It’s always do or die on budget day

Budgets have always tended to be historical markers that stood as a defining or make-or-break moment for federal governments.

As finance ministers, the likes of John Crosbie, left, Allan MacEachen, Jim Flaherty, and Chrystia Freeland all had to plant their respective governments’ flagpoles. Photographs courtesy of Library and Archives Canada and The Hill Times photographs by Jake Wright and Andrew Meade

Opinion

BY LES WHITTINGTON

October 15, 2025

OTTAWA—By the 2020 era, the federal budget documents handed out to the media under then-Liberal finance minister Chrystia Freeland were verging on 400 pages, packaged with a slick, heavily messaged cover, and accompanied by fact sheets, press releases, charts, and a cheat ...

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