Opinion: An unambitious, lacklustre Budget 2024 – that shouldn't be a surprise

John Rapley is an author and academic who divides his time among London, Johannesburg and Ottawa. His books include Why Empires Fall (Yale University Press, 2023) and Twilight of the Money Gods (Simon and Schuster, 2017). This week’s federal budget probably won’t do much to address Canada’s deepening economic challenges, such as the housing crisis or the country’s poor productivity. Like it or not, to do that would require spending, which is not nearly as sacrilegious as some paint it …