It is said that, during the First World War, French prime minister Georges Clemenceau remarked that generals always prepare to fight the last war.

Regrettably, it seems that this also applies to governments trying to manage our society. That seems evident from the Carney budget and his overall agenda, which propose a set of approaches more suited to the 19th and 20th centuries than to the new realities of the 21st century, focusing on infrastructure projects.

As Ecojustice lawyer Melissa Gorrie and I pointed out in a recent article in the Hill Times, “this government’s old-school idea of nation-building is focused on new infrastructure, as if Canada is just a construction company, not a society. But a nation is much more than a collection of infrastructure projects.”

We suggested that if Carney really wants a nation-building project, he should consider the task of making Canada a well-being society.

Such a society, according to the World Health Organization’s Geneva Charter for Well-being, is one that is “committed to achieving equitable health now and for future generations without breaching ecological........

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