opinion

Federal budget basics

Here are the highlights of the Carney government’s plan, and how they might affect your personal finances.

A Justin Trudeau budget was like one of Oprah’s giveaway shows: All of you get a car! And a pashmina! And this delicious salt-water taffy!

Those budgets would be larded with special treats designed to make every slice of the electorate feel seen, and to project the government’s values like a self-conscious bumper sticker.

Mark Carney’s first budget, delivered on Tuesday, very much did not have that goodies-for-all instinct. But it was, in its surgical brusqueness, its own sort of branding exercise – a manifesto of ‘no’ rather than ‘yes.’

This budget arrived with more significance than government spending plans normally do, after Mr. Carney swep

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