Freeland's budget is expected to focus on the soaring cost of housing

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.

The pandemic has exacerbated pre-existing problems in the housing market. Prices are so high in most markets that nine out of 10 aspiring home buyers surveyed in a recent poll said they've all but given up on the dream of owning a home.

Since the current Liberal government took office in 2015, the average price of a home in Canada has doubled to an eye-popping $816,720 — the highest average on record.

Elliot Hughes is a senior adviser at Summa Strategies and an ex-staffer to former finance minister Bill Morneau.

In an interview with CBC News, Hughes said he expects Freeland's budget will be "a pretty focused, slim and strategic budget that will be quite targeted in the support it provides to specific sectors and policy areas."

"It'll be very, very focused, unlike previous budgets from this Liberal government," Hughes said. "If there's one theme that they would like Canadians to take away from this budget, it's that the government is trying to help people on the housing question."

With the Bank of Canada signaling that it will hike its overnight interest rate by 50 basis points next week to counter inflation — a move that will cause mortgage rates to move sharply higher — housing is going to become "just much more challenging and problematic for Canadians and it's going to be a lot bigger challenge for the government," Hughes said.

Government sources speaking to CBC News said the federal Liberals are attuned to the issue of affordability and Freeland's budget will lay out a plan to offer relief to Canadians worried about the cost of living spiralling out of control.

The federal government, working with the provinces and territories, has started already to roll out national child care — a program that will save some parents thousands of dollars a year by immediately reducing the costs associated with daycare.

WATCH | Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks about the federal budget:

Beyond that child care program, the budget is also expected to explain how the government intends to get more people into homes of their own. Government sources said they expect this budget will come to be known as the "housing budget" because so much of the document will be tailored to that issue.

"What is the single biggest expense you have? Where you live," said a government source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.