At a glance: Budget 2025 leaves millions behind

Prime Minister Carney’s first budget lands at a moment when millions are being forced to choose between rent, heat, and food. While Budget 2025 introduces some overdue measures, including automatic federal benefits, some enhancements to Employment Insurance and worker supports, and a permanent National School Food Program, these steps amount to patches on a broken system.

What’s missing is a coordinated, rights-based plan to ensure everyone in Canada can eat with dignity. The budget offers no national target to reduce food insecurity, no meaningful increase to income supports for low-wage workers or people with disabilities, and no dedicated investment in Indigenous food sovereignty.

Food insecurity is not simply a symptom of rising costs; it is the predictable result of inadequate incomes and policy choices. By centering productivity and fiscal restraint over people’s basic needs, and offering costly tax breaks that disproportionately benefit higher earners, Budget 2025 risks deepening inequality and entrenching hunger in one of the world’s wealthiest countries.

At a time when record numbers of Canadians are struggling to make ends meet and put food on the table, the government’s failure to act at the scale this moment demands is deeply concerning.

Key Budget 2025 measures

1. Income and social supports

What we asked for:

• A national target to halve food insecurity and eliminate severe food insecurity by 2030; a permanent Groceries and Essentials Benefit (GEB); an expanded Canada Disability Benefit (CDB); automatic benefit access for low-income non-filers.

What Budget 2025 delivered:

• Automatic federal benefits: $71 million over 5 years (starting in 2025-26) to implement automatic federal benefits, starting with 1 million people by 2027 and scaling to 5.5 million people by 2028; proposes to amend the Income Tax Act to allow the CRA to implement these measures; opt-out and 90-day review window included.
  • Automatic benefits means people will receive federal benefits—like tax credits or child benefits—without having to apply or file a full tax return themselves.
• Canada Disability Benefit: $115.7 million over four years (starting in 2026-27, and $10.1 million thereafter) towards lowering access barriers and funding a one-time $150 supplemental payment per Disability Tax Credit certification; government aims to introduce legislation to exempt CDB from taxable income.
• Personal Support Workers Tax Credit: $1.48 billion over six years (starting in 2025-26) for eligible personal support workers to claim a refundable tax credit equal to 5 per cent of their eligible earnings, providing support of up to $1100 per year.
• Middle-Class Tax Cut: tax relief of up to $420 per person (or $840 for two-income families), benefiting 22 million Canadians.
• Top-Up Tax Credit: $70 million over five years (starting 2025-26) towards a temporary tax credit to provide transitional support to individuals if their non-refundable tax credit amounts exceed the first income tax bracket threshold.
• National School Food Program: confirms this as a permanent national program, allocating $216.6 million annually beginning 2029-30, to benefit up to 400,000 children with school meals per year and saving families up to $840 per year.
• “Protecting” existing programs: maintain the GST/HST credit, dental care, Canada Workers Benefit, etc. at least within current levels.

Implications and remaining gaps:

• Automatic benefits are a major structural win that can close access gaps for millions, but timelines are long, and income adequacy remains insufficient.
• Still no measurable food security target, no introduction of a Groceries and Essentials Benefit to stabilize household budgets, and no expanded Canada Disability Benefit to lift all people with disabilities out of poverty.
• The so-called “middle-class tax cut” bypasses those most affected by food insecurity—people with little or no taxable income—while giving the same $420 break to someone earning $300,000 as to someone earning $50,000. Though framed as helping low- and middle-income Canadians, it risks reinforcing inequality and reducing public revenue needed to strengthen Canada’s social safety net.

2. Employment Insurance and Worker Supports

What we asked for:

• Major EI reforms with enhanced coverage and benefit rates; a Canada Working-Age Supplement (CWAS) to replace the current Canada Workers Benefit; and stronger income protections for low-wage and precarious workers.

What Budget 2025 delivered:

• $1.6 billion over five years to extend EI benefits by 20 weeks and waive waiting periods.
• $3.6 billion for enhanced EI income supports for workers affected by trade shocks.
• $370.5 million over five years (starting in 2025-26) towards EI benefits for employees working reduced workers due to business drops beyond their employer’s control.
• $450 million for retraining 50,000 workers plus funding union-led apprenticeships, faster credential recognition, and a Workforce Innovation Fund.
• $1.54 billion over three years (starting in 2026-27) to support 175,000 youth through summer jobs, employment and training supports, and work-integrated learning opportunities, strengthening Canada’s future workforce.

Implications and remaining gaps:

• Budget 2025 strengthens the social safety net for displaced workers, acknowledges that job and income security are central to food security.
• Yet the measures are temporary and sector-specific. Gig, migrant, and part-time workers remain largely excluded, and robust EI reforms (like improving benefit rates and expanding coverage) remain sidelined.
• Canada Workers Benefit remains unreformed, leaving precarious workers vulnerable.

3. Indigenous Food Sovereignty

What we asked for:

• Dedicated, unrestricted funding for Indigenous-led food sovereignty initiatives.
• Indigenous leadership in and equitable access to federal programs like the Local Food Infrastructure Fund and the National School Food Program.

What Budget 2025 delivered:

• Nothing related to Indigenous food sovereignty in the budget.

Implications and remaining gaps:

• No dedicated funding streams for Indigenous food sovereignty initiatives and no explicit federal commitment to food sovereignty as policy is disturbing.
• No details about Indigenous inclusion and self-determination in federal food-related programs may prevent Indigenous interest holders from participating fully.

4. Housing

What we asked for:

• More federal investment in affordable and social housing, rental supports, stronger tenant protections, and policies that connect housing, income, and food security.

Budget 2025 and key wins:

• Build Canada Homes, a new agency with $13 billion start-up funding to build affordable, supportive, and community housing with provinces, cities, and Indigenous partners.
• $1.5 billion Rental Protection Fund to help non-profits buy and preserve older rental buildings to keep them affordable.
• $1 billion in transitional and supportive housing for people experiencing or at risk of homelessness, linked with health and job supports.
• Partners with Nunavut Housing Corporation to build 700 new affordable and supportive homes, many using modular construction suited for northern regions.
• Budget 2025 eliminates the GST on new homes up to $1 million and reduces it for homes between $1 million and $1.5 million for first-time buyers, helping lower housing costs and support home ownership for young families.

Implications and remaining gaps:

• These initiatives show renewed federal leadership on housing and a clear focus on affordability. The mix of new builds and rental preservation will help communities over time, but results will take years to appear.
• The scale of investment remains too small to meet demand, especially in northern, rural, and Indigenous communities where housing shortages and high costs intensify food insecurity.
• While the federal government does not regulate rent or eviction policies, Budget 2025 lacks a coordinated plan to strengthen the Blueprint for the Renter’s Bill of Rights, as advocated for by organizations such as the Canadian Centre for Housing Rights.

Next steps for advocacy

Right To Food will continue to advocate for:

1. Measurable food security goals: a national target to reduce food insecurity by 50% and eliminate severe food insecurity by 2030.
2. Income security: an accessible Disability Tax Credit; a fair CDB with adequate benefit rates; a permanent Groceries and Essentials Benefit to help households offset their costs of living; and comprehensive EI reforms to support all workers.
3. Indigenous food sovereignty: dedicated, unrestricted funding to support Indigenous food sovereignty initiatives and local food systems.
4. Food security as public policy: reframing the narrative from food as a food supply issue to food as a human rights and income adequacy issue.

Conclusion: Building a Canada where everyone eats with dignity

Budget 2025 underscores a failure of ambition for people who are struggling to put food on the table today. While certain measures are welcome, the government continues to treat food security as a side effect of economic growth rather than a fundamental right. By neglecting income adequacy—people’s bread and butter issues—this budget leaves millions behind and falls far short of the decisive, rights-based action Canada urgently needs.