Justin Trudeau Wants to Bring Back Austerity
Justin Trudeau claims that he wants to build a better, fairer post-pandemic Canada. If we look past the platitudes, we can see that the Liberals just want to return to business as usual.
Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party has already cut the Canada Recovery Benefit and is preparing to eliminate it. (Justin Trudeau – Prime Minister of Canada via Wikimedia Commons)
Around the world, rich countries are making plans for a post-pandemic future. Coined by Joe Biden, the phrase “build back better” has led many to believe that the era of neoliberalism and austerity is finally over. Things are, however, not as they seem.
In the United States, the Supreme Court has swept aside lackluster efforts to postpone a catastrophe of mass evictions. In the UK, the removal of measures of enhanced income support, implemented during the pandemic lockdowns, has food banks preparing for the “busiest and most difficult winter on record.” Acting in lockstep with its Group of Seven (G7) counterparts, Canada is gearing itself up for a return to business as usual.
Who Pays for the Crisis?
Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau has long been an expert at putting a progressive spin on a regressive agenda. He has turned these skills up to eleven over the course of the pandemic. Last autumn, his government used the opening of a new session of Parliament to deliver a throne speech that offered a stirring but decidedly vague post-pandemic vision of “a stronger and more resilient Canada.”
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