2024 Federal budget recap

The budget proposes a total of $52.9 billion in spending over the next five years, with big ticket items including commitments to increase housing for younger generations.

Intention to launch consultations to develop a Youth Climate Corps program that will equip youth with the skills and jobs needed to address climate change. However, no funding has been committed yet. The idea for this program first originated in 2017 from the Sunrise Movement in the United States, where it was recently implemented by the Biden Administration. If launched, the Youth Climate Corps program would ensure jobs that advance climate mitigation and adaptation are increased and that there is an active recognition of the critical role youth will play in just transition and towards net-zero.

Top up of electric vehicle rebates to tackle emissions from the transportation sector, the second highest emitting industry in Canada following the oil and gas sector.

New Canada Greener Homes Affordability Program to facilitate and lower costs of transitioning to energy efficient retrofits for low to median income households.

The non-partisan expert collaborative, Affordability Action Council’s recent report, Making Ends Meet: A New Approach to Tackling Affordability makes clear the connections between affordability and climate. Without addressing climate change, food prices will be higher, it will be costly to fix and mitigate the damages and harms to homes, communities, and people from wildfires, floods, heat waves, and power outages. Policies must simultaneously address the affordability and climate crisis and there is no time to delay. While the federal government’s 2024 budget seeks to make this connection, there remains a significant gap.

Despite its promises of delivering “fairness for every generation”, little was said on climate justice nor were ambitious, needed policies to advance towards the just, equitable, and climate-resilient futures youth want to live in. For example, a windfall tax on oil and gas companies that are earning record profits worsening the climate crisis was initially proposed. A windfall tax is an increase in taxation on industries that earn higher than average profits and have been previously applied to banking and investment sectors. Other countries across Europe have imposed similar tax mechanisms in response to record high profits from the energy crisis in Europe. If Canada implements the tax, the Parliamentary Budget Officer estimates that it could generate $4.2 billion in revenues over five years. 62% of Canadians support a windfall profit tax on the oil and gas sector. However, it was left off the budget after opposition from fossil fuel lobbyists.

At the 2023 UN Climate Conference COP28, countries named fossil fuels as the root cause of climate change and agreed to “transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems in a just, orderly, and equitable manner,” signaling the end of fossil fuels emerging on the horizon. The failure to address greenhouse gas emissions from the root cause perpetuates intergenerational inequity and fails to deliver a budget that will lead to “fairness for every generation”. Only with ambitious actions and policy programs to advance climate justice, equity, and climate-resilient communities can the budget deliver on its promise of fairness and intergenerational equity.