FREELAND'S BUDGET IS EXPECTED TO FOCUS ON THE SOARING COST OF HOUSING

By Chandrayee Roy Choudhury, Canada

Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland will table the federal budget later today — a plan to respond to a global climate of economic uncertainty that could prove punishing for Canadians in the months and years to come.



The ongoing COVID-related disruptions, the war in Ukraine and sharply higher and still-rising interest rates have scrambled the economic picture that Freeland laid out just a few months ago in her last fiscal update.



Canada is grappling with an affordability issue as the rate of inflation, now at its highest level in decades, pushes up the price of just about everything — especially housing.