Without having seen it, former Bank of Canada governor David Dodge believes that Tuesday’s 2024 federal budget from Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland is “likely to be the worst budget” in decades.

“I think this is likely to be the worst budget since the [then-finance minister Allan] MacEachen budget of 1982, in the sense of pointing us in the wrong direction as to how we go about raising the incomes of Canadians and actually making Canadians feel better over the medium term,” Dodge said in an interview on CTV News Channel’s Power Play with Vassy Kapelos.

In a time of high interest rates and inflation, the 1982-83 federal budget(opens in a new tab), under then-prime minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau, became the object of political fury(opens in a new tab) over spending, taxation, and wage restraint measures within it.