L’écart salarial entre les hommes et les femmes au Canada

Le fossé salarial entre les hommes et les femmes s’est rétréci au cours des décennies, notamment ces dernières années, mais il demeure inacceptablement profond. Ainsi, en 2025, les femmes devaient travailler 73 jours de plus que les hommes—soit jusqu’à la mi-avril—pour gagner ce que gagnaient en moyenne les hommes. Ce qui représente un écart global de 28 % par rapport aux gains annuels des hommes.

En termes de dollars, les femmes gagnent en moyenne 19 000 $ de moins par année que les hommes—une somme astronomique de 200 milliards de dollars en perte de salaires collectivement.

La répartition inégale des tâches liées aux soins continue par ailleurs de limiter les possibilités d’emploi des femmes et leurs gains sur toute une vie. Une récente étude canadienne révélait que le revenu des mères chutait de 49 % en moyenne après la naissance d’un premier enfant.

De même, l’écart de rémunération entre les hommes et les femmes est plus considérable pour les femmes victimes de discrimination croisée (intersectionnelles). Par exemple, les travailleuses noires et autochtones gagnent près de 40 % moins par année que les travailleurs masculins non racisés allochtones.

Les progrès négligeables du Canada pour réduire les disparités salariales fondées sur le genre illustrent l’ampleur du défi pour éradiquer la discrimination sexuelle intersectionnelle dans un contexte de polarisation accrue des revenus et des fortunes.

La forte relance de l’emploi en 2021 et 2022 a permis d’augmenter le salaire des femmes, notamment des femmes appartenant à des groupes historiquement marginalisés, mais elle n’a pas modifié fondamentalement le caractère clivé du marché du travail au Canada. Les femmes et les travailleurs marginalisés se sont retrouvés des deux côtés de la relance économique à double voie du Canada, ce qui a entravé les efforts pour combler l’écart de rémunération entre les hommes et les femmes.

Ces défis sont encore plus difficiles à surmonter dans un contexte où les droits des travailleurs et travailleuses sont menacés et les modalités du travail précarisées, où l’on procède à la privatisation des services publics et à des compressions dans le secteur public et où il y a un nombre accru de migrants vulnérables et de travailleurs sans papier exploités et victimes de mauvais traitements.

Nager à contrecourant : évolution de l’équité salariale au Canada

Les progrès soutenus pour combler l’écart salarial entre les hommes et les femmes sont loin d’être assurés. Il faut accorder une attention particulière à la protection des gains si durement acquis et à la recherche de nouvelles perspectives d’avancement. À ce titre, L’élargissement de la portée de lois proactives sur l’équité salariale visant directement la dévaluation du travail des femmes et le statut des travailleuses et travailleurs à bas salaires dans les professions et les industries à prédominance féminine et l’application de ces lois sont des outils essentiels.

Le Canada a été parmi les premiers pays à adopter des lois sur l’équité salariale. Aujourd’hui, les régimes proactifs d’équité salariale varient considérablement d’une province à l’autre en ce qui concerne l’adhésion à des pratiques exemplaires et la priorisation de l’équité salariale.

Il reste beaucoup à faire pour renforcer la législation et les politiques en vigueur, à commencer par élargir l’accès aux mesures proactives d’équité salariale les plus efficace dans les provinces et territoires qui n’ont pas de régime en place, notamment l’Alberta, la Saskatchewan, la Colombie-Britannique et les trois territoires.

D’autres provinces, le Manitoba, l’Île-du-Prince-Édouard, la Nouvelle-Écosse, le Nouveau-Brunswick et Terre-Neuve-et-Labrador, doivent agir immédiatement pour étendre et améliorer leurs dispositions actuelles afin de couvrir un plus grand nombre de travailleurs et de travailleuses dans les secteurs parapublic et privé.

Et tous les gouvernements, y compris ceux du Québec et de l’Ontario et le gouvernement fédéral qui ont les régimes les plus développés, doivent prendre des mesures visant à renforcer leurs dispositions relatives à la reddition de comptes, la transparence et la conformité. Ils doivent explorer différentes voies pour étendre aux travailleuses et travailleurs occasionnels, à temps partiel et temporaires l’accès à l’équité salariale. Et ils doivent intégrer à leurs régimes des mécanismes aptes à détecter la discrimination sexuelle intersectionnelle et y remédier.

Apprendre les leçons de l’équité salariale

L’économiste Marie-Thérèse Chicha fait valoir que « les politiques d’équité salariale portent tout autant sur le processus—abolir des obstacles discriminatoires, comme des systèmes sexistes d’évaluation des emplois et de la rémunération—que sur le résultat final convoité : un salaire égal pour un travail à valeur égale ». En d’autres termes, l’équité salariale se concrétise dans les détails.

À cette fin :

• Une loi sur l’équité salariale devrait clairement établir l’obligation pour les employeurs de réaliser et de maintenir l’équité salariale par des plans d’équité salariale proactifs et assortis d’objectifs précis et de définitions claires.
• La loi doit exiger des méthodes rigoureuses et non sexistes d’évaluation des emplois afin de garantir que le travail des femmes est évalué sur les mêmes bases que celui de leurs homologues masculins. Lorsqu’aucun comparateur masculin n’existe au sein d’une organisation ou d’une entreprise, il faut avoir accès à une méthode de remplacement ou se doter d’un processus de comparaison avec des organisations de l’extérieur.
• La loi devrait aussi promouvoir la collaboration entre toutes les parties prenantes, garantissant aux employés et à leurs représentants un rôle significatif dans le processus décisionnel.
• De même, la loi devrait définir des normes élevées de reddition de comptes et de transparence; elle devrait imposer des rapports publics et internes sur l’équité salariale et des audits de maintien, comme il existe au Québec, visant à éradiquer les pratiques de rémunération sexistes.
• Pour assurer l’efficacité de ces mesures, il faut des organismes de surveillance disposant de ressources suffisantes pour fournir aux parties prenantes la formation et le soutien nécessaires et pour procéder à l’examen des plaintes, résoudre les litiges et remettre des ordonnances exécutoires. Comme l’illustre l’historique de l’équité salariale et de la législation en matière d’emploi, l’absence de mesures dissuasives incite à la non-conformité.

Pour combler l’écart de rémunération entre les hommes et les femmes, une stratégie globale est nécessaire

La documentation portant sur des régimes d’équité salariale proactifs donne à penser que pour réduire le fossé salarial entre les hommes et les femmes et les effets de la discrimination salariale historique, il faut des lois exhaustives, mais qu’il y a des limites à ce que les lois peuvent faire.

Les politiques pour réduire les inégalités salariales fondées sur le sexe doivent être élaborées parallèlement aux politiques qui visent à réduire les inégalités salariales en général ainsi qu’à celles qui s’attaquent à d’autres formes de discrimination sexuelle sur marché du travail et aux pénalités associées à la maternité et aux responsabilités liées aux soins.

De même, l’accès à des mesures de soutien communautaire de qualité élevée, adaptées aux diverses réalités des femmes et de leurs familles, notamment à des services de garde à l’enfance et des services de préposés aux soins, est également une composante fondamentale des stratégies à plusieurs volets requises pour combler l’écart de revenus entre les hommes et les femmes. D’autre part, l’amélioration du salaire et des conditions de travail des personnes qui fournissent ces services est une stratégie gagnante pour atteindre la même fin.

Tout comme l’est aussi la présence de syndicats. Les syndicats jouent un rôle central dans l’élaboration et la mise en œuvre de plans d’équité salariale proactifs ainsi que la négociation de conventions collectives qui débouchent, par exemple, sur des horaires de travail justes, des avantages sociaux au pro rata, l’accès au perfectionnement professionnel et de solides protections contre la discrimination et le harcèlement.

Les initiatives pour accroître la syndicalisation, spécialement dans le secteur privé où les taux de syndicalisation oscillent autour de 15 %, et même à moins de 12 % chez les femmes, font partie des stratégies les plus efficaces pour étendre la portée et les retombées de l’équité salariale au pays.

Prospective

La Convention no 100 de l’OIT sur l’égalité de rémunération pour un travail à valeur égale a été adoptée il y a 75 ans et elle a été ratifiée par le Canada, il y a 50 ans. Pourtant, il reste encore beaucoup à faire pour atteindre la justice économique pour les femmes et les autres personnes qui luttent pour des salaires décents et de bons emplois. Le combat pour l’équité salariale est riche d’enseignements pour faire progresser les droits des femmes et l’égalité entre les hommes et les femmes. L’essentiel maintenant est d’appliquer ces leçons et de les mettre au service d’un marché du travail plus résilient et plus inclusif et d’un avenir plus juste pour les femmes.

The post Démantèlement de la discrimination salariale fondée sur le sexe au Canada : Tendances actuelles et mesures stratégiques appeared first on CCPA.

Canada’s gender pay gap

While the gender pay gap has narrowed over the decades, notably in the last few years, it remains unacceptably wide: a woman needed to work an additional 73 days—until the middle of April—to catch up to what the average man earned in 2025. This works out to an overall gender gap in annual earnings of 28 per cent.

In dollar terms, women are making more than $19,000 less a year, on average, than men—an astronomical $200 billion collectively in lost wages.

The unequal division of care labour continues to constrain women’s employment opportunities and lifetime earnings. One recent Canadian study found mothers’ earnings fall by an average of 49 per cent after the birth of the first child.

The gender pay gap is wider as well for women confronting intersecting sources of discrimination. Black and Indigenous women workers, for example, make close to 40 per cent less than non-racialized, non-Indigenous male workers per year.

Canada’s glacial progress in reducing gender wage disparities speaks to the scale of the challenge involved in rooting out intersectional gender discrimination within a context of increasing income and wealth polarization.

The robust employment recovery in 2021 and 2022 boosted women’s wages, including those from historically marginalized groups, but it did not fundamentally change the bifurcated character of Canada’s labour market. Women and marginalized workers have found themselves on both sides of Canada’s two-track recovery complicating efforts to close the gender pay gap.

These challenges are made more difficult in the context of the attack on workers’ rights, the growing precarity of work arrangements, privatization of public services and public sector cutbacks, and the growing number of vulnerable migrant and undocumented workers subject to exploitation and abuse.

Swimming upstream: The evolution of pay equity in Canada

Continued progress in closing the gender pay gap is far from assured. Attention must be paid to protecting hard-won gains as well as to finding new opportunities for progress. Expanding and enforcing proactive pay equity legislation that directly targets the devaluation of women’s work and the standing of low-waged workers in female-dominated occupations and industries is one essential tool in this task.

Canada was an early leader in introducing pay equity laws. Proactive pay equity regimes now vary substantially among Canadian jurisdictions in the degree to which they have embraced best practices and prioritized pay equity.

There is much still to do to strengthen existing legislation and policy, starting with expanding access to best-in-class proactive pay equity in the provinces and territories that do not have any system in place, namely Alberta, Saskatchewan, British Columbia and the three territories.

Another group of jurisdictions—Manitoba, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Newfoundland and Labrador—need to take immediate action to expand and enhance their existing provisions to cover a broader range of workers in the para-public and private sectors.

And all governments—including Quebec, Ontario and the federal government with the most developed systems—need to take steps to strengthen provisions for accountability, transparency and enforcement and to explore avenues for expanding access to casual, part-time and temporary workers and incorporating methods that can assess and respond to intersectional gender discrimination.

Learning the lessons of pay equity

Economist Marie-Thérèse Chicha makes the point that “Pay equity policies are as much a matter of process—removal of discriminatory obstacles, e.g. gender biased job evaluation and remuneration systems—as of the final results: achieving equal pay for work of equal value.” In other words, effective pay equity is all about the details.

To this end:

• Pay equity legislation should clearly establish the obligation of employers to achieve and maintain pay equity through the development of proactive pay equity plans, setting out clear objectives and definitions.
• It must require rigorous gender-neutral job evaluation methods that ensure women’s work is assessed on the same basis as their male peers. Where no male comparators exist within an organization or firm, access to a proxy method or comparable process must be established.
• It should also promote collaboration between all stakeholders, guaranteeing that employees and their representatives have meaningful roles in decision-making
• It should likewise set strong standards of accountability and transparency via regular public and workplace reporting and mandatory equal pay audits such as exists in Quebec designed to root out gender-biased pay practices.
• The success of these efforts rests with well-resourced oversight bodies, providing needed education and support to stakeholders, and serving as the avenue for investigating complaints, settling disputes, and issuing compliance orders. As the history of pay equity and all employment law illustrates, the absence of deterrence incentivizes non-compliance.

Closing the gender pay gap requires a comprehensive strategy

All the literature on proactive pay equity stresses that comprehensive pay equity laws are essential in the fight to reduce the gender wage gap and the impact of historical discrimination, but there are limits to what it can achieve.

Policies to reduce gender pay equality need to be developed in tandem with policies to reduce wage inequality overall, as well as those that address the other forms of gendered discrimination in the labour market and penalties attached to motherhood and caregiving.

Likewise, access to high-quality community supports such as child care and attendant care—tailored to the diverse realities of women and their families—is also a fundamental plank in the multi-pronged strategy needed to close the gender wage gap. Improving the wages and the working conditions of the workers in these jobs, in turn, is another assured strategy to the same end.

So, too, is the presence of unions. Trade unions not only play a pivotal role in the development and implementation of proactive pay equity plans, but also through the negotiation of collective agreements that deliver, for example, fair scheduling, pro-rated benefits, professional development and strong protections against discrimination and harassment

Initiatives to expand union coverage, especially in the private sector, where the unionization rate hovers near 15 per cent and an even lower 12 per cent among women, are one of the most important strategies for expanding the reach and impact of pay equity across the country.

Looking forward

It’s been 75 years since the ILO resolution 100 on equal pay for work of equal value was adopted, and more than 50 years since it was ratified in Canada. Yet there’s still a long way to go to realize economic justice for women and others fighting for decent wages and good jobs. The fight for pay equity offers many lessons for advancing women’s rights and gender equality. The imperative now is to apply these lessons in service of a more resilient and inclusive labour market and gender-just future.

The post Dismantling gender pay discrimination in Canada: Current trends and policy responses appeared first on CCPA.

In 2019, the Canadian government launched two five-year caregiver immigration pilots, which were themselves designed to replace expiring pilot programs. The Home Child Care Provider Pilot and Home Support Worker Pilot expired in June 2024. Ottawa then introduced another set of temporary programs: the Home Care Worker Immigration pilots.

The new programs opened in March 2025. By the end of the year demand had already exceeded available spaces, and IRCC announced that it would not reopen intake as scheduled in March 2026.

The department itself seems to recognize the problem. An IRCC briefing note acknowledged “the need for stability in caregiver programming” and said it expected the newest pilots to be the last before a permanent program is implemented.

But the caregiver story points to a broader tendency in Canadian public policy. Governments respond to enduring problems through instruments designed to expire: pilot programs, one-time benefits, interim measures, and funding envelopes that they must actively renew.

IRCC’s own internal audit describes immigration pilots as temporary mechanisms to test innovative approaches or address particular economic needs. Under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, economic immigration pilots created through ministerial instructions can operate for no more than five years. They are supposed to be assessed before the government decides whether they should become permanent.

In other words, the expiration date is supposed to force a decision. But Canada increasingly seems comfortable replacing one temporary arrangement with another.

Consider rural immigration. The Rural and Northern Immigration Pilot ended in 2024 after five years. Ottawa itself called it a success. Preliminary survey findings found that 87 per cent of respondents who arrived through the program had stayed and intended to remain in participating communities. More than 8,500 newcomers received permanent residence through it.

The government had already indicated it wanted to make the model permanent, but its response, instead, was to launch two more temporary programs: the Rural Community Immigration Pilot and Francophone Community Immigration Pilot.

There is nothing inherently wrong with these tools—indeed, governments should experiment. Emergencies require rapid responses, and policymakers should be able to test an idea before making it permanent.

The problem begins when the experiment itself becomes permanent. What emerges is a kind of permanent temporariness. The contradiction is particularly visible when temporary funding is directed at problems nobody expects to be temporary.

Permanent problems, temporary money

Homelessness is another obvious example. Reaching Home, Canada’s principal homelessness strategy, operates through fixed term funding commitments. The 2024 budget added $1.3 billion over four years.

Housing programs frequently follow a similar model. Ottawa’s Housing Accelerator Fund, intended to encourage municipalities to remove barriers to homebuilding, totals $4.4 billion over five years after receiving a $400-million top-up in the 2024 budget.

Employment Insurance offers another example. EI is supposed to provide a permanent safety net for workers who lose their jobs, yet according to a recent CCPA analysis, fewer than four in 10 unemployed workers currently access it. When crises expose these gaps, Ottawa has repeatedly responded with temporary workarounds.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the government created the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) to quickly support millions of workers rather than rely on the existing EI system alone, which quickly collapsed under the strain of its unnecessary bureaucratic requirements. The emergency of the pandemic justified an emergency response, but it also shows how much the permanent system was in need of structural reform—a reform that did not come.

We’re seeing something similar now, with the Canada-US trade war. Beginning in 2025, Ottawa introduced a series of temporary EI measures, which included waiving the one week waiting period and providing additional weeks of benefits to some long tenured workers. Those measures have since been extended, and in August 2026 the government announced another 3.5 billion in rapid response support for workers and employers affected by American tariffs.

These interventions may be necessary, but their repeated use raises the larger question of why Canada keeps building temporary scaffolding rather than actually addressing the gaps within it.

Sometimes, though, temporary policy can also work as intended. Take the Canada Dental Benefit—a program that was explicitly created as an interim measure. Between 2022 and June 2024, it provided payments to eligible families with children under 12 who lacked private dental insurance. When it ended, eligible children could transition into the broader Canadian Dental Care Plan. Today, the Canadian Dental Care Plan has become both universal and permanent. The pilot worked—and the government responded accordingly.

Why governments like expiry dates

Part of the reason why governments find temporary programs so attractive is fiscal. A permanent program creates a continuing claim on future budgets. A four or five year fund allows the government to announce billions in spending today without creating an equivalent obligation a decade from now.

There is also a political advantage. Ending an established permanent program requires an affirmative and potentially unpopular decision. A temporary program can disappear through inaction. The government does not necessarily have to announce that it is abolishing something; it can just decide not to renew it.

Temporariness can also expand executive flexibility. This is particularly visible in immigration. Parliament has given the immigration minister considerable authority to establish economic pilot programs through ministerial instructions. IRCC itself notes that ministerial instructions can govern matters ranging from application intake to immigrant selection.

That flexibility can be useful, sure. But there is a trade off when policies affecting thousands of people are repeatedly governed through shifting administrative instruments rather than durable frameworks.

Pilot programs often include substantial and important investments, and an expiry date does not make a program ineffective. But temporary funding has consequences for the institutions trying to turn federal announcements into durable services.

A municipality or community organization does not just “spend” federal funding. It hires staff, develops expertise, establishes relationships, and builds administrative capacity. Those decisions become more difficult when nobody knows whether the money supporting them will continue coming in.

The uncertainty is effectively transferred downward. Ottawa has the flexibility to renew, redesign, or terminate the program. Municipalities and service providers assume responsibility for maintaining the people and infrastructure required to deliver it.

Temporary funding can therefore create an unusual arrangement: the social need is permanent, the service is expected to continue, but the financing repeatedly has to justify its own survival. This is permanent temporariness in practice.

An expiry date should force a decision

The answer is, obviously, not to make everything permanent. Ineffective programs should end. Governments need room to experiment, and public policy would become worse if every emergency measure automatically transformed itself into a long-term program. But temporary programs should always contain a plan for what happens next.

Every substantial pilot should begin with publicly defined criteria for success and a timetable for evaluation. Before the program expires, the government should explain whether the program met those criteria and whether it will be terminated, redesigned, or made permanent. If one pilot is replaced with another addressing essentially the same problem, the government should explain why another experimental period is necessary.

Programs financing ongoing services through municipalities and nonprofits should similarly include transition plans well before their expiry. Predictability matters, especially to the workers that organizations can hire and retain as well as the people who depend on their services.

Canada will always need pilot projects, temporary benefits, and emergency programs. A capable state requires the freedom to respond quickly and experiment. But experiments are supposed to produce conclusions.

When governments spend years piloting solutions to problems that have existed for decades, repeatedly renew funding for services they know communities will continue to need, or answer persistent insecurity through programs designed to disappear, temporariness becomes the policy itself—allowing governments to postpone the harder question of what they are actually prepared to make permanent.

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In Canada, the federal government devolved responsibility for social housing to the provinces in the 1990s, and provinces have since taken different approaches to addressing low-income housing need. This study examines how neoliberalism is reflected in the approaches to social housing that evolved in Manitoba between 1993 and 2024, and what, if any, conditions may have helped to resist it.

The following actions should be taken to reengage in the expansion of social housing and realize housing rights for all Manitobans:

1. The provincial and federal governments should commit sufficient public resources to expand social housing supply, in both the public and nonprofit sectors, to meet all low-income housing need.

2. The provincial and federal governments should establish long-term, stable, and appropriate funding and programs to support nonprofit housing provider capacities.

3. Neoliberalization processes should be recognized and rejected; housing need is a public issue resulting from neoliberal political, economic, and social policy decisions.

*This report summarizes portions of a Master’s thesis entitled Neoliberalism and Social Housing: Comparing Approaches to Social Housing in Manitoba and British Columbia from 1993 to 2019.

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It was a move that has shocked Canada’s labour movement. The Manitoba government specifically asked the labour board to force the striking workers back to work while the labour board could determine whether their work is an essential service. That province’s government enacted a new “essential services” labour classification system in 2024, and this is the first time they are using it to strikebreak.

How did we get here?

The laboratory technologists and technicians, represented by the Manitoba Association of Health Care Professionals (MAHCP), have been without a collective agreement since March 31. 

Outpatient laboratory services—that is, lab services like urine or blood tests which do not require overnight stays in a health care facility—in Manitoba have been solely outsourced to Dynacare since 2017. Dynacare is a  Brampton, Ontario-based corporation owned by North Carolina-based Labcorp, and its workers perform about 40 per cent of all lab testing in the province.

As recently as 2017, private-sector lab workers had wage parity with their public sector counterparts. But through successive outsourcing agreements between the Manitoba government and Dynacare, these workers lost significant ground. 

In 2025, the Manitoba government signed a five-year contract with Dynacare that effectively locked these private-sector lab workers into wages 20 to 50 per cent below their public sector co-workers performing the same work in public hospitals. 

The MAHCP’s analysis shows that the cost of restoring wage parity would require approximately $6 million beginning in 2026-27—or less than one-tenth of one per cent of the province’s $10 billion health care budget. Dynacare’s final offer to the union would have “funded less than 15 per cent of the cost of wage parity with public labs,” according to the union. 

Dynacare: a window into U.S. corporate health care

Some provinces, including B.C., Manitoba, and Ontario, outsource routine outpatient lab testing, specimen collection, and analysis to for-profit corporations, including Dynacare and LifeLabs. Both are owned by highly profitable, publicly traded U.S. health care corporations. 

Between 2019-20 and 2024-25, the Manitoba government paid Dynacare $285.8 million for privatized lab services. In the most recent fiscal year available, Dynacare received $45.1 million in public funding from the provincial government.

The commercial contracts between the Manitoba government and Dynacare build in a profit margin for the corporation—which remains secret. However, previous research shows that for-profit lab services providers do just fine—otherwise, they wouldn’t be in the business in the first place. 

Although we don’t have the specific financials for Dynacare, the parent corporation—Labcorp—is a highly profitable U.S. health care company. Over the last six years (2020-25), its net profits have ranged from $418 million to $2.4 billion each year. Labcorp took in more than $876 million in 2025. 

Clearly, Dynacare’s refusal to work towards a fair collective agreement with its Manitoba employees is not about inability to pay—it’s about profits.

Profit is undeniably the dominant operating logic of the for-profit U.S. health care industry. It’s a system that extracts wealth from households and governments. 

While it is not surprising that Dynacare is resistant to lowering its profit margins for laboratory workers to receive wage parity with their hospital-based colleagues, there are short-term and long-term solutions within the Manitoba government’s power.

The Manitoba government created the situation, it has the power to solve it

The Manitoba government signed a commercial outsourcing agreement with Dynacare in 2025. Under any agreement, the provincial government can push for minimum staffing standards and compensation. Clearly, the Manitoba government didn’t do this—and appears to have signed a contract that shortchanges these workers. In fact, Manitoba’s health minister openly acknowledged freezing Dynacare’s rate in the first year of the new contract, which they must have known would put downward pressure on wages for these publicly-funded workers.

As the union has revealed from the commercial contract, the provincial government has broad authority to direct Dynacare in this situation. Specifically, “the Service Provider [Dynacare] agrees: (f) to comply with all reasonable directions and requests of Manitoba.” Even though Premier Wab Kinew has suggested that his government is powerless in this situation, the government has, in fact, significant leverage under the existing agreement.

As well, if the provincial government wanted to immediately resolve the labour dispute and ensure wage parity—without demanding that Dynacare find wage increases from their existing profits—the province could provide additional funding to Dynacare and require those dollars be directed to funding a new collective agreement.

The Manitoba government agreement with Dynacare expires in 2030. Over the longer-term, the provincial government could start immediately working with provincial health authorities to increase public-sector capacity as a clear signal of its intentions to repatriate privatized lab services into the public system. This move would certainly get the attention of Dynacare and would very likely encourage the U.S.-owned provider to become a better employer.

This is the inherent problem with privatizing the delivery of medically necessary health care services to large (U.S.) corporations. Provincial health care systems become reliant on these for-profit providers and lose the capacity to deliver these services in-house. As these corporations become entrenched, profits come before health workers and patients. It’s the same story that plays out again and again.

Despite the Manitoba government’s claims that it remains powerless in the face of an U.S. health care corporation, there are a number of options available to the provincial government. 

The Manitoba government should stand up to U.S. corporate profiteers—and stand up for our health care sovereignty.

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The first year of the Carney government saw little movement in supporting health care, despite most Canadians telling pollsters they believe the system is in crisis and that health care remains among their top issues of concern.

Indeed, the federal government currently sees public health care strictly as a provincial responsibility, which allows it to prioritize “hard power” spending on national defence, infrastructure, and attracting foreign investment through tax cuts and subsidies.

The only health care program of note in this government’s first budget, $5 billion over three years in matching spending with provinces for new health infrastructure projects like hospitals, was not given to the Minister of Health to administer (as is usually the case for major health care transfers). Instead, it was handed over to the Minister of Housing and Infrastructure.

This stands in stark contrast to the previous government’s approach under Justin Trudeau, which acknowledged an important federal role and increased federal contributions through the Canada Health Transfer, bilateral agreements, and by establishing the Canadian Dental Care Plan and the Pharmacare Act.

Despite campaigning on these popular health care programs, the Carney government has frozen and even rolled back federal health care programs. This includes cutting over a thousand jobs at Health Canada and related agencies.

Overview

Pharmacare

The long-promised national universal pharmacare program has stalled, leaving only four provinces and territories receiving federal funding to provide residents with free contraceptives and diabetes treatments. This means only one in five Canadians can benefit from the program.¹

The Pharmacare Act received Royal Assent in 2024, and the Trudeau government signed three funding agreements with Manitoba, British Columbia and Prince Edward Island. The Carney government signed a fourth agreement with Yukon before the federal election, but no new agreements have been signed since.² The Newfoundland and Labrador’s health minister has complained publicly that her federal counterpart has refused to initiate negotiations for that province to join the federal program.³

The medical community agrees that pharmacare will save lives, prevent more costly preventable conditions and help the economy through a healthy workforce.⁴ Provinces and territories are being denied hundreds of millions in funding because the federal government is dragging its feet.

The nursing shortage

Nurses’ working conditions have been deteriorating for decades. Hospitals routinely operate over capacity and are understaffed. Violence and harassment are increasing, as are burnout and psychological distress. There are nearly 30,000 nursing vacancies in Canada, and filling these positions would only achieve the bare minimum required to operate the health care system.⁵ As a stop gap, employers are relying on private nursing agencies. This costs the public significantly more than hiring permanent nurses while destabilizing health care teams.⁶

More than one in three nurses are considering leaving their current job or the nursing workforce within the next year, with insufficient staffing levels ranked as the top factor considered when leaving a job.⁷ Staffing levels and nurse attrition are locked in a vicious cycle: low staffing levels lead to worse working conditions, which lead to nurses leaving the profession, which leads to lower staffing levels, etc.

Job cuts

Health Canada and the Public Health Agency of Canada play central co-ordination and regulation roles in our health system. On-the-ground medical care falls to the provinces, but this work is backstopped by federal regulations on health products and food, federal investments in chronic disease prevention and health promotion, and federal surveillance of infectious diseases to limit future outbreaks.

Provincial and territorial health care systems across the country are struggling under the weight of a growing and aging population with more complex health needs. Health care workers are doing their utmost within a system that is starved of the resources needed to provide high-quality, public health care within service standards and where privatization threatens it from all directions. In this environment, the federal role in upstream prevention, disease surveillance and consumer protection has become more important than ever.

Dental care

The government proudly announced its ongoing support for the Canadian Dental Care Plan with budget 2025, yet long-term funding for this program is far from assured. While the plan has helped more than four million people who have no dental coverage whatsoever, the program must be enhanced to meet the needs of more Canadians and to ensure that fees are not a barrier to this essential health care.

Balance billing and co-pays function as barriers to service. They mean that plan beneficiaries must shop around to try to make their coverage go farther, which effectively limits access. Under the plan, co-pays of 40 to 60 per cent are levied on households earning $70,000 to $90,000 annually. Even the lowest-income households (earning under $70,000 per year), of whom co-pays are not required, are still subject to “balance billing” fees from dentists because reimbursement rates under the plan remain below the fee guides for dental services in many provinces.

Funding for community health centres

Primary care should serve as the entryway into the health care system, yet one in five people in Canada do not have access to it.⁸ Evidence demonstrates that countries with a strong primary health care orientation have lower health care costs, better health outcomes and fewer inequities.

If people don’t have timely access to a regular primary care provider or team, they often end up in emergency departments, or they delay necessary health care until they’re in a health crisis. This is much more costly to the public system. But the federal government does not provide direct infrastructure funding in support of non-profit primary care services.

The Canada Health Transfer

The Canada Health Transfer (CHT) is the largest federal contribution to provinces and territories—and the AFB has long called for greater transparency and accountability in how federal health transfers are spent. In 2023, the Trudeau government committed to a guaranteed five per cent annual increase, or “escalator,” for the CHT. This five per cent escalator will continue through 2027-28. In 2028-29, without a new commitment, the CHT escalator drops to nominal GDP growth or three per cent, whichever is greater. If the federal government does not commit to maintaining the five per cent escalator, the CHT will be reduced by $723 million in 2028-29 and $1.4 billion in 2029-30. This is assuming 3.8 and 3.9 per cent escalators, which are expected with such economic uncertainty.

Funding agreements with provinces and territories

Multiple bilateral agreements with the provinces and territories are due to expire in the next year or two.⁹

The federal government won’t be renewing the Aging with Dignity agreements worth $1.2 billion in annual transfers to the provinces to support long-term-care standards and improvements to home and community care, which expire after 2027-28.¹⁰

The National Strategy for Drugs for Rare Diseases, worth $1.4 billion over three years, increases Canadians’ access to expensive drugs for rare diseases. It won’t extend beyond 2026-2027.¹¹ The bilateral agreements devoting $600 million a year through 2026-27 towards mental health and substance use are not scheduled to be renewed either.¹²

The toxic drug crisis

The toxic drug crisis continues to kill people in Canada, surpassing 55,000 opioid-related deaths over 10 years.¹³ The unregulated drug supply, which has evolved to contain novel and highly potent substances, is the primary driver of preventable death.¹⁴ Hypoxic brain injury following consumption of unregulated drugs has also become increasingly common.¹⁵ The unpredictable nature of the drug supply intersects with pre-existing socioeconomic barriers to health care, causing disproportionately high rates of death among people who experience poverty and housing insecurity¹⁶ and people who are Indigenous.¹⁷

Despite the severity of this crisis, the Carney government ended funding in 2025 for programs under Health Canada’s Substance Use and Addictions Program, which provided prescribed alternatives to the unregulated drug supply. In addition, some provinces have ended funding for harm-reduction services, including supervised consumption, a proven initiative that provides emergency overdose response and reduces HIV and hepatitis C transmission. This happened despite stated federal support for supervised consumption in the federal Sexually Transmitted and Blood-Borne Infections Action Plan and the Canadian Drugs and Substances Strategy.

For those who seek treatment, the substance use treatment sector in Canada lacks national minimum standards of care for service delivery. Transparency and accountability measures are also lacking. Currently, treatment service providers are not required to report on clinical outcomes, including deaths and injuries, and it is difficult for patients to seek recourse for human rights abuses occurring in these facilities.

Actions

The AFB will continue to build a national universal pharmacare program by enrolling the remaining provinces and territories at a cost of $5.3 billion over four years in addition to the $928.5 million already committed, and funding public coverage of essential prescription medications at $13.4 billion per year.¹⁸

The AFB will take profits out of nurse staffing by funding government-run or non-profit organizations to staff hard-to-recruit posts. It will also require public health care employers to develop, publish and implement strategies to phase out private, for-profit nurse staffing agencies. These will include targets, timelines, regular evaluation and penalties for non-compliance.

The AFB will use conditional health funding agreements to require provinces and territories to include minimum nurse-to-patient ratios in health human resources strategies.

The AFB will reverse job cuts to Health Canada and the Public Health Agency of Canada. This funding will help ensure enforcement of the Canada Health Act and will put the population’s health and well-being at the forefront.

The AFB will increase Canadian Dental Care Plan coverage to remove co-pays and eradicate balance billing. Dental care providers will be reimbursed at rates commensurate with the provincial and territorial fee guides.

The AFB will extend the principle of universality to dental care. This universal dental care program would cover everyone equally, including self-employed or gig workers who have no benefits but have a family income of more than $90,000. The AFB will implement a fourth phase to the Canadian Dental Care Plan in 2027 that will remove the income restriction.

The AFB will create a $5 billion primary care infrastructure fund, indexed to inflation, to help provinces finance non-profit primary care infrastructure, including community health centres and non-profit primary care organizations.

The AFB will continue the five per cent escalator in the Canada Health Transfer in 2028-29 and in perpetuity, and will ensure that, at a minimum, federal spending on health care keeps up with inflation.

The AFB will negotiate extensions to existing bilateral agreements that are due to expire or replace them with new agreements. These include the Aging with Dignity agreements, the bilateral agreements for mental health and substance use, and the National Strategy on Drugs for Rare Diseases.

The AFB has determined that Alberta’s two-tier health care law (known as Bill 11) violates the Canada Health Act. If the Alberta government moves forward with the law, transfers will be withheld in accordance with the Canada Health Act.

The AFB will cancel the Interim Federal Health Program co-payment policy and expand status-blind health care, working with the provinces and territories to guarantee health coverage for all migrants, regardless of status. It will restore full program coverage for prescription drugs, dental care, vision care, counselling, assistive devices and other supplemental care.

The AFB will provide funding in the amount of $492 million over three years to establish 20 new supervised consumption sites that provide 24-hour service delivery, and 20 new community-based overdose response outreach teams composed of peer workers, medical professionals and social service workers.

The AFB will establish national standards for substance use treatment, including quality assurances and minimum standards of care, client redress mechanisms, mandatory evaluation of outcomes, and reporting of deaths and injuries.

The post Alternative federal budget 2026-27: Health care appeared first on CCPA.

Federal, provincial and territorial governments are fast-tracking infrastructure and resource development on First Nations territories using processes that specifically bypass or exclude them, circumventing their unique rights and interests. This reflects ongoing patterns in which First Nations are positioned as stakeholders rather than rights holders, limiting meaningful participation in decisions that directly impact their communities and lands.

The way forward is to establish robust mechanisms to ensure that development proceeds in a way that benefits industry and all orders of government, including First Nations, and in a manner that respects First Nations’ rights.

This chapter is focused on the following:

• Investing in First Nations students, workers and businesses to ensure they are supported and prepared to participate as full partners to development in their territories.
• Establishing mechanisms that ensure First Nations’ participation in and economic benefit from those projects.

Doing so would support the broader pursuit of First Nations’ fiscal autonomy, self-determination and the opt-in statutory funding regime that is necessary to establish the New Fiscal Relationship (NFR) between First Nations and Canada. These actions would also reduce long-term costs associated with litigation, mediation, project delays, environmental remediation and court-ordered compensation.

Overview

As Canada seeks to become a global energy superpower, it has chosen not to treat First Nations as partners. Noting commendable exceptions such as the first two guarantees under the federal Indigenous Loan Guarantee Program (ILGP),¹ Canada is not leveraging First Nations business acumen, expertise and knowledge of their lands and waters.

This won’t work. No development project will succeed long-term if it does not obtain First Nations’ free, prior and informed consent. These requirements are enshrined in instruments like the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples² (UN Declaration), which provides that:

Article 23: Indigenous peoples have the right to determine and develop priorities and strategies for exercising their right to development, to be actively involved in economic programs that affect them, and to administer such programmes through their own institutions.

Article 32(1): Indigenous peoples have the right to decide how their lands, territories, and resources are developed and used.

Article 32(2): States must consult and work in good faith with Indigenous representative bodies and obtain their free, prior, and informed consent before approving projects that affect their lands or resources, especially resource extraction.

Article 32(3): States must provide fair remedies and take steps to prevent or lessen environmental, economic, social, cultural, or spiritual harms caused by such activities.

Reconciling with First Nations is the surest way to secure sustainable economic growth. The recommendations at the end of this chapter outline how Canada can effect economic reconciliation through investments that advance First Nations’ education, skills/training/certification, procurement, employment and entrepreneurial opportunity, and fiscal autonomy.

Health and socio-economic outcomes depend largely on social and environmental determinants,³ with income, income security and educational attainment considered to be among the most important. First Nations have also always known that language, cultural continuity and self-determination are also among the most important determinants.

As former Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada Chair, The Honourable Murray Sinclair, famously said, “Education is what got us into this mess and education is key to getting us out of it.” Sinclair also observed that education did not merely fail First Nations. It was central to creating the conditions that produced and sustain intergenerational poverty, housing and infrastructure gaps, and economic exclusion. Education and gainful employment are the key to dismantling longstanding barriers to health, wellness and economic self-determination.

The new fiscal relationship

In 2016, the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) and Indigenous Services Canada (ISC) agreed to establish initiatives that would advance First Nations’ right to self-determination and support efforts to close persistent socio-economic gaps.

The creation and uptake of New Fiscal Relationship (NFR) 10-year grants represents significant progress in economic reconciliation. This is a successful first step in the transition to fiscal autonomy for First Nations because it provides more flexibility and predictability in how First Nations governments can use funding to address their priorities. It consolidates and escalates program funding for the areas enumerated in section 6(2) of the Department of Indigenous Services Act,⁴ including health, infrastructure, economic development, education, and governance through Band Support Funding (BSF) and other Indigenous governance and capacity supports provided by ISC.

By the end of 2024-25, ISC had provided more than $6.5 billion in NFR grants to 160 First Nations.⁵ By 2026 there were 191 recipients,⁶ 173 of which are First Nations. Average grant escalation was 4.9 per cent, adding $48 million to recurring recipients. However, the Office of the Auditor General of Canada reported in May 2026 that, over a period of 10 years, ISC had not effectively implemented, monitored or assessed the NFR initiatives it had committed to. These included replacing the Default Prevention and Management Policy⁷ and the development and implementation of a mutual accountability framework that would be centered on measurable outcomes for closing socio-economic gaps between First Nations and other Canadians.

The Joint Advisory Committee on Fiscal Relations (JACFR)⁸ has outlined many more elements of the NFR, that remain unimplemented. Among these are building First Nations statistical⁹ and fiscal policy¹⁰ institutions and establishing a First Nations Auditor General.¹¹

It is in Canada’s interest to prioritize the ongoing transition to the NFR. Ultimately, that means implementing JACFR Recommendation 11, developing a regime of optional statutory transfers to be made available to First Nations governments, where eligibility for those transfers is tied to a commitment to collect and share statistics and to be subject to performance audits by a First Nations Auditor General.

Meanwhile, Band Support Funding is the key source of capacity support for First Nations governments and funding for community-based professional personnel. This funding is a core constituent of NFR grants. Although NFR grants ease reporting and provide escalation, funding still falls far short of actual governance needs.

A recent AFOA Canada report¹² on modernizing Indigenous governance and capacity programs reconfirmed what First Nations have long expressed: funding is well below the level of actual expenditures in each of the ten governance functions ISC recognizes. Further, it does not account for the seven additional functions of modern governance: human resource management; information management and technology; robust financial management systems; creation and implementation of laws, bylaws and codes; community planning; and accountability and community engagement processes.

Current funding only meets, on average, 30 per cent of First Nations’ financial governance needs. An immediate tripling of BSF is warranted.

Canada must also:

• Support more First Nations to qualify for the NFR grant.
• Before the first 10-year grants are up for renewal in 2029, create an optional regime for eligible First Nations to graduate into a statutory funding arrangement rather than renew.

First Nations Benefits Sharing Framework

To supplement this federal funding, industry and all orders of government should work to develop a First Nations Benefits Sharing Framework (FNBSF) that guarantees First Nations’ participation and revenue-sharing in all projects occurring in their territories. This is not only to support fiscal autonomy for First Nations, but to ensure Canada is successful in its nation-building ambitions. It is true partnership with First Nations that will improve project certainty, avoid delays, and promote the increased foreign direct investment and competitiveness in global energy markets that Canada aspires to.

Education and labour market initiative

The First Nations Labour Market Initiative (LMI) pilot, under the Indigenous Skills and Employment Training (ISET) Program, is a critical tool for strengthening employment strategies and advancing economic development in First Nations. By filling longstanding data gaps, the project equips communities with accurate, First Nation-specific labour market information to identify workforce needs, design training programs, and create targeted employment strategies that support long-term growth, wellness and self-sufficiency.

In value-for-money terms, the LMI represents the best-known strategy¹³ for addressing First Nations-specific challenges with respect to labour productivity, unemployment and underemployment. Transitioning the pilot into a national, permanent component to the ISET Program would go a long way to closing the educational attainment rate, employment rate, employment income, and employment productivity gaps between First Nations and non-Indigenous Canadians. The Centre for the Study of Living Standards has estimated cumulative GDP gains of $457 billion by 2041 if Indigenous labour outcomes improve.¹⁴ Other estimates¹⁵ project a $26.7 billion annual GDP increase and $6.7 billion in net fiscal benefits from fewer people living on low income.

First Nations procurement authority

Adequate labour information and training will only add to the fact that First Nations are poised to participate more fully in the domestic and global economies and to contribute to Canada’s nation-building ambitions. Since 1996, the Procurement Strategy for Indigenous Business has been well-intended but largely ineffective in advancing First Nations’ economic participation. Efforts to ensure that a minimum five per cent of the total value of federal contracts is held by Indigenous businesses have been characterized primarily by fraud and lack of due diligence. This has been documented extensively, including by the Office of the Auditor General of Canada and the Procurement Ombud,¹⁶ who recently summarized the Procurement Strategy for Indigenous Business as a “cascading failure.”

The way forward is First Nations–led certification and procurement support. The First Nations Procurement Authority (FNPA) was incorporated in May 2025. All levels of government and industry should commit to supporting and partnering with the FNPA and to attaining a five per cent First Nations procurement target.

This, alongside other investments in First Nations education outlined in the actions listed below, will support First Nations workers and businesses to contribute to the One Canadian Economy as well as the global economy.

Actions

The AFB will increase Band Support Funding to $1.329 billion per year (5.06 per cent escalator) beginning in 2027-28 to support the modernization of governance funding and the New Fiscal Relationship (NFR) transition.¹⁷

The AFB will invest $65.68 million in contributions annually to First Nations Indigenous Skills and Employment Training (ISET) agreement holders, to transition the First Nations Labour Market Initiative (LMI) pilot into a fully funded national program that includes all 95 First Nations ISET agreement holders.

The AFB will invest $36.6 million over five years to support the operations of the First Nations Procurement Authority in delivering a national certification and procurement support system. Further, it will commit all federal departments and new entities like Build Canada Homes and the Build Communities Strong Fund to achieving a five per cent target for genuine First Nations procurement.¹⁸

The AFB will establish new, reliable financing mechanisms for First Nations to better address housing and infrastructure needs, including $200 million per year over 20 years to establish a dedicated Infrastructure Monetization Program.¹⁹

The AFB will renew and double the Indigenous Community Infrastructure Fund to $8.6 billion over four years and include a First Nations-specific stream.

The AFB will renew the $2.4 billion over five years announced in budget 2022 to support First Nations on-reserve housing.

The AFB will enhance funding for First Nations education infrastructure to meet safety and overcrowding standards and adhere to best practices in asset management with $2.59 billion in operations and maintenance funding and $5.76 billion in capital funding to construct, operate, and maintain First Nations schools and teacherages over the next five years.²⁰

The AFB will establish a new permanent First Nations adult education program to close the secondary school attainment gap, reduce poverty and increase employment opportunities for First Nations adults. This stream of funding would replace the time-limited $350 million over five years investment announced in budget 2021. It would amount to $194 million per year.

The AFB will ensure reliable access to education for First Nations by investing an additional $1.52 billion over five years to replace aging school buses.

The AFB will restore and enhance First Nations elementary and secondary education with $4.23 billion over five years to sign Regional Education Agreements and cover the true costs of First Nations education.

The AFB will renew and expand the sunsetted funding for Indigenous Languages Act section 8 & 9 agreements with a total of $233 million over five years. These agreements allow First Nations and First Nations organizations to enter into collaborative agreements with the federal government and provincial and/or territorial governments (tripartite) to advance language revitalization efforts.

The AFB will renew and increase Specific Claims research funding to $35 million per year over five years as called for by the First Nations-in-Assembly through AFN Resolution 57/2025, Condemning Canada’s Specific Claims Research Funding Cuts.

The AFB will:

• Initiate a constitutional review of the Natural Resources Transfer Agreements and their equivalents in other provinces and territories, for compatibility with section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982.
• Work with First Nations and their representative institutions to develop a First Nations Benefits Sharing Framework (FNBSF) that guarantees participation and revenue sharing for First Nations in the development of infrastructure and natural resources on their territories.
• Commit $142 million over five years to support these activities, which are of a scope and scale akin to the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples.²¹

The AFB will enhance the recently renewed Pacific Salmon Strategy Initiative ($412.9 million over five years) to the $647 million announced in budget 2021. The additional $234 million will be dedicated to First Nations-led initiatives for the long-term protection and restoration of both Atlantic and Pacific salmon.

The AFB will invest $25 million per year for two years to support First Nations’ engagement in the development of Canada Water Agency legislation, policies and programs. This will include the modernization of the Canada Water Act and a National Water Security Strategy.

The post Alternative federal budget 2026-27: First Nations appeared first on CCPA.

As military spending commitments increase, so too must our investment and commitment in the well-being of those who have served.

People are more likely to serve, stay and have confidence in the institution when they and their families are supported after service. Yet the support system from Veterans Affairs Canada has not kept pace with the changing realities of military, RCMP and family service. Veterans and families continue to face fragmented benefits, difficult transitions, uneven access to care, housing insecurity, backlogs, and gaps in research and support. This is particularly the case for women and other under-serviced groups.

Every veteran deserves a transition experience that supports timely care, financial security and respectful acknowledgement of their time in service—and it can’t be one-size-fits-all. A modern veteran system must treat care of service members as a life-course obligation, and measure success through real outcomes.

As Canada expands and strengthens its military, it must also invest in the people who served, the families and those that support them, and the systems and services needed to ensure no one is left behind.

Overview

A comprehensive review of programs and services for veterans

The last time that the federal government undertook a comprehensive independent review of veterans’ benefits and services was in the 1960s. The current system reflects structures originally designed around the needs of aging World War II and Korean War veterans. As of March 31, 2023, war service veterans represent 4,162 of VAC’s 194,098 clients—approximately two per cent.¹

VAC programs and services are slow to evolve with the needs of all veterans and their families. Canada’s veteran population is diverse in age, service experience, family composition, health needs and identity. Women veterans, reservists, RCMP veterans, Indigenous veterans, 2SLGBTQI+ veterans, and veterans living in rural and remote regions all continue to report barriers in accessing equitable services and recognition.

Canada’s veteran support system remains fragmented, reactive and too often difficult to navigate. The New Veterans Charter of 2006 brought dozens of legislative changes, new benefits and “enhancements” to programs and services. Policy objectives are aimed at providing supports for optimizing health and well-being, but in practice many veterans and families continue to experience long wait times, inconsistent access to care, complex eligibility systems, and gaps in support during and after military transition, which have also led to feelings of institutional betrayal.

Health care and transition gaps

Veterans continue to struggle when transitioning from federal military to provincial civilian health systems, especially those without access to a family physician.² Many civilian providers have limited familiarity with military occupational exposures, operational stress injuries, chronic pain, military sexual trauma, musculoskeletal injuries, or the long-term impacts of repeated deployments and service-related trauma.

The importance of access to adequate continuity of care was also addressed in the 2026 report from the Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs on suicide prevention among Canadian veterans.³ Veterans are at a higher risk for death by suicide than the general population, but programs that could help are underfunded or difficult to access.

While telemedicine can improve access in some situations, there are limitations in its ability to meet complex mental health, chronic pain, rehabilitation or women’s health needs. Veterans using telemedicine have reported concerns such as feeling rushed, having limited privacy in their homes, experiencing long wait times and finding limited accommodation for accessibility needs.⁴

Family members and caregivers are also affected by military service, yet they often lack independent access to appropriate mental health support. For years, the Office of the Veterans Ombud has called for investments in mental health coverage for family members of the Canadian Armed Forces veterans in their own right.⁵ Programs and services to support aging veterans, such as the Veterans Independence Program, will also need to evolve to meet changing needs, including support for families and unpaid caregivers.⁵

Preventing homelessness and housing insecurity

Veterans are disproportionately represented among unhoused populations. Experts note the nature of veteran homelessness makes it difficult to quantify; estimates of the number of unhoused veterans vary from 2,400 to more than 10,000.⁶ Women veterans represent 30 per cent of veterans experiencing homelessness,⁷ and often face additional challenges related to military sexual trauma, intimate partner violence, caregiving responsibilities, disability and poverty.

As current shelter systems and veteran services are still largely designed around male veterans, they do not always provide safe, accessible or trauma-informed supports for women and gender-diverse veterans.^9,10 Veteran policy needs to place greater focus on prevention, recognizing the downstream impacts of challenges with transition health care, income instability and access to timely services.

Backlogs and staffing pressures

Wait times for Veterans Affairs Canada (VAC) disability benefit claims remain one of the most common complaints raised by veterans. While efforts have been made to reduce the backlog of claims, case managers are still carrying high caseloads and staffing pressures remain unresolved. The ratio of veterans to case managers is currently about 32:1⁸and some case managers have reported as many as 50 veterans in their caseloads.⁹ The Bureau of Pension Advocates within VAC faces staffing reductions, despite a significant backlog, risking lengthened wait times and limited access to free legal support for appeals.¹⁰

Sustained investment in resources and staffing with improvements to benefit entitlement claims processing are necessary to manage growing claim volumes, meet client needs and ensure veterans receive their eligible entitlements in a timely manner.

Less reliance on privatization

The contract issued to administer the VAC rehabilitation program with Partners in Canadian Rehabilitation Services (PCVRS), a private venture between Lifemark Health Group and WCG International, is approaching its end.

Veterans’ concerns about the rehabilitation program include excessive bureaucracy, inadequate care and threats to benefits.^14,15 Health care providers have also raised concerns, including Lifemark’s failure to consider the complex nature of the client population and failures to mention trauma or post-traumatic stress disorder in documents sent to practitioners.¹¹ The Union of Veterans’ Affairs Employees has called for the end of the contract.¹²

A Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs study outlined a lack of oversight (PCVRS is responsible for its own performance evaluation); and lack of information provided to case managers, veterans and care providers.¹³ In 2026, the committee began a subsequent study to monitor the rehabilitation contract awarded to PCVRS.

These concerns call into question the ability of the current, privately contracted, model to deliver the timely, trauma- and violence-informed, accountable and veteran-centred rehabilitation that veterans deserve at value for money.

Equity for women veterans

Sex and gender invisibility in military and veteran systems has led to research gaps, bias and ultimately a system that is designed around male military norms.

These gaps have wide-reaching impacts: from disability adjudication and rehabilitation to homelessness risk, chronic pain management, reproductive health, menopause-related impacts and recognition of military sexual trauma.

A consistent and transparent application of sex and gender equity in research (SAGER), sex- and gender-based analysis (SGBA), and gender-based analysis plus (GBA+) lenses within the Canadian Armed Forces/Department of National Defence is needed.

A 2024 Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs report, Invisible No More, identified several areas that could improve outcomes for women veterans: research, addressing specific medical and health needs, recognition and commemoration, and removing barriers to services and support.¹⁴

Meaningful implementation of these recommendations will drive transformative policy shifts. They should be integrated into modernization efforts system-wide across the Canadian Armed Forces/Department of National Defence, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and Veterans Affairs Canada—not viewed as a separate women’s issue. Modernization requires current and timely data (including publicly disaggregated data), equity and accountability.

Actions

The AFB will launch an independent review to ensure that veterans, loved ones, caregivers, survivors and surviving family members receive the benefits, services and supports they need, when and where they need them. The inquiry will produce a public report with concrete, time-bound and measurable recommendations.

The AFB will require Veterans Affairs Canada (VAC) to identify and register all eligible veterans proactively, rather than relying on them to come forward when seeking services. This will provide a more accurate view of the veteran population in Canada and allow VAC to design more preventative, targeted supports.

The AFB will ensure that caregivers and family members, including spouses, former spouses, survivors and dependent children, can access mental health care when their mental health concerns are connected to the veteran’s military service.

The AFB will fund occupational medicine supports for veterans, especially those without a family doctor. It will also provide civilian health care providers with barrier-free training on military sexual trauma, operational stress injuries, chronic pain, post-traumatic stress disorder, substance use, VAC documentation, military occupational exposures, and other veteran-specific health issues.

The AFB will require mandatory, in-person training sessions for all VAC personnel on trauma- and violence-informed, culturally safe and veteran-informed best practices.

The AFB will not renew the private contract with Partners in Canadian Rehabilitation Services. It will return the administration of VAC’s rehabilitation program to the public service as of June 30, 2027.

The AFB will increase funding to hire more permanent staff and case managers if wait times don’t improve, however, the budget 2025 commitments to stabilize processing capacity for disability support benefit applications may be sufficient.

The AFB will consolidate and enhance existing transition programs, with specific attention to homelessness prevention, mental health literacy, career transition, community re-integration, family support and early identification of at-risk members.

The AFB will require proactive transition planning for all regular force and reserve force members, including Class A, B, and C reservists. This will include VAC registration, pre-release screening, injury documentation and clear referral pathways before release.

The AFB will fund and implement a long-term research program on servicewomen and women veterans, including co-ordinated research across VAC, Canadian Armed Forces/Department of National Defence, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Statistics Canada, Canadian Institutes of Health Research and community-based researchers.

The AFB will fully fund the implementation of the recommendations in the report of the Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs, Invisible No More, in collaboration with women veterans. This will include public timelines, outcome measures and annual progress reporting.

The AFB will expedite updates of VAC entitlement eligibility guidelines and the table of disabilities for medical conditions that affect women veterans. This work will apply transparent SAGER, SGBA and GBA+ methods and processes to address gender bias, evidence gaps and data equity.

The AFB will establish a dedicated military sexual trauma policy and adjudication framework at VAC. This will include trauma- and violence-informed claims processing, recognition of secondary conditions, access to specialized treatment and public reporting on outcomes.

The AFB will ensure veteran-serving organizations are connected to homelessness management information systems so veterans who are unhoused can be better identified and supported.

The AFB will establish a housing certificate program that provides individualized rent supplements to veterans experiencing homelessness or housing instability.

The AFB will direct the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation to create veteran-specific streams under the National Housing Strategy. This will include funding through low-interest and forgivable loans, women-specific housing, family-inclusive housing, and housing that accommodates dependants and service animals.

The AFB will develop a new joint suicide prevention strategy for military members and veterans, including reservists. The strategy will include measurable objectives, public reporting and a dedicated veteran pathway through Canada’s 9-8-8 crisis line to improve timely access to veteran-informed crisis support.

The AFB will require Veterans Affairs Canada, the Canadian Armed Forces/Department of National Defence and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to publish annual disaggregated data on transition outcomes, disability claims, wait times, homelessness, suicide risk factors, medical releases, rehabilitation outcomes, appeals and client satisfaction. These are to be broken down where possible by sex, gender, race, Indigenous identity, disability, service component and region.

The AFB will restore and expand Bureau of Pension Advocates staffing so veterans have timely access to free legal advice and representation for disability benefit reviews and appeals. Staff will be expanded to 250 to clear backlogs.

The AFB will co-develop an Indigenous veterans strategy with First Nations, Inuit and Métis veterans. This strategy will address culturally safe services, rural and remote access, housing, commemoration, claims support and family needs.

The AFB will review gaps affecting Royal Canadian Mounted Police veterans and ensure federal veteran policies address RCMP-specific service injuries, operational stress injuries, sexual misconduct, transition, disability adjudication and family supports.

The AFB will require public annual reporting on veterans programs, including the Veterans Homelessness Program, that detail measurable outcomes for veterans, in addition to program creation and spending. This reporting will include independent evaluation, lived-experience feedback and performance-improvement measures.

The post Alternative federal budget 2026-27: Veterans appeared first on CCPA.

Canada’s federal prison system is costly, ineffective, and misaligned with both the government’s mandate of operating a reintegrative prison system, as well as its current priorities of efficiency, and system modernization. Despite spending 3.79 billion dollars in 2025–2026 on federal incarceration,¹ the system is failing—producing and deepening many barriers for people who become incarcerated, their families, and Canadian society.

Overview

The 2025 federal budget marked a tragic but pivotal moment for Canadian penitentiaries, especially through the government’s Comprehensive Expenditure Review. Together they required the Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) to cut $132 million in operational spending over the next three years,² notably scaling back or canceling reintegrative programs such as postsecondary education, vocational training, prison librarian and other staff positions. The federal government also reduced or deferred infrastructure maintenance and healthcare staffing. These cuts further weaken a system already known to produce very preventable harms, deepening the gap between the CSC’s legislated mandate and its capacity to deliver a safe, reintegrative environment. The Canadian federal prison system is so dysfunctional that in 2025, Canada’s federal Ombudsman Dr. Ivan Zinger left his appointment early, due to inability to improve on known priority areas.³ Prior to these cuts, Canadian penitentiaries already produced consistent poor outcomes across health, education, employment, and reintegration outcomes.

In 2026, there are approximately 23,000 federally sentenced people in Canada (those incarcerated and those on parole).⁴ In 2024-2025, federal incarceration cost a staggering $3.86 billion. The average costs of federal incarceration per individual are vast:

• It costs $150,505 to incarcerate a person for one year in a men’s prison
• That cost is $259,654 per person per year in women’s prisons
• Parole monitoring costs $38,418 per parolee per year

Incarceration remains one of the most expensive and least efficient interventions in Canadian society. Federal prisons are crowded, with increased double bunking and prisoner transfers which move people far from their communities and supports. Being on remand, or awaiting trial or sentencing while incarcerated, is associated with high risk of death in custody due to suicide or drug toxicity, as a review of deaths in custody from 2014 to 2021 from the Ontario Chief Coroner found.⁵ And these are just the direct costs of incarceration. Importantly, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime emphasizes that incarceration has a “detrimental social impact” and that mass incarceration produces a “deep social transformation in families and communities,” all of which point to the need for change.⁶

Canada’s reliance on incarceration is inconsistent with its international human rights obligations such as the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the Mandela Rules, and the Bangkok Rules.

Indigenous people continue to be incarcerated at crisis levels, representing over 50 per cent of all people in prisons designated for women and over 30 per cent of all people in prisons designated for men, despite comprising only 5.0 and 4.9 per cent of the population, respectively.⁷ Neither Budget 2025 nor the 2026 Spring Economic Update made any mention of this national human rights crisis⁸ despite a federal action plan to reduce Indigenous overincarceration.⁹

A prevalence of disadvantage meets a system of punishment and barriers

Canada’s federally sentenced population represents some of the most disadvantaged people in the country. One indication of the socioeconomic barriers faced by people who become incarcerated is that the average educational completion level at the onset of a federal sentence is only grade eight.¹⁰

While CSC does prioritize high school completion for incarcerated people, their access to postsecondary education remains extremely limited. The absence of technological preparation, too, produces costly barriers to employment for previously incarcerated people upon release. Completing postsecondary education while incarcerated is strongly associated with improved safety, reduced recidivism, and better employment outcomes. Despite this, CSC recently cancelled a 50-year funding arrangement providing Quebec prisoners with CEGEP-level education.¹¹

Incarcerated people have no access to the internet in federal penitentiaries and most are still required to use floppy disks to save any school work. They rely on sparse access to shared computers, sometimes only two per penitentiary. This is hardly modern or efficient practice. During incarceration, families are financially responsible for incarcerated loved ones, who work for dollars a day while facing inflated costs for food, communication, and basic necessities. This produces generational poverty and systemic inequality.

The federal prison system is underpinned by assumptions that incarcerated people need to be punished, and those assumptions justify intentionally harsh conditions in Canadian prisons. These assumptions persist despite clear evidence of the harmful nature and costliness of such deprivation.

Post-release, barriers to work and housing prevent people from economic and social participation. Incarceration in Canada continues to lead to disproportionately poor social, economic, physical health, mental health outcomes, and all cause mortality compared to the general public. These barriers fuel cycles of incarceration and undermine public safety.

Health, aging, and the high costs of incarceration in Canada

Canada’s prison population is an aging population, in no small part due to the rise of life-sentenced people (a figure now approaching almost 29 percent of all federally sentenced people),¹² despite the well-documented reality that people “age out” of crime and pose significantly lower public-safety risks as they grow older. Maintaining an aging prison population is both illogical and costly, with escalating healthcare expenditures. Compounding the lack of infrastructure and resources is the fact that long-term incarceration reduces life expectancy by approximately 20 years.

Prisons’ harsh, violent, and unstable living conditions exacerbate pre-existing conditions and create disorders in previously healthy people. The burden of chronic illness created in prisons is ultimately downloaded onto provincial health systems.

The majority of federally sentenced people have substance-use and mental health considerations. CSC data indicates that between 75 and 80 per cent of federally sentenced people have identified mental-health or substance-use needs,¹³ underscoring the scale of unmet care. Addictions treatment programs are not part of prison programming. Instead, most federally sentenced people are placed on opioid agonist therapy without accompanying therapeutic support. In the community, these medications are meant to be paired with counseling; in prison, they simply replace street drugs.

Decarceration strategy

As the United Nations recognizes, and as is entrenched in Canadian law, incarceration must be a last resort. Canada must aim to reduce the overall current rate of persons incarcerated relative to the population by 30 per cent by 2034, and given levels of overrepresentation, incarceration rates for Black and Indigenous people must be reduced by 50 per cent of the current rate, relative to their proportion of the population, in this time. We take a broad view of decarceration to mean not only the release of people who are currently in custody, but also to reduce the number of people entering penitentiaries in the first place. The Federal Framework to Reduce Recidivism provides a strong overarching vision of decarceration by supporting five identified pillars central to breaking cycles of incarceration: housing, employment, health, education, and positive support networks.¹⁴

The act then directs the government to the following measures:

• Implement evidence-based programs aimed at reducing recidivism.
• Promote the reintegration of people who have been incarcerated back into the community through access to adequate and ongoing resources as well as employment opportunities.
• Support faith-based and communal initiatives that aim to rehabilitate people who have been incarcerated.
• Implement international best practices related to the reduction of recidivism.
• Evaluate and improve risk assessment instruments and procedures to address racial and cultural biases.

The federal government released an implementation plan for the framework in November 2023, but made no investment to implement it.¹⁵

One clear action Canada can take is to reform the Criminal Record Act, so that people who have completed their sentences and are trying to work and build good lives are not permanently excluded from meaningful jobs and safe housing. Currently, long after people’s sentences end, restrictive criminal record legislation in Canada prevents them from gaining and maintaining employment and safe housing, among other things. One in nine Canadians has a criminal record, leaving 4.3 million people directly impacted,¹⁶ and at least eight million more as family members and dependents of people with criminal records.

Replenish grants and contribution programs

Canada’s community-based reintegration sector—organizations such as the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies, the John Howard Society of Canada, the St. Leonard’s Society, and beyond—rely on the Nonprofit, Voluntary, and Community Organizations Grants and Contributions Program administered by Public Safety Canada—a very small but stable grant that has operated in Canada since the 1970s and provided core funding to the reintegrative sector.

This grant has entered the final cycle of its five-year funding stream, distributing a remaining 1.8 million across National Organizations serving reintegrative aims.¹⁷ These organizations are essential to achieving the goals of the Federal Framework to Reduce Recidivism, the Black Justice Strategy, the Indigenous Justice Strategy, and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Action Plan. Replenishing the program is essential to achieving the government’s current priorities.

Moving health care to health providers

One legislative reform that would greatly reduce costs, improve individual health outcomes, facilitate continuity of care and support successful reintegration is an amendment to the Canada Health Act’s definition of “insured person.” The law presently excludes people sentenced to two years or more from access to public healthcare. There is nothing in a criminal sentence that relieves the provincial governments from their constitutional responsibilities around health care.

While continuing coverage for the approximately 14,000 people actively incarcerated across federal penitentiaries would be a minimal and appropriate expense for the provinces, it would be a saving to CSC. At present, the amounts the CSC pays to cover health care services provided by outside hospitals to federal prisoners have been increasing and were close to 27 million dollars in 2024–25.

Actions

The Alternative Federal Budget proposes a comprehensive roadmap to meaningfully and responsibly reduce incarceration by 30 per cent by 2035, by supporting decarceration while ensuring that the conditions of incarceration provide adequate mental and physical health care, and focus on rehabilitative and reintegrative services. To measurably achieve this:

The AFB will reverse the Correctional Service of Canada’s reintegrative program reductions and restore funding for postsecondary education, vocational training, reintegration supports, and institutional programming. It will invest in rehabilitative services to ensure that federally sentenced people have meaningful opportunities to prepare for safe and successful reintegration. This restoration is essential given that CSC’s 2026 cuts eliminated or reduced core educational and reintegration programs, further undermining its legislated mandate.

The AFB will amend the Corrections and Conditional Release Act to create a mechanism allowing the Correctional Service of Canada to authorize the discharge of individuals from custody at the point of readiness, which may occur prior to fixed parole eligibility or statutory release dates. This is an essential step toward shifting Canada’s overreliance on incarceration. This mechanism is particularly important in the context of CSC’s reduced rehabilitative capacity following Budget 2025 cuts, which otherwise prolong incarceration without improving public safety.

The AFB will amend the Canada Health Act to remove the exclusion of federally sentenced people from the definition of “insured person,” ensuring continuity of care, improved health outcomes, and reduced Correctional Service of Canada healthcare expenditures.

The AFB will establish a National Older-Adult Decarceration Strategy that creates clear pathways for transitioning aging and medically complex individuals out of federal custody and into provincial healthcare systems, long-term care, palliative care, or community-based supports. This strategy will reduce federal healthcare expenditures, improve health outcomes, and ensure that older adults receive care in appropriate settings rather than in prisons that are structurally and clinically unequipped to meet their needs.

The AFB will amend section 121 of the Corrections and Conditional Release Act and the corresponding provisions of the Corrections and Conditional Release Regulations to expand eligibility for compassionate release to include older adults, including those serving life sentences who no longer pose a public-safety risk. This will require removing the current exclusions in subsection 121(2) that prevent people serving life or indeterminate sentences from accessing compassionate release on the grounds of serious health deterioration or excessive hardship. This reform will modernize Canada’s release framework, align it with public-safety evidence and demographic realities, and prevent federal prisons from functioning as long-term care facilities for aging people whose needs cannot be met in carceral environments.

The AFB will amend the Criminal Records Act to implement a free and automatic spent-record process. This will ensure that people who have completed their sentences are not permanently excluded from employment and housing. This amendment will save Canadians an estimated twenty-five million dollars over five years, which can be allocated to implementing the Federal Framework to Reduce Recidivism.

The AFB will replenish and expand the Nonprofit, Voluntary, and Community Organizations Grants and Contributions Program at Public Safety Canada to ensure stable, long-term funding for the organizations that deliver essential reintegration supports.

The AFB will invest one hundred million dollars annually to support community organizations advancing the solutions identified across the Federal Framework to Reduce Recidivism, the Indigenous Justice Strategy, the National Action Plan on Mental Health and Criminal Justice, and the Black Justice Strategy, prioritizing commitments to reduce the overincarceration of Indigenous people, women, Black people, and those with mental health considerations.

The AFB will introduce integrated substance-use treatment in federal prisons that aligns with community standards and will modernize partnerships with community-based treatment providers to ensure people can address their addiction while incarcerated.

The AFB will transform the mental-health service model in federal prisons to ensure that it is measurably consistent with Canadian and World Health Organization standards of care.

The AFB will introduce vocational development assessments at intake, expand access to meaningful vocational opportunities through partnerships with community-based employment programs, and support postsecondary access for incarcerated people, including initiatives such as Walls to Bridges and Inside Out.

The AFB will introduce internet access in federal prisons to facilitate access to education and meaningful contact with family and community.

The AFB will support training and bridging initiatives to help frontline correctional staff transition into rehabilitative and community-based roles.

The AFB will support research into policy solutions for decarceration, including the development of community-based alternatives rooted in transformative justice, diversion programs, and Indigenous justice models. It will expand existing but underutilized community-based sentencing alternatives and develop a consistent metric to measure recidivism.

The AFB will conduct an external impact evaluation of Canada’s decarceration and prison reform strategy to ensure that it meaningfully reflects the experiences and outcomes of impacted populations, and measures the government’s responsibility to calls from the Office of the Correctional Investigator and other advocacy groups.

Finally, the AFB will invest in a public education campaign delivered by the Department of Justice and Public Safety Canada to build informed public understanding of why punishment-based models fail and how decarceration strengthens communities, combatting harmful fear-based narratives calling for more use of unproductive incarceration.

The post Alternative federal budget 2026-27: Incarceration appeared first on CCPA.

Climate action has fallen off the political agenda in Canada. Over the past year, the federal government has not only failed to advance decarbonization, but it has actively worked to undermine what progress had been made over the previous decade. Yet, on a global scale, climate action continues to accelerate, and Canada is being left behind as one of a shrinking number of petro-states committed to long-term fossil fuel production. In recognition of the escalating climate crisis and of the widespread benefits that climate action offers, the AFB shakes Canada free of its fossil fuel induced malaise and dons the mantle of climate leadership in a global economy that is moving away from coal, oil and gas.

Overview

The costs of climate change are real and rising. Direct insurable losses due to extreme weather events totaled $2.4 billion in Canada in 2025.¹ Overall, the costs of disasters in Canada are rising by nine per cent per year.² However, disasters are only the most visible consequence of a warming planet. For example, increased heat and precipitation is causing roads and other physical infrastructure to deteriorate faster, which is already adding $8.8 billion per year to infrastructure maintenance costs in Canada.³ Crop insurance payments, which are largely a function of droughts and floods, have risen by 18 per cent per year over the past decade.⁴ Smoke from climate-fuelled wildfires is leading to tens of thousands of premature deaths domestically and tens of thousands more around the world.⁵

Altogether, climate change is costing the Canadian economy around $25 billion per year today and it is on track to cost as much as $100 billion per year by mid-century.⁶ Yet even these figures pale in comparison to longer-term estimates, which put the costs of even one degree of warming at 20 per cent of global GDP within a century.⁷ We are currently on track for a catastrophic three degrees of warming by 2100.

Those costs can be significantly reduced through climate action. Fortunately, while tackling the greenhouse gas emissions causing global warming is not easy, the pathways forward are at least well understood. The production and consumption of fossil fuels is overwhelmingly responsible for the global climate crisis, and no more so than in Canada.⁸ Oil and gas production alone accounts for 30 per cent of Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions, with most of the remainder accounted for by the combustion of fuels in vehicles, factories, homes and so on.⁹ Decarbonizing the Canadian economy thus requires an end to the production and consumption of fossil fuels.

Over the past decade, the federal government has implemented a series of climate strategies and a wide variety of specific climate policies that have shifted the economy in this direction. The most successful to date was the accelerated phase-out of coal-fired electricity generation, which is almost single-handedly responsible for Canada’s declining emissions since the early 2000s. Other notable policies include industrial carbon pricing, the clean fuel regulations and the Net-Zero Act, which made economy-wide decarbonization by 2050 a legal target for Canada.

Unfortunately, Canada is not on track to meet that 2050 target—or any emissions target the government has set (see Figure 9.1). Current emissions are not falling fast enough and, even if they were, Canada’s self-selected targets fall short of Canada’s fair share of the global climate effort.

To make matters worse, current projections for declining emissions—insufficient as they may be—now appear optimistic. In the past year alone, the federal government has cancelled or otherwise wound down the consumer carbon pricing system, the Net Zero Accelerator fund, the Two Billion Trees program, the Greener Homes Grant, the regulated sales target for zero emission vehicles, and anti-greenwashing regulations. It has reduced funding for the Permanent Public Transit Fund. It has abandoned a long-promised oil and gas sector emissions cap while bringing in new subsidies for the fossil fuel industry, including the temporary elimination of the federal gas tax. And it has put the Clean Electricity Regulations on the chopping block as part of a negotiated agreement with the Government of Alberta—an agreement that lays the groundwork for increased oil production.

The federal government claims it can still meet its climate commitments through a strengthened industrial carbon pricing system, enhanced methane regulations and the deployment of carbon capture technology in the oil sands. Although stronger carbon pricing and pollution regulations would be welcome, there is little evidence that this approach will reduce domestic greenhouse gas emissions in absolute terms, especially if it is used as political cover to increase oil production. The federal government has more recently signalled that it will weaken—rather than strengthen, as promised—the industrial carbon pricing system.¹⁰

While the outlook for climate action in North America appears bleak, the pace of global climate action continues to accelerate. Canada should choose which path it wants to follow to ensure a prosperous economic future. Global investment in clean electricity now exceeds fossil fuel investment by 50 per cent.¹¹ Global renewable energy generation surpassed coal power generation for the first time last year.¹² Electric vehicles now account for a quarter of global vehicle sales, including more than half in China.¹³ At the policy level, dozens of countries, led by Colombia and the Netherlands, are developing fossil fuel phase-out plans.¹⁴

Canada often considers itself a climate leader, but we lag far behind other countries both in terms of tackling emissions and reaping the benefits of decarbonization. The AFB puts us on a path that ensures a long-term future for our economy over short-term gains for fossil fuel interests.

Actions

The AFB will impose a moratorium on all new fossil fuel infrastructure, including oil sands expansions, offshore oil wells, liquified natural gas facilities, oil and gas pipelines and gas power plants. Building new infrastructure locks in decades of additional fossil fuel dependency at a time when we must be actively phasing out the production of fossil fuels. A moratorium does not mean existing projects will shut down overnight, but it provides the necessary certainty—to industry, workers and other levels of government—to proceed with a managed transition away from coal, oil and gas.

The AFB will reintroduce the federal consumer carbon pricing backstop at its previous schedule. It will also eliminate loopholes in the industrial carbon pricing system, such as free credits, that allow the most polluting industries in the country to pay a fraction of the headline carbon price. Achieving a $130 per tonne floor for the industrial system, as the federal government originally promised, is only a first step toward the unification of the consumer and industrial carbon pricing systems at the same high level.

The AFB will introduce climate and biodiversity conditions, also known as “green strings,” on all federal spending, including programs, tax policies, and procurement. Not all public money must be allocated toward decarbonization, but these conditions will ensure that no new federal money is spent to entrench fossil fuel production or consumption.

The AFB will allocate $295 million over five years toward the creation of an Environmental Justice Secretariat to study environmental racism in Canada and deliver on the federal government’s obligations under the National Strategy Respecting Environmental Racism and Environmental Justice Act. The impacts of climate change are experienced disproportionately by Indigenous, racialized and other marginalized communities, and Canada lacks a plan for responding to those impacts or for redressing structural inequalities exacerbated by climate change.

The AFB will create a new national Oil and Gas Cleanup Fund to fill in the gaps left by inadequate provincial programs. In the absence of new requirements to set aside money for cleanup, abandoned oil and gas infrastructure is liable to leave behind tens of billions of dollars in environmental damages. The new fund will be fully funded through mandatory contributions by active oil and gas producers, and it will be used exclusively for cleanup needs, so there is no net fiscal cost to the federal government.

The AFB will allocate $32 billion over five years toward a national clean electricity grid, including interprovincial transmission infrastructure and demand-side management programs to improve the efficiency of the grid. Public investment in electricity infrastructure is essential for decarbonization, and the federal government alone has jurisdiction over interregional transmission. Building out the grid makes electricity cheaper and more reliable, and it facilitates additional investment by public utilities and the private sector in new clean electricity generating capacity.

The AFB will allocate $325 million over three years for a national public charging network for electric vehicles. Inadequate charging infrastructure is a major barrier to EV adoption at a moment when Canadian households would most benefit from transitioning away from internal combustion engines. A public network can prioritize new chargers where they are most needed, including in rural areas and lower-income neighbourhoods, rather than focusing on the most lucrative corridors where private chargers are likely to be built anyway.

The AFB will allocate $65 billion over 10 years to expand and accelerate the implementation of the National Adaptation Strategy. As discussed above, Canada is already facing tens of billions of dollars in climate-related damages every year. For every dollar invested in adaptation, more than $10 in future costs can be avoided.¹⁵ These investments include climate-proofed water infrastructure, disaster management funding, and mapping of fire and flood zones.

The AFB will allocate $8.75 billion over five years to recapitalize programs for home energy efficiency retrofits, including the Canadian Greener Homes Affordability Program for low-income households. Reducing energy consumption reduces pollution and utility bills for households and businesses. One third of this funding will be allocated specifically toward energy efficiency upgrades in Indigenous communities.

The AFB will allocate $4 billion over five years for nature and biodiversity conservation. Although the federal government recently allocated $3.7 billion over five years toward a new nature strategy, some of that money was reallocated from other programs, and it still falls short of the $7.5 billion necessary in that time frame to protect sensitive lands and waters and to accelerate ecosystem restoration.

The AFB will allocate $15 billion over five years toward Canada’s international climate finance envelope. As with nature conservation, the federal government’s recent announcement of $5.9 billion in climate-related support is welcome, but much of the money was repurposed from other programs and it still falls short of the more than $20 billion over five years that represents Canada’s fair share in the global context. The AFB makes up the difference with a focus on accessible, grant-based finance rather than exploitative loans.

Tackling climate change requires an all-of-government approach. Other climate-related measures can be found in the following AFB chapters.

• Agriculture: transition to organic/no-till agriculture
• Artificial intelligence: data centres
• Infrastructure, cities and transit: public transit funding
• International trade: eliminate ISDS
• International cooperation: climate finance
• Industrial strategy and sector development: green investment, just transition
• Taxation: excess profits tax on oil and gas industry, elimination of fossil fuel subsidies

The post Alternative federal budget 2026-27: Climate change and environment appeared first on CCPA.

The effects of global economic, environmental and social destabilization have made their way to Canada. The United States’ war against Iran has caused drastic increases in the price of oil, with knock-on effects on the cost of inputs needed for food production and transportation. Warfare also adds massively to greenhouse gas emissions, worsening climate change.

In Canada, the federal government has broken with longstanding values, targeting needed public service functions with austerity measures while funding militarization and the adoption of AI, and exempting large extractive projects from regulatory controls. These dynamics will have serious impacts on agriculture and food systems in Canada. For farmers, the cost of production will go up, environmental and market risks will intensify, and low commodity prices will be unlikely to improve. For consumers, high energy and housing costs will put even more pressure on household food budgets.

We need budget and policy measures that counter these harmful trends. In this way we can provide greater security and stability, rebuilding a strong, equitable economic and social foundation that can withstand ongoing pressure from international events.

Overview

In its 2025 budget, the federal government announced plans to cut 15 per cent of the public service over three years. Departments were ordered to start cutting—except for big-budget National Defence, the RCMP and Border Services. Some smaller departments were also mostly spared, including the already inadequately funded Women and Gender Equality, Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs, Indigenous Services, and the federal research granting councils, which were told to cut two per cent.

Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) chose to target agricultural research capacity in its cuts, announcing plans to shut down seven facilities and end the Organic and Regenerative Agriculture program. The impacts of this are severe, affecting Canada’s ability to continue public plant breeding, maintain independent regulatory capacity over meat, protect soil health, improve responsible pesticide use and advance climate-resilient farming methods. AAFC’s cuts weaken Canada’s agriculture sector by making it more vulnerable to climate and market risks, and by reducing farm profitability while creating more opportunities for financialization and wealth extraction by large agri-business corporations.

To counter trends towards excess corporate control of our farms, farmland and food supply, this AFB focuses on structural changes that promote resilience, stability, and farmer/farmworker economic dignity. To develop and sustain an affordable food supply for Canadians, the AFB will establish a public grocery system integrated with improved local and regional food processing, storage and distribution infrastructure. This will make food more affordable while enabling dignified livelihoods for farmers and workers.

The current suite of Business Risk Management (BRM) programs primarily benefits the largest farms. Less than one-third of farms enroll in AgriStability due to program design and cost barriers, yet it accounts for roughly nine per cent of the AAFC budget. Crop Insurance is more widely used, and so it is more equitable than AgriStability, but it’s also large and it accounts for an increasing portion of the AAFC budget due to higher payouts because of climate change-related losses. Meanwhile, BRM support for diverse fruit and vegetable production, particularly at smaller scales, is virtually non-existent. The AFB will redesign the BRM programs to promote farm resilience and adaptation, capping payments to prevent the largest, wealthiest farms from taking the lion’s share of program dollars. Funding BRM programs will pay off in the long term. Accelerating the transition to more resilient and stable production practices will reduce the overall risk in Canada’s agriculture and thus the magnitude of future budget allocations needed for these programs.

Canada’s farm numbers continue to trend downward while the average age of farmers trends upward. We are in a generational crisis. Canada’s agriculture policies are pushing farmers out, creating an underclass of migrant farmworkers without rights. Without dedicated measures to ensure dignity for resident and migrant farmworkers, and to support young and new farmers to enter and become successful, the future will be farmerless—mega-farms owned by investment companies and operated by itinerant workers and robots. The AFB addresses this crisis with a new Cultivating Food Sovereignty suite of support programs, labour rights for farmworkers, measures to prevent farmland financialization, limits on the digitization of agriculture, and cost-of-production measures.

Actions

1. Reverse AAFC cuts and increase funding for public-interest research

The AFB will rebuild Canada’s agricultural research capacity by reversing the cuts announced in January 2026 with the following actions:

• Reinstate all scientific and technical positions and support staff slated for termination.
• Suspend the closure of the research facilities at Lacombe, Scott, Indian Head, Portage la Prairie, Guelph, Quebec City, and Nappan.
• Suspend the closure of the Organic and Regenerative Research Program at Swift Current.
• Restore the public database of scientists and professionals.

The AFB will expand AAFC research capacity funding by an additional 50 per cent, allocating funds to all federal agriculture research centres and farms to compensate for disruption caused by the botched 2026 cuts and the previous cuts under the Harper and Martin governments. Doing so will enhance Canada’s public capacity to carry out the following:

• Public plant breeding and farmer/participatory plant breeding.
• Climate resilience research, including low-input and organic production methods, sustainable grazing, integrated weed and pest management, and soil health.
• Independent agronomy research not tied to input sellers’ financial interests.
• Research production methods for vegetable and fruit for all regions of Canada.
• Social science research related to agriculture.
• Public engagement, including field days, talks, publications and webinars.

Past governments have inadequately maintained the basic research facilities used by AAFC.¹ The AFB will assess past governments’ failure to properly maintain the buildings, equipment, outdoor facilities and other assets on all AAFC research centres and farms, then allocate maintenance and improvement funds annually for five years to clear the backlog of deferred maintenance. This will ensure these assets are functional, energy-efficient and equipped for research needed to support Canada’s long-term food sovereignty.

2. Next Ag Policy Framework

The AFB will fund the Next Ag Policy Framework, a federal-provincial-territorial policy framework focused on reducing financial and environmental risks, increasing intergenerational and social equity, disengaging from American markets, and democratizing the food system. The framework will incentivize reduced input production, collective marketing, agro-biodiversity, climate resilience, local/regional market development, new farmer/farmworker training, and farmer-led research.

The AFB will replace the current suite of Business Risk Management (BRM) programs with ones that support the multifunctionality of agriculture. BRM program payouts and eligibility will be on a sliding scale and capped to ensure small- and medium-sized farms have adequate coverage. They will exclude the largest farms who have the financial capacity to self-insure.

The AFB’s new Cultivating Food Sovereignty suite of programs will increase Canada’s capacity to produce, process, store and distribute food for domestic consumption. These programs will aim to achieve the following:

• Ensure a reliable supply of nutritious, high-quality food.
• Safeguard farmers’ incomes.
• Mitigate greenhouse gas emissions and support climate-change resiliency.
• Safeguard biodiversity and water quality conservation.
• Promote social inclusion and diversity of farmers and food-sector workers.
• Promote successful establishment of young and new farmers.
• Rebuild rural community vibrancy and rural quality of life.

3. Creating a public grocery system

The AFB will establish a national, public and democratically operated grocery network. The public grocery distribution system will prioritize purchasing local and domestically produced food from farmers using sustainable farming practices, ensuring that farmers are receiving a fair share for their products while mitigating climate change and safeguarding biodiversity for the future.

4. Cost-of-production measures

The AFB will implement a windfall tax on fuel and fertilizer companies that are making excess profits because of world oil price increases while their own costs have not changed. The windfall tax will provide a disincentive to overcharge for fuel, and tax dollars collected will in part be used to fund on-farm energy conservation, transition to reduced-input production, and infrastructure needed for local and regional food processing, storage and distribution.

The AFB will amend the Income Tax Act to eliminate flow-through treatment of all private equity firm investments in farmland, eliminate capital gains exemptions for private equity farmland investments, and require non-resident Canadian owners to pay a 100 per cent surtax on all dividends from private equity funds with farmland holdings. By implementing disincentives for passive investment in farmland, the AFB will begin to restore the relationship between farmland prices and productive value.

5. Labour reforms

The AFB will implement a national agricultural workforce strategy to address labour challenges to domestic food production and support the economic dignity of both resident and migrant workers. This will increase federal funding for public education for farm workforce development and training. The strategy will include open work permits and a pathway to citizenship for migrant workers, including work permit extensions for migrant workers waiting for permanent residency applications to be processed.

The AFB will extend eligibility for regular and sickness Employment Insurance (EI) benefits to migrant workers regardless of any “tied employment” to a single employer and shall accommodate access to EI benefit payments even after the migrant worker has returned to their home country. The AFB will also make available short-term EI disability benefits for any farmworker, whether resident or migrant, who experiences mental or physical stress due to extreme heat events.

The AFB will create a fund to provide reliable year-round income opportunities for resident seasonal farmworkers through a combination of extended Employment Insurance options and counter-seasonal employment opportunities as needed.

The AFB will regulate AI and the digitization of agriculture to prevent it from being used to replace farmworkers, surveil workers, restrict their break times, or otherwise be used to reduce their pay or expose them to wage theft.

6. Climate action

The AFB will establish the Canadian Farm Resilience Agency (CFRA), an independent federal research and agricultural extension institution where farmers, scientists and agronomists will work together to solve problems and share knowledge. The CFRA will be independent from the influence of multinational agribusinesses. CFRA-supported production changes (like fertilizer reduction, crop rotation and no-till practices) will counter losses from climate impacts significantly, reducing the annual cost of Business Risk Management (BRM) programs.

The AFB will offer up to 30 per cent of the average transition expenses over three years to producers to offset transitions to organic and minimum-input /no-till agriculture. Organic and low-input agriculture practices provide benefits in terms of soil health, carbon sequestration, reduced greenhouse gas emissions from inputs, and erosion protection. However, the transition costs can be high. During this transition time, farmers will be adjusting their management practices and dealing with a learning curve.

The AFB will develop a transition plan towards setting up single-desk marketing for pork and beef and a concomitant domestic local/regional abattoir sector for meat processing. The transition to single-desk marketing will dismantle the corporate cattle–industrial complex, reduce the sector’s export-dependency and integration with the U.S. economy, and allow Canada to implement a growth hormone–free, pasture-based, low-emission, production system with financial, social and environmental benefits.

The AFB will reverse the Biofuels Production Incentive that was announced in 2025.

7. Regulating AI and digitization

The AFB will regulate AI and the digitization of agriculture (e.g., drones for spraying, driverless tractors, etc.), taking a precautionary approach and ensuring that there are knowledgeable experts involved to assess whether digital “black box” processes result in valid outputs. The AFB recognizes that AI is not compatible with Indigenous traditional knowledge and cannot replace the complex, nuanced and meaningful understanding Indigenous and non-Indigenous farmers develop, and that much of the practice of farming is tacit knowledge that is not available to train AI models. Technology cannot replace human observation of ecological patterns or human creativity and ingenuity in solving new and complex problems in living agro-ecosystems.

The AFB will develop a legal framework for the governance of agricultural data. This will allow farmers to benefit from the data generated by technologies on their farms while setting limits on how agricultural big data for AI technologies (and other digital technologies) may be collected and/or used by large agribusinesses, agricultural employers and ag-tech companies.

The AFB will ensure that financial support offered through the Agriculture Clean Technology Fund will exclude artificial intelligence technologies from multinational ag-tech corporations. Artificial intelligence technologies tend to have significant impact on the environment, and thus they will not be classified as “clean” technologies.

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This no-growth situation that Canada is stuck in has clear determinants, the most seemingly obvious one is trade chaos with the United States. Canada’s economic doldrums preceded the trade war. The problem has been decades in the making and is the result of long-term under-investment because of the government’s attempt to rely on “incentives” rather than direct investment.

Most Canadian goods can still enter the U.S. tariff-free, although certain sectors have been hit hard by the abrogation of the free trade agreement between our two countries. The ongoing threats of broader tariffs undermine business confidence and reduce economic growth.

While American tariff policy is well outside of Canada’s control, other factors dragging the GDP down are very much within our control. Much tighter immigration policy led to a decline in the Canadian population. With fewer people comes less economic growth. Per capita GDP the first quarter of 2026 did not decline, meaning that the overall GDP drop is being driven by falling population, not falling economic activity.

Federal government cutbacks and layoffs also play a role in suppressing economic growth. The employment impacts are being acutely felt in the national capital region. Ottawa had the second worst job losses since January 2025 of any CMA in Canada, behind Montreal.

Tax cuts aren’t the answer, direct public investment is

When it comes to slowing productivity in Canada, the corporate sector is quick to propose more corporate tax cuts as a solution. While it is possible for firms to direct the proceeds of lower taxes to productivity enhancing investments (thereby increasing their, and the economy’s, productivity), this is hardly the only use for those proceeds.

Figure 31.1 illustrates the last 35 years of corporate investment, as represented by spending on machinery and equipment and intellectual property. Over this long period, corporate investments have ebbed and flowed. In the past decade, they have remained relatively stable, at roughly six per cent of GDP. However, statutory federal and provincial tax rates have been cut in half over this same period. So, while corporations could have used the windfall from lower corporate taxes on productivity enhancement, they haven’t.

What did rise, substantially, over this period of increasingly lower corporate taxes was how much corporations paid out to their shareholders in dividends. During the period when tax rates were being cut in half, dividends exploded, from five per cent of GDP to 11 per cent by 2010, when corporate tax rates hit their bottom. Once the statutory tax rates remained relatively unchanged post-2010, dividends remain permanently at their new higher level.

One of the major challenges for relying on corporate tax rate reductions to fuel investment is found in Figure 31.3. The fundamental reality is that for Canadian non-financial firms, 80 per cent of after-tax profits are paid out to shareholders as dividends or share buybacks, no matter the tax regime. This ratio can change in volatile times, like the during pandemic, which briefly slashed profits, but in less turbulent times following that period the payouts are remarkably stable. In any tax change that raises corporate after tax profits we should expect 80 per cent of that money to go to shareholders with maybe 20 per cent going to productive investments. That’s a crushing upfront price to pay. Federal government direct investments in productivity enhancements through sectoral investments, education and de-carbonization skip the 80 per cent to wealthy shareholders and devote the entirety of the investment into productivity enhancing capital investments. That’s exactly the route that the AFB takes.

The simple truth is that corporate investment doesn’t chase tax rates, it chases economic growth as shown in Figure 31.4. When times are good, companies invest in their productive capacity, they buy more machinery and equipment and develop more intellectual property. As a result we see an uptick in corporate investment when GDP growth is strong.

When times are tough, companies cut back on their expansion plans and their investments in research. They don’t buy machinery and equipment and they don’t greenlight new research and development that may have longer term payoffs. So if we want more corporate investment, we need stronger economic growth, not tax cuts.

Direct government investment spurs private productivity investments by driving economic growth. Government spending will, necessarily, use private sector providers of goods and services, which provides them with stable sources of income that create the greater certainty necessary for risk-taking and may encourage them towards investment in productive capacity.

Defence spending eats the federal budget

One of the other factors in slower growth has been federal government cutbacks. However, these cutbacks cannot be viewed in isolation. They need to be seen as a shift in government operational spending, not an overall cut—specifically a shift away from almost all departments and towards higher defence spending. The net result is a rapid shift in the distribution of operational spending. Figure 31.5 illustrates what proportion of the federal operational budget is going to defence spending, illustrated by Department of National Defence (DND) and Veterans Affairs (VAC) the two largest components that count towards NATO-eligible defence spending. Prior to the 2025 budget Comprehensive Expenditure Review (CER), DND and VAC made up under 30 per cent of all federal operational spending. However, following the CER, that will rise to 40 per cent.

If the government continues to carve out new defence spending from other departments instead of raising taxes or running a larger deficit to pay for it, the results will become quite stark.

If the federal government retains its commitment to NATO’s two per cent of GDP goal, half of federal operational spending would be in defence by 2035-36. However, the federal government has committed to hitting the NATO goal of 3.5 per cent of GDP.¹ This would more fundamentally alter what the federal government does. It would mean over 80 per cent of the operations of the federal government would be military and veterans affairs, a complete inversion of the situation from 2024-25.

The AFB does not believe that turning the federal government into an almost purely military organization is what Canada needs and the AFB charts a different path.

The AFB’s macroeconomic baseline

As with previous years, the AFB takes as its baseline the most recent federal fiscal and macroeconomic data, which in this case was the 2026 spring economic statement, as outlined in Tables 31.1 and 31.2.

In the lead up to this AFB, Canada had a very poor previous 12 months, ending in March 2026, where Canada had no real GDP growth. Of those four quarters, three saw negative or no economic growth and only one showed some growth. The final quarter of 2025 and the first of 2026 put Canada in a technical recession, as the growth was only marginally negative in the first quarter of 2026.

Part of this no-growth year was a result of external factors—including the tariff war with the United States—and, in part, the problem was internal, as Canada shut its doors to international students and several types of foreign workers. Each of these put a drag on growth. Table 31.1 shows some improvement in 2027, with real GDP growth rising to just over one per cent. However, this level of growth remains disappointing. Canada is far from strong economic growth—in 2026 and the near future.

While economic growth for its own sake can be quite dangerous—wars and environmental devastation are great for growth—nor should growth be neglected. As we’ll see below, the AFB shows how we can grow the economy while providing better services, more equity and a manageable deficit.

In Table 31.2, as with previous AFBs, we’re continuing to include the revenue collected by the federal government that’s given up in tax expenditures, otherwise known as legal tax loopholes. The statutory tax liability, or the amounts that the federal government would have collected without tax loopholes, is missing from standard federal budgets. But the foregone revenue amounts are tremendous and deserve much more scrutiny than they receive.

If we look at the personal income tax system first, the federal government would have collected $363 billion in tax revenue in 2027-28. But it gave away $101 billion of it in tax expenditures—almost entirely to Canada’s richest, who receive the lion’s share of tax loopholes. Once we account for the tax breaks provided to Canada’s rich, we get the personal income tax revenue line of $262 billion in 2027-28 that we’d find in standard budget documents. In other words, Canada gave up over a quarter of its personal income tax revenue to tax loopholes.

The situation is much worse if we look at corporate income taxes. Without tax loopholes for corporations, the federal government would have collected $170 billion in 2027-28 for this line item. Instead, it gave away $71 billion. The actual amount collected after the corporate tax loopholes was $99 billion. In other words, four of every 10 cents in corporate income taxes are given away in loopholes.

All told in 2027-28, the federal government is on track to give away $171 billion in personal and corporate tax loopholes, more than twice the size of the federal deficit in that year.

Despite the crushing burden of tax loopholes, the federal government is on track for a deficit of just under two of GDP, which falls over the projection horizon. This is a mid-range value for the deficit, not the lowest but nowhere near the highest—and lower than at any point between 1975 and 1995.

Revenues-to-GDP sit at roughly mid-range, historically speaking—neither as low as they were in the 2010s, but lower than any point between 1986 and 2006.

Program expenditures are similarly at mid-range over the past half century.

Canada’s national debt-to-GDP is five points lower than its recent high during the pandemic, as economic growth grew much faster than debt over the past few years. The national debt-to-GDP was higher in every year between 1984 and 2003, so its present level is roughly mid-range for the past half century.

The AFB plan

The AFB plan starts from the most recent fiscal statistics in Tables 31.1 and 31.2 and adds the aggregation of its programs on top. The full list of AFB items can be found in Table 31.5 at the end of the chapter but can also be found at the end of each chapter.

The AFB would implement over 200 fresh policy ideas. Many of them are expenditures and so the net increase in expenditures under the AFB would be just over $100 billion in 2027-28.

Over 20 AFB policy measures are on the revenue side, and they raise almost the same in 2027-28 as the AFB spends. In other words, the AFB pays for itself. A third of the new AFB revenue comes from closing some of the $171 billion in tax loopholes the federal government forgoes every year.

The net result of the AFB is that the deficit line is almost nil because the AFB pays for its new measures with revenue improvements. The debt-to-GDP ratio also remains the same as in the base case.

While AFB expenditures and revenues are roughly equal, that doesn’t mean that there’s no effect on the economy, in areas like employment. The AFB taxes in areas where the economic multipliers are lower—like on corporations and the wealthy—and spends in areas where multipliers are higher—like support for low-income families and the provision of services like in health care, child care and physical infrastructure. The result is that the AFB creates or maintains over 400,000 jobs by 2030.

Income and poverty impacts of the AFB

When examining the aggregation of budgets, it’s important to look at their impact on the federal governments’ books as well as other effects on inequality and poverty. These effects are rarely included in standard budget analysis, but they are included in the AFB analysis.

In this section, we aggregate the personal tax/transfer items in the AFB, which comprise much of the EI chapter, the Tax chapter (as it relates to individuals), and the Poverty and income security chapter. (Not all measures fully implemented in year one.²) For the purposes of simulating the effects, the full implementation occurs in 2027. Simulations were conducted in SPSD/M glass box.³

First let’s examine the simulated AFB effects on inequality as measured by 10 equal groups of families, called deciles. The average change, per family, due to AFB measures is illustrated in Figure 31.6. There are new taxes in the AFB and they are targeted at the highest-income earners. As a result, the top decile—or 10 per cent of families making over $257,000 in pre-tax income—would pay almost $5,000 more. But even families near the upper end of the income distribution—in deciles 8 and 9, making between $145,000 and $257,000—would see little overall change due to the AFB measures.

The bottom 70 per cent of families would see an average change in the transfers they receive net of any taxes. The average gain, per family, is roughly $500 and the new AFB supports rise as income falls. The benefit to the poorest 10 per cent of families is substantial: on average, it amounts to almost $5,000 per family. So, the rich do pay more under the AFB, but it results in much better support for the least fortunate Canadians.

The Poverty and income security chapter focuses its new transfers on those who need them most and works towards cutting poverty rates in half by 2030. We can see the benefits of these programs on poverty rates in all age groups, as shown in Figure 31.7. Seniors have a lower poverty rate to begin with, due to important pre-existing supports like OAS, Guaranteed Income Supplement (GIS) and the Canada Pension Plan. These critical programs already put a higher floor on seniors’ incomes than any other age group. But with the additional AFB measures, seniors’ poverty rates fall from nearly six per cent to four per cent, lifting 141,000 seniors out of poverty in 2027. This is largely due to the AFB improvements to the GIS, ameliorating an already important program in reducing senior poverty.

Children and adults have much higher poverty rates. Children under 18 would see their poverty rates under the AFB fall from 11 per cent to seven per cent, lifting 328,000 children out of poverty. The AFB’s end poverty supplement to the CCB is doing the heavy lifting here. It is designed to target families with children in the deepest poverty who are already receiving the CCB and aids them even more. Because poverty is measured at the family level, the CCB supplement is also lifting the parents of those children out of poverty.

We also see the poverty rate for people aged 18 to 64 falls under the AFB, from almost 13 per cent to 10 per cent, lifting 549,000 people out of poverty. The improvements to the Canada Disability Benefit, the CCB supplement and our new Canada Livable Income are all helping low-income adults. But so are measures from the Employment Insurance chapter—like a $500 weekly minimum benefit.

All told, the AFB lifts over a million people out of poverty, if measured by the MBM. Using the CF-LIM AT, a less subjective measure of poverty, the impact of the AFB is similar, where 900,000 people are lifted above that poverty line.

The nature of the income supports mean that some family types are particularly impacted by AFB policies, as shown in Figure 31.8. Those living in married couple families have low poverty rates to begin with. Those with children see a benefit from AFB policies, particularly the CCB supplement. One of the biggest impacts is for single parents with young children, who are mostly single mothers, whose poverty rate would be cut in half, falling from 26 per cent to 13 per cent.

Adults living alone—who are of working age and seniors—also see high poverty rates and see some benefit from AFB programs.

Being counted as living in poverty or not is simply about whether a family makes more or less than a poverty line defined for their family size and location. If a family makes $10 less than their respective poverty line, it is counted as living in poverty. But if the family makes an extra $20 that year, it would no longer be counted as living in poverty, even though their circumstances are similarly dire.

It’s important to look at changes in deep poverty—not just at the poverty rate—to make sure the AFB measures aren’t just barely lifting people above their poverty line yet practically doing very little for them. Here we’re defining deep poverty as living 75 per cent or more below the poverty line.

In this separate measurement, the AFB shows a much bigger impact than on poverty rates generally. The Canadians represented in this graph still live in poverty, but their situation is likely less dire. Figure 31.9 counts the number of people who live in deep poverty.

Without the AFB measures, more than 400,000 Canadian adults live in deep poverty. However, the AFB lifts 358,000 of them out of deep poverty. Those people are still living in poverty, but their situation would be a bit less dire. The AFB’s new Canada Livable Income program for adults and major improvements in the Canada Disability Benefit are what would lift so many adults out of poverty.

Deep poverty isn’t nearly as prevalent for children because the CCB provides a much higher income floor. Nonetheless, the AFB measures lift 14,000 children out of deep poverty. The AFB has almost no impact on deep poverty for seniors, but there are very few seniors who live in these circumstances, given the much higher income floor provided by the GIS, OAS and CPP.

Real progress towards the federal government’s 2030 poverty goal of cutting poverty in half is possible and AFB lays out the initial steps to get there.

Conclusion

The AFB includes 216 policies to improve Canada, as detailed in Table 31.5, but also explained in its 27 chapters. Each policy item has a specific addition to make, but their aggregate impact creates new jobs, improves economic growth and pays for itself. The measures of the AFB also show that big improvements in income inequality are possible, and we can make major strides towards eliminating poverty in Canada. The AFB is a practical guide for how the federal government can make Canada a stronger, fairer and more generous country.

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