Mark Carney was elected as a leader with a mix of elbows and answers. In this age of instant gratification and incessant distraction, he gets one clean shot to define his vision for Canada before he finds himself in the penalty box.

Tuesday’s federal budget, in a normal era, would have been better to say more about who we are than who we don’t want to be. But this is not a normal era. The prime minister’s prerogatives are framed less by national self-definition and more by the need to insulate us from American unpredictability. The budget also carries the quieter assignment of undoing or smoothing over some of his predecessor’s most glaring missteps.

Thus the step-up in defence, the rush to build housing and the catch-up on infrastructure. And thus the wave of spending on what we hope will drive innovation and reverse our productivity slide. It suggests this is more generational (as in, larger than anything in years) than generative (as in, likely to lock in lasting prosperity). “Investment” is doing a lot of euphemistic work here as a political perfume for tax dollars marshalled to plan a substantial share of the economy.

For now, the exercise looks like a way to endure Donald Trump’s return and fine-tune later. There are gaps because we do not yet know how aggressively the U.S. will squeeze Canada in trade talks. And there is political optionality, because if this budget collapses in a........

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