Canada’s ambitious social policy spending may be over. Here’s how the 2022 federal budget lines up with the Liberals’ priorities.
Why It Matters
Mandate letters are detailed descriptions of a Prime Minister’s policy goals – and priorities – for their term. They give the social impact sector an idea of what issues the government may quickly fund, and what it may ignore outright.
Policy departments, social impact sector leaders, global development organizations, and grantmakers pore over Cabinet mandate letters to get a sense of the federal government’s priorities in the medium to long-term. Yet the real test of a government’s urgency to act is whether those priorities are actually funded in a budget.
With the Liberals set to govern until 2025 thanks to a confidence and supply agreement with the NDP, many of the commitments highlighted in the present Cabinet’s mandate letters could be fulfilled in spite of the Liberals’ minority status. But the 2022 budget faced some criticism from Canada’s social impact sector for being less bold and ambitious, especially around social safety nets for the most vulnerable people in the country, than previous pandemic budgets. While the Canadian gover
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