Former senior Trudeau advisor BLASTS new budget

Writing in The Hub, Robert Asselin meticulously sliced up the failures of the first Trudeau government budget in two years.

When it came to the government's decision to spend $100 billion in the search for a short-term stimulus, Asselin told his readers that the "budget arithmetic doesn’t match the current economic data."

When it came to the government's mantlepiece investments like childcare plan, Asselin wondered aloud that it was "hard to find a coherent growth plan."

Asselin also took lime to lament Canada's uncompetitiveness and lack of ambition under Trudeau's leadership. Pointing to the courage of Biden's post-pandemic economic strategy, he declared that Canada's approach was still "business as usual."

"Does [Trudeau's budegt] drive more business investments and make our firms more competitive on the global stage? Nobody has ever tried to answer this question seriously in Ottawa," he said.

Aside from advising the prime minister on economic matters, Asselin has also advised former Finance Minister Bill Morneau between 2015 and 2017.

As a result of this, Asselin's final statement was perhaps the most damming: after "spending close to a trillion dollars, not moving the needle on long-term growth would be the worst possible legacy of this budget."