With its eighth budget, the Liberal government tries to re-win the fairness fight

The Trudeau government's eighth budget is aimed explicitly at the fact that, for many Canadians, life does not seem very fair right now. The present feels inequitable and the promise of a better future is not guaranteed.

Various forms of the word "fair" appear on 123 of the budget's 430 pages, not including the cover, which bears the title, "Fairness for every generation."

"Mr. Speaker, we are acting today to ensure fairness for every generation," Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland said after tabling the budget in the House of Commons on Tuesday afternoon.

In all fairness, the generations Freeland has most in mind are millennials and Gen Z, Canadians under the age of 40, in particular those who don't own a home or who are struggling to pay rent — those who have emerged into a post-pandemic world that does not feel fair.

This budget can be read as the Liberals' attempt to face up, rhetorically and practically, to an acute problem that threatens whatever chances they may still have of holding power through a fourth election. But it also draws heavily on the original argument — and the appeal to fairness — that brought them to office in 2015.

And Freeland framed the situation in stark terms.

"Democracy is not inevitable. It has succeeded and succeeds because it has delivered a good life for the middle class," she said as her budget speech strayed away the basic details of new measures.

"When liberal democracy fails to deliver on that most fundamental social contract, we should not be surprised if the middle class loses faith in democracy itself."

In the view of the Conservative leader seated across the aisle, the failure was already real.

"He has spent and Canadians are broke," Pierre Poilievre said of the prime minister. "The country is broken."

Poilievre's lack of support for the budget was not a surprise. But he at least waited until Freeland finished her remarks before making it official.

The broad housing agenda the government has spent the last few weeks laying out in detail forms the spine of the budget's new commitment to fairness; Freeland reviewed it at length. It was, she said, an "exercise in nation building" and a plan to "unlock the door to the middle class for more young Canadians."

There were also other items, new and ongoing, she wished to highlight: funds to create more child care spaces, a dental care program to provide for uninsured Canadians, a pharmacare program that will provide free contraception, new federal funding to establish or assist school nutrition programs and new investments in artificial intelligence and decarbonization.

That Freeland was able to announce new measures while keeping to the government's previous fiscal targets was due to a little restraint — Freeland proudly announced a plan to modestly reduce the size of the public service — and a tax change that was itself framed in terms of fairness.