OTTAWA—The long-awaited first budget of Mark Carney’s Liberal government has landed and received a less than enthusiastic greeting from the opposition benches and stakeholders—with the Conservatives decrying it for doing too much and others lamenting it doesn’t do enough.

“Budget 2025 is about building Canada strong: investing in our people, our ideas and our industries,” said Prime Minister Mark Carney in a release outlining the budget. “We’re ushering in a new economic strategy to supercharge growth and give businesses the confidence to invest. We will enable $1 trillion in total investments in five years—to give ourselves more than any country could ever take away.”

“This budget is about creating opportunity—giving Canadians and businesses the tools they need to be more productive, more competitive, and more successful,” said Minister of Finance and National Revenue François-Philippe Champagne. “Canada already has the best tax environment for new investment in the G7 and now we’re going to take full advantage of it. Budget 2025 will enable $1 trillion in investment over the next five years and unlock Canada’s full potential for growth, innovation and prosperity.”

Budget 2025 commits $141.4 billion in new spending over the next five years.

Those are big numbers, even by government standards, and Conservative Official Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre did not mince words in his response in Parliament.

“This costly budget forces Canadians to spend more on debt interest than on healthcare transfers, more than the government collects in GST,” he said in his response to the unveiling of the budget. “That means every dollar that Canadians pay in GST will go to bankers and bondholders instead of to doctors and nurses. All while he raises the industrial carbon tax on farm equipment and fertilizer and, therefore, on food; on steel, concrete and other industrial projects needed to build homes—a big tax increase on homes and food.”

His sentiments are reflected by Sudbury East-Manitoulin-Nickel Belt MP Jim Belanger. “This Liberal budget does nothing to address the concerns I heard from people on the doorstep while I was campaigning,” he said. “Life became less and less affordable, food, housing and energy will beat the ability of the average working-class people.”

MP Belanger went on to say that people understand Liberal policies are part of the cost of living going up. He pointed to the $321 billion of planned spending over the next five years that will be added to $1.35 billion deficit already facing the nation. “I don’t know how we are going to pay it back. I am thinking about my four-year-old grandchildren who will have a $30,000 debt to the government already for 2025-2026.”

He went on to note that the federal budget barely mentions the Ring of Fire. “There is a vast wealth sitting right under our feet,” he said, adding that the budget doubles the deficit of the Trudeau government and said that will drive up the cost of everything. “Statistics Canada predicts prices will surge higher and higher,” said MP Belanger. “People are being pushed to food banks. We offered amendments that would bring in an affordable budget, but the Liberals voted it down.”

Since the government is in a minority position, voting the Conservative amendment down would have required the support of other opposition parties.

The 2025 federal budget marks a departure from previous budget that included a specific Indigenous section.

In a statement released by the Anishinabek Nation, the organization representing the interests of Manitoulin’s First Nations said it acknowledges the release of the ‘Canada Strong’ budget and “is committed to engaging with government officials to ensure that the needs and priorities of Anishinabek member First Nations are fully addressed, as it clearly overlooks First Nations across the country.”

“Simply put, you don’t cut from the most marginalized people in this country,” said Anishinabek Nation Grand Council Chief Linda Debassige in a press release. “Canada has a fiduciary obligation to our First Nations. Our fear is what these cutbacks may mean for existing issues such as gaps in infrastructure and housing, lack of attention to First Nations policing and community safety, healthcare and the ongoing boil water advisories. We are supposed to be a first-world, developed country, which means basic needs and standards of living are met, yet our people continue to go without them, with fewer financial resources allocated to obtain them, as seen in the federal budget.”

While the budget includes investments aimed at economic development, healthcare and infrastructure, the Anishinabek Nation said there needs to be an emphasis on “the importance of ensuring that First Nations and other Indigenous groups receive equitable funding and support.”

“We will be further reviewing the details of the budget to identify opportunities to advance our goals of self-determination, sustainable development, and improved quality of life for our citizens,” adds Grand Council Chief Debassige. “We remain dedicated to working collaboratively with federal and provincial partners to ensure that the voices of the Anishinabek are heard and that our communities benefit fully from national investments equitably, like their non-Indigenous counterparts.”

To that end, the Anishinabek Nation is calling on the government to “prioritize Indigenous-led initiatives, uphold commitments to reconciliation and provide transparent, long-term support that respects Anishinabek sovereignty.”

“We look forward to ongoing dialogue and partnerships to build a brighter future for all our citizens,” concluded Grand Council Chief Debassige.

The federal budget impacts Canadian households by setting tax rates, funding public services like health care and education (largely through transfers to the provinces) and introducing measures to address affordability. Taxes make up a significant portion of household expenses—over 45 percent of average income.

Therefore, the federal budget is far from being something that doesn’t impact folks at the ground level. Budget changes can influence take-home pay, cost of living and access to government programs. 

There is a lot on the federal government’s plate. Major federal government expenditures include health care, elderly benefits (such as Old Age Security and the Guaranteed Income Supplement), social protection, defence, public debt interest and economic affairs. In recent years, health and elderly benefits have been the largest spending areas, followed by social programs and infrastructure investments. 

Key challenges facing the current government include rising deficits, higher debt-to-GDP ratios, global economic uncertainty (largely in the form of the current US president’s penchant for tariffs) and increased spending needs for defence (largely to meet NATO commitments, but also to protect Canadian sovereignty, especially in the far North), housing and innovation.

In its preamble to the budget, the federal government notes Canada has many things going for it, despite the turmoil and constant doomsaying of the mainstream media.

Among the G7 group of nations Canada still enjoys the lowest government (including all levels) debt to GDP ratio at 13.3, far better than its brethren: Germany 48.7, the United Kingdom 94.6, US 99.6, France 108.2, Italy 126.9 and Japan 130.1. Canada’s credit rating remains at AAA, a distinction it shares only with Germany among the G7 and a factor that keeps the nation’s borrowing costs low.

While this budget is largely aimed at dealing with the fallout of US tariffs, and the media’s frenzy over each and every tidbit of new information threatens to keep Canadians up at night, Canada enjoys the best deal of any US trading partner. The global rate stands at 17 percent, while our nation enjoys a 5.4 overall rate, while 85 percent of Canada-US trade remains tariff-free.

The budget also alleges that Canada is one of the most tax competitive jurisdictions among the G7, with a marginal effective tax rate of 15.6—beating out even the US at 17.6 and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development average (excluding Canada) at 17.7. Our nation’s deficit-to-GDP ration stands at 2.2 percent, only outdone among the G7 by Japan at 2.2 percent. 

Furthermore, notes the federal government, Canada enjoys the world’s most educated workforce, is number two for foreign investment confidence, is one of the top five producers of 10 critical minerals and is ranked by the Economist Intelligence Unit as number two in the G20 for doing business over the next five years.

The latest federal budget plans reductions in public servant ranks by 40,000, a factor that does not receive an enthusiastic reception from public service unions but is a response to the unprecedented growth in the public service population over the past decade. The reductions, say the government, will bring the numbers more in line with the Canadian population.

The budget also reins in the annual compound growth rate for program expenses which saw an 8.1 percent run from 2015 to 2025, projecting a mere 0.5 percent from 2026-2030.

Spending in the four main envelops over the next five years include $25 billion for housing, $30 billion for defence, $115 billion for infrastructure ($19 billion earmarked for Indigenous communities and municipalities) and $110 billion for productivity and competitiveness.

The budget has so far survived two of the three confidence votes, the last and most important one is to come sometime in mid-November. 

There is a lot riding on the coming vote. If the budget fails to garner enough support to pass (the Liberals currently hold 170 seats thanks to a recent defection of a Conservative MP to the Liberals, although one of those is the Speaker who only votes in the case of a tie, just two votes shy of a majority), then the nation will be plunged into the second election in two years—and taking place in the depths of winter.