since 2011, as have countless other climate justice advocates. Needless to say, this commitment is long overdue, and the devil will be in the details of which programs are phased out, and over how long that phase out will take place. 

The budget also dedicates $800 million over five years for a Canada Greener Homes Affordability Program to retrofit the homes of low- and medium-income Canadians. While this is a step forward, policy experts have been calling for $2.4 billion – three times the investment that has been announced – in funding to make the necessary impact on the emissions from the building sector. This program is targeted at homeowners, and doesn’t support energy retrofits for renters, which can improve quality of life, heating and cooling bills, and support climate action. 

Among the budget’s new commitments are also Clean Electricity Tax Credits. While these appear to be a positive development, they include tax credits for natural gas and Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage (CCUS), which are false climate solutions. 

On the whole, it’s hard to take Minister Freeland’s assertion of fairness seriously when so much money is going directly into the pockets of corporations. The budget earmarks billions of dollars for green infrastructure through the Canada Infrastructure Bank (CIB), including for clean power, green infrastructure, public transit, trade and transportation, and broadband. 

The reliance on the CIB means there’s a strong likelihood that the projects will involve public-private partnerships (P3s). The CIB was established in 2017 with a $35 billion budget and a mandate to attract private investments to finance infrastructure projects. P3s undermine climate action because they tend to be slower, more expensive, and of worse quality than publicly-owned infrastructure projects. Ongoing climate funding is also overwhelmingly subsidizing false solutions like CCUS, green hydrogen, or nuclear generators, which directly benefit established fossil fuel and nuclear corporations. This feels far from fair. 

We know that oil and gas corporations are raking in enormous profits and are refusing to pay their fair share. The Globe and Mail reported recently that a windfall tax on record oil and gas profits was considered this budget cycle. After intense opposition from the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, the suggestion was dropped. Don’t forget that the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers is a bit of a misnomer – this organization primarily represents international fossil fuel corporations and has a shockingly outsized influence on our energy policy and democratic process. 

The Alternative Federal Budget, devised by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA), provides a roadmap for what climate investment would look like if the priority was fairness for workers and communities. Examples include $12.5 billion over five years to decarbonize buildings and residences or cancelling CCUS tax credits and redirecting that nearly $10 billion into a National Climate Adaptation Strategy. Both examples would see the creation of publicly owned and maintained infrastructure and thousands of jobs that would ensure that our communities could survive and thrive through the challenges of a changing climate. 

Actions speak louder than words – and Budget 2024 is seriously lacking in meaningful climate action. 

When pharmacare legislation was unveiled at the end of February, Health Minister Mark Holland said there would be $1.5 billion to get the program off the ground, covering diabetes drugs and contraceptives to start and then expanding to a broader list of essential medicines. But Budget 2024 revealed this to be an extremely deceptive statement.  

In reality, the $1.5 billion for pharmacare is spread over five years and is largely backloaded. Only $59 million is allocated to pharmacare for this fiscal year, rising to just $121 million in 2025-26. With this paltry funding, it’s hard to imagine how pharmacare can get off the ground. Our movement has its work cut out for us – we need to organize to win adequate funding for the first steps of our single-payer pharmacare program. 

Providing universal access to contraceptives and diabetes drugs would require approximately $3 billion per year in public funding, a portion of which is already covered by provincial drug plans. B.C., for instance, already provides cost-free access to contraceptives through its Fair Pharmacare program. The Pharmacare Act (Bill C-64) envisions the federal government providing funding for provinces to level up their provincial drugs plans, but with only $59 million behind it this year, it is hard to see how any province will get on board. 

The federal government could easily afford to cover the entire cost of this initial rollout of pharmacare. Thinking in terms of billions of dollars can be disorienting; it’s important here to note that $3 billion is just 0.6 per cent of the total federal budget. Free access to diabetes drugs and contraceptives would be life changing for the 3.7 million Canadians with diabetes and the 9 million who use birth control. And eliminating cost barriers for just these two classes of medications will generate hundreds of millions in downstream savings realized across the health care system.  

Time is of the essence for another reason: politics. Pierre Poilievre and the Conservatives have made clear their hostility to pharmacare, and nothing would be easier for a future Poilievre government to undo than a pharmacare program that exists only on paper. Taking away people’s access to free insulin or contraceptives once they have it will be much more difficult. That’s why adequate funding to roll out pharmacare before the October 2025 elections is key.

As the cost-of-living crisis rages on, the cost of housing and the general affordability of the basics of life are on most people’s minds. The government boasts that this budget is designed to help everyone across generations, it and puts a big focus on the many measures intended to deliver more affordable housing. 

The housing budget promises $1.5 billion for the Canada Rental Protection Fund, which will contribute to the construction of non-profit housing projects. The goal is to double the stock of available social housing in Canada, bringing us in line with the average market share of social housing in other rich nations, which is about eight per cent.

The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives points out a number of flaws in the housing plan. CCPA’s senior economist David MacDonald says, “The truth is that there are two things that will bring down housing costs fast—lower interest rates and rent controls. The Bank of Canada controls one and no one wants to broach the other, so the closest we’ll come will be a relatively limited program for non-market housing construction.” Read more on the CCPA’s website. 

Another top-line message the Liberal government is putting forward with this budget is that they’re increasing taxes on the wealthiest people and corporations in Canada to make life easier for everyone. The Council of Canadians welcomes any policies to ensure corporations pay their fair share, but the proposed increases are not sufficient. What’s more, tax changes alone do little to challenge the unchecked power and influence of corporations and CEOs over our governments. 

Major announcements in Budget 2024 was the change in the capital gains tax. When a person or corporation sells a capital asset, like real estate for example, the profits from that sale are taxed only in part. In 2023, 50 per cent of those capital gains were subject to tax. This year’s budget raises that number to 66 percent.  

This is called the ‘inclusion rate’ – 66 per cent of the profits are subject to taxation while the rest are not. This is an improvement but raises some questions. Income, for example, has a 100% inclusion rate – all of a person’s income is subject to tax (minus some specific deductions). Economists from the CCPA again argue that capital gains should also have a 100% inclusion rate – all the profits from selling assets should be taxed.  

What’s more the government is targeting those with capital gains over $250,000, “an extremely high threshold only capturing the 0.13%,” as economist D.T. Cochrane points out. 

“During the COVID-19 pandemic, wealthy Canadians got wealthier thanks to real estate and stock markets,” says Luke LeBrun, editor of Press Progress. “According to Statistics Canada, when capital gains are included, the top 0.1% of Canadians saw their average income skyrocket 27.6% between 2020 and 2021.” Looking at the incredible wealth accumulated through capital gains since 2020 alone, it’s hard to argue that the wealthiest people in Canada are paying what they owe even with the increased capital gains tax in Budget 2024.  

And while this proposed tax increase is a step in the right direction, other measures like an excess profits tax and a wealth tax would have generated significantly more revenue for the government to provide the public services and social infrastructure we need to address the cost of living and climate crises.  

Oxfam Canada points out that “four of the five richest Canadians (David Thomson and family, David Cheriton, Jim Pattison, and Anthony von Mandl) have increased their wealth by two-thirds since 2020, according to Forbes. Additionally, the richest 0.02% of Canadians have more wealth than the bottom 80%. The richest 1% hold almost two-fifths (38%) of the total financial wealth in Canada.” 

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