opinion

Prime Minister Mark Carney holds up a copy of the federal budget on Parliament Hill on Tuesday.

The buildup had sold this budget with big adjectives. Generational. Transformational. The document itself didn’t quite measure up on the same scale.

In April, when Prime Minister Mark Carney unveiled the Liberal Party election platform, he said his plan for the tough days of U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade war would amount to shock and awe. “To succeed in a crisis, you have to act with overwhelming force,” he said.

There was some fiscal force in Tuesday’s budget. But it wasn’t overwhelming.

Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne kept using words such as “bold” but experts were as likely to remark on its caution.

Federal budget basics

Here are the highlights of the C

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