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