Article content With next week’s federal budget fast approaching, FP Comment asked its regular contributors to think about how they would approach things if they were finance minister. Today, Philip Cross. Too many people in and around politics are using the pandemic to pursue long-cherished policies that do little to solve the problems created by the virus. If I were finance minister, I would undertake three broad initiatives that actually address the current crisis, rather than try to shoe-horn in policies that don’t fit into the pandemic and won’t alleviate its effects. We apologize, but this video has failed to load.