REACTION: Budget 2026 helps at the margins but bets big on business – Oxfam Canada

Yesterday, Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne tabled the second budget of Mark Carney’s government. Against a backdrop of a relentless affordability crisis in Canada and growing global instability, Budget 2026 takes real steps to support people through expanded income supports, new investments in housing and homelessness, and $32 billion over 10 years for First Nations housing and infrastructure.

Oxfam Canada welcomes these measures, but they are not enough to address the inequality crisis in Canada. On balance, this budget does more for corporate Canada than for the people struggling to afford basic necessities.

Budget 2026 speaks the language of affordability, but its biggest bet is on business.

The biggest ticket item in the budget is a tax write-off for business – one open to small businesses and big oil and gas producers alike – that comes in at a cost of $36 billion over five years. That single measure costs more than the $30.7 billion the budget sets aside over the same period for its entire chapter on affordability, from groceries to housing.

In June, we welcomed the government’s $5.4 billion investment in early learning and child care, but Budget 2026 adds no new funding beyond that to build the affordable, accessible child care system Canada needs. More broadly, the budget does not treat the care economy as central to building a stronger Canada.

We welcome Budget 2026’s new investments in gender equality, including funding for the Women’s Program and the Menstrual Equity Fund, and the renewal of the Red Dress Alert pilot and the government’s 2SLGBTQI+ Action Plan. But again, these measures are too little to make a dent to a systemic problem that needs large-scale investments to be addressed.

The budget’s income supports will help some Canadians: a one-time top-up to the Groceries and Essentials Benefit, a stronger Canada’s Workers Benefit (rebranded the Build Canada Workers Benefit), and a refundable Canada Caregiver Credit. But they are not enough to address the extreme pressures the cost-of-living crisis is putting on people across the country. Income supports help people cope with high prices, but they will not bring down grocery bills or prices at the pump.

The climate crisis is also putting pressure on Canadians and on people living in poverty across the globe. Budget 2026 makes meaningful investments in Canada’s clean grid, energy efficiency, and electric vehicles, but the scale of this climate crisis demands more. The federal government is backing another publicly owned pipeline and walking back environmental protections, and the Canadian Climate Institute estimates that under current policies, Canada is more than 20 years behind on its 2030 emissions target.  Continued subsidies to the fossil fuel sector risk undercutting much of what Budget 2026 commits.

Armed conflict from Gaza to Sudan to the Democratic Republic of Congo, along with climate disasters, hunger, and attacks on democracy and the rights of women, gender diverse, and 2SLGBTIQ+ communities, is devastating the lives of people around the world. Oxfam Canada is disappointed that Budget 2026 adds no new funding for international development assistance and humanitarian response, leaving in place the $2.7 billion in cuts over four years announced last year. We look to Canada’s forthcoming foreign policy to set out how Canada will support the world’s most vulnerable, protect international law, and uphold our values abroad.

The gap between the rich and the rest keeps widening.  At the end of last year, the wealthiest 20% of households held over 65% of Canada’s net worth, while the bottom 40% held just 3%, according to Statistics Canada. As most Canadians struggle just to keep up with essentials, corporate profits are soaring – in particular for fossil fuel producers, large grocery chains, and banks.

We reiterate our call for the government to implement a wealth tax on the richest Canadians and a windfall profits tax on oil and gas producers who are on track to make tens of billions of dollars in additional profits this year. Recent polling shows that two in three Canadians support a windfall tax on oil and gas, and these two measures would raise the revenue Canada needs to invest in care, climate action, and international assistance.

The measures in Budget 2026 make modest progress on Canada’s inequality crisis. But they patch the cracks in the walls when what we need are new foundations.