Carney and cabinet travel to promote federal budget as Conservatives criticize spending

The Story

Prime Minister Mark Carney and his cabinet ministers fanned out across the country on Friday to sell Canadians on the latest federal budget, while the Conservatives sought to portray the plan as a costly spending binge.

Speaking at a news conference in Winnipeg alongside Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew, Carney highlighted the government’s pledge to end homelessness in Canada within a decade.

Carney said, "For decades, governments and communities have tried to address this crisis. Too often, these efforts have been inadequately resourced, poorly co-ordinated and not sustained," adding, "We are investing an unprecedented $30 billion in a co-ordinated national plan. We understand both how difficult this will be, but equally how imperative it is that we succeed."

The budget sets aside $11.2 billion over four years and $17.8 billion over 10 years for the effort.

The federal government says about 65,000 Canadians are currently homeless.

Carney and Kinew unveiled a new partnership tied to the budget to build about 2,000 units of transitional housing and to fund a new mental health and addictions centre in Winnipeg.

Kinew said the nation-building focus is central to Carney’s government and described tackling homelessness as building up people in Canada, saying, "Full credit belongs to the prime minister for saying we want to build the housing to end homelessness in Canada," and, "No one in a country as rich as Canada should ever be homeless."

Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne went to Montreal on Friday for an event hosted by the Montreal Council on Foreign Relations to promote the federal spending plan, which he said includes measures intended to stoke investment.

Champagne said the homelessness initiative and the productivity "mega deduction"—which allows businesses to deduct new investments—are the two budget measures that will have the greatest impact in 10 years.

He told reporters, "It's about being more resilient, more independent, stronger," and said, "When you're stronger, whatever happens south of the border, whatever happens in the Middle East or elsewhere in the world, you're just more resilient. That's really what I wanted to [have] Canadians understand when we say 'masters of our destiny.' There's something profound about that."

Opposition leaders criticized the budget, arguing it does not do enough to address the high cost of living.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre called it a "costly credit-card budget" with "wasteful spending" and said it would drive up national debt, adding, "When you put more money on the credit card, you pay more interest to the financial institutions," and, "The Liberals should have called their budget 'Mastered by Debt.'"

Poilievre made the remarks while speaking at a news conference at a local food bank facing supply shortages and a spike in demand.

He said, "We've gone beyond a food crisis to a food emergency," and, "People cannot afford to eat. This is the inflation hell that people are living in after 11 years of Liberal government and it's getting worse."

The budget includes a pledge to renew a local food infrastructure fund, which would provide money to food banks and other aid organizations to buy food and upgrade facilities.

The fund would be $124 million over three years, starting in 2027.

During question period in the House of Commons on Friday, Conservative finance critic Michael Chong accused the government of allowing interest costs on the national debt to "skyrocket," saying it is "the fastest growing expense in the government's budget" and asking what the government would do if another crisis like those in 2008 and 2020 occurs.

Parliamentary Secretary Ryan Turnbull responded that the government is within its fiscal guardrails, saying, "We're balancing the operating budget one year ahead of schedule and sticking to our debt-to-GDP ratio declining path," and noting the Liberals now have a majority to move their agenda forward.