By: Hannah Baillie, Co-Director of Policy
Are you concerned about the future for children and youth in Canada? I am too, and we’re not alone. According to a poll conducted by Maru/Blue for Children First Canada, 85 percent of respondents feel concerned about the future of Canadian children and youth. Additionally, 76 per cent said that federal spending on children is important.
Young Canadians were among the hardest hit when the COVID-19 pandemic began in 2020. School closures, high unemployment rates, housing crises, and declining mental health have made for a challenging few years. While programs such as the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) and Canada Emergency Student Benefit (CESB) filled an immediate financial need during the pandemic, there are ongoing economic, social, and political consequences of the pandemic that we will have to manage in the years ahead.
In 2021, Canada’s federal budget included investments of $5.7 billion to help young Canadians pursue and complete their education. The government also pledged to create 215,000 new jobs and skill development opportunities. It also allocated billions of dollars towards student financial assistance, mental health, supporting vulnerable children, and fighting climate change.
On April 7, 2022, Canada’s Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland released Budget 2022: A plan to grow our economy and make life more affordable. From infrastructure to the environment, and housing to healthcare, Budget 2022 outlines Canada’s economic strategies on domestic and global levels. But what about youth health? What is in the budget for Canada’s younger generations? Does it go far enough to protect the future of our country?
Housing and affordability
Young Canadians are justifiably worried about the affordability and accessibility of housing in this country. In recent years, a combination of low interest rates, urbanization, and foreign investment have made it extremely difficult to find affordable housing in almost all major cities. For this reason, I was relieved to see that housing was a priority in Budget 2022. To increase the number of housing options available and decrease costs, Minister Freeland revealed the Housing Accelerator Fund as part of Budget 2022. This fund pledges to build 100,000 new housing units in Canada within the next five years, putting them on track to double housing construction over the next decade. Minister Freeland also announced a ban on foreign investments in housing and doubled the first home buyers tax credit to help young Canadians settle in their home country. I am cautiously optimistic that these initiatives will make living in Canada more affordable but can’t help but wonder if they go far enough to encourage young people to stay here.
Healthcare
The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly impacted the mental and physical health of Canadian youth. Long wait times for healthcare services, a lack of physicians in rural communities, and an increasing number of people experiencing mental illness has made healthcare a top priority for the Canadian government. Does Budget 2022 live up to this priority? That’s a tough question to answer; however, it does contain a variety of investments to improve the healthcare system.
To begin, Minister Freeland announced an expansion of the Canada Student Loan forgiveness program for doctors and nurses settling in rural communities in attempt to attract medical professionals to these underserviced areas. This is a big deal for provinces like Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador, where waitlists for a family physician currently contain over 81,000 names. Additionally, Minister Freeland announced an investment of $140 million over two years for the Wellness Together Canada platform, a mental health resource used predominantly by children and youth.
Continuing with the subject of youth health, Minister Freeland announced an investment of $5.3 billion over five years to provide dental coverage to Canadian youth. The program will begin in 2022 with dental coverage for children under 12 years of age who meet the criteria, and will later expand to children under 18, seniors, and persons living with a disability. The program is expected to be fully implemented by 2025. This initiative is a step in the right direction, but what about university students over 18 who still can’t afford dental care? What about universal pharmacare? Optometric care?
Climate action
It is becoming increasingly clear that climate change and the environment are topics of major concern for young Canadians. In 2021, the Trudeau government passed the Canadian Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act, setting a promise to reach a net zero economy by 2050. Budget 2022 proposes investments in green technology to help Canada reach this goal. Specifically, the budget includes incentives for developing and implementing carbon capture technology, along with $3 billion in funding to make electric vehicles more affordable and accessible across the country.
The total of $12.5 billion spent on fighting climate change in this budget is a far cry from the government’s own estimation that $100 billion in investments will be required annually to reach its net zero target by 2050. The rest of the money, according to Minister Freeland, will have to come from partnerships with the private sector. Budget 2022 therefore proposed the framework for a Canada Growth Fund, a “public investment vehicle” that hopes to raise $3 from the private sector for every $1 in public money (Boutilier, 2022).
Childcare
Childcare has been a focus of the Trudeau government since they were elected in 2015. This focus was also part of Budget 2022, with Minister Freeland announcing a continuation of her government’s efforts to make childcare more affordable. In 2022, each province will receive millions of dollars in federal funding to implement new early learning infrastructure and programs. This aims to help the government reach their goal of reducing childcare costs by 50% by the end of 2022, ultimately settling at an average cost of $10 per day for all regulated child care spaces.
Truth and reconciliation
What about Canada’s Indigenous communities? Budget 2022 promises funding to carry forward our country’s work on truth and reconciliation. Specifically, Minister Freeland announced an additional $11 billion in investments to continue Jordan’s Principle and implement Indigenous child welfare legislation. Jordan’s Principle was introduced in 2021 and aims to “ensure that all First Nations Children can access the health, social, and educational services they need, when they need them.” An additional $4 billion was allocated to this program to ensure that Indigenous youth receive support through to 2027.
Military and defence
Though it may be thousands of miles away, the Russian war in Ukraine has not gone unnoticed by Canadian children and youth. Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Canada has been under pressure to increase federal spending on North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and military activities. In response, Budget 2022 contains a variety of reinforcements totalling $8 billion over five years to stand up to global threats. This is in addition to the planned increases for Canada’s Strong, Secure, Engaged defence policy, set in 2017, which defines Canada’s defence priorities over the next 20 years. The new spending outlined in Budget 2022 will support Canada’s involvement in the North American Aerospace and Defence Command (NORAD) and NATO, along with activities to improve culture within the Canadian Armed Forces and offer direct support to Ukraine.
How will we pay for this?
Implementing the promises set out in Budget 2022 will be costly. In fact, this year’s budget projects a deficit of $53 billion, a debt which Canadian children and youth will be re-paying for the rest of their lives. That’s if everything goes to plan, which is unlikely given the highly unpredictable global economic environment. The war in Ukraine, rising cost of inflation, and the COVID-19 pandemic could easily change the cost of the activities outlined in Budget 2022. Canada’s Debt Management Strategy sets out the government’s objectives, strategies, and borrowing plans to begin to repay this debt, but suffice to say… it’s going to take a long time.
What now?
From the environment to infrastructure, and housing to healthcare, Budget 2022 contains a variety of promises for children and youth in Canada. Does the budget go far enough? Too far? Those are questions that we must answer individually; however, it is important to remember that budgetary proposals do not guarantee action. With a new confidence and supply agreement between the federal Liberal Party and New Democratic Party (NDP), it is possible that priorities will shift, and promises will be left unmet. What can you do to hold the government accountable? The answer is simple: vote.