Budget 2025: Step in the right direction, but fails to deliver on the ‘hype,’ say lobbyists
The Hill Times photograph by Sam Garcia.
Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne and Prime Minister Mark Carney following the tabling of Budget 2025 in West Block.
Budget 2025 suffered from being oversold by the federal Liberals as it is a step in the right direction, but overall the document felt underwhelming, say lobbyists.
“It’s not that there weren’t some positive measures in the budget, there were, but it really didn’t fit the bill for the time that we are in and the challenges that the country is facing from an economic perspective,” said Dan Kelly, president and CEO of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, in a Nov. 5 phone interview with The Lobby Monitor. “The hype around this being some giant, economically transformational budget…that is a pretty high bar, and I would not say we even came close to that in this budget.”
“The main economic measures in the budget were almost all re-announcements from things that have been done 1000 times or were announced in the 2024 budget, and but have yet to be implemented,” he added.
Kelly told The Lobby Monitor that the budget did include measures that were “quite good,” but they were not transformational as the federal government had promised.
“We were really optimistic, given what the signals were prior to the budget that there would be something significant that would wake up very worried business owners to take some risks and invest in the Canadian economy, and I don’t think that happened,” said Kelly referring to conversations CFIB held with parliamentarians and other federal officials in the lead up to Budget 2025.
Additionally, some parts of the budget Kelly described as “garbage” and a “complete failure,” specifically pointing to the Regional Tariff Response Initiative.
As per Budget 2025, the initiative would receive $1 billion over three years, starting in 2025-26, and be accessed via regional development agencies to support businesses impacted by tariffs across all affected sectors including increasing non-repayable contributions for eligible businesses.
“We have done some checking as to the fine print on these regional development loans, and found out that the vast majority of small businesses will be ineligible to apply for the small business loan program because they are too small,” said Kelly.
Jacob Gorenkoff, founder and CEO of Homeward Public Affairs, noted a similar response to the federal budget from stakeholders in the housing sector.
“As it relates to housing, I’ve heard a lot of disappointment,” said Gorenkoff in a Nov. 5 phone interview with The Lobby Monitor. “There’s been so much buzz that’s been generated around Build Canada Homes, the new direction that we are going in, about generational investments and things like that and we definitely did not see those things in the budget.”
Gorenkoff noted that this is partially a result of poor communication on the part of the Liberals.
“I am privy to the steps that they are taking behind the scenes and honestly, knowing what I know about what they are working on, I don’t think they really sold it as well as they could,” he said. “For example, there are seismic shifts that are starting to take place in terms of the way that the government operates…there is way more coordination and collaboration between departments and ministers offices than I saw before the election.”
Gorenkoff also commended the government for setting up Build Canada Homes “surprisingly quickly” and getting off to a good start in a relatively short amount of time.
“They are putting the pieces in place to see a lot of movement [and] they are moving much more quickly on things than they have under previous leadership, but I think it’s also important to say that [Budget 2025] is a blueprint, it’s not buildings,” he added. “We need to ensure that they’re supporting organizations around the country and communities that are going to really implement the things that they want to get done.”
Daniel Perry, director of federal affairs at the Council of Canadian Innovators (CCI), told The Lobby Monitor that many aspects of the budget were seen as positive by the council and its members, however, some questions still remain to be addressed.
“The budget was a step in the right direction. The emphasis on Canadian sovereignty is very encouraging to see, and to be quite frank, it’s a shift in focus that’s long overdue,” said Perry in a Nov. 5 phone interview with The Lobby Monitor. “There still needs to be some work done on defining what sovereignty is and what a ‘Canadian company’ is for the purpose of this budget.”
Perry noted that CCI’s members represent Canada’s “innovation ecosystem,” and include companies in finance, agriculture, defense, quantum computing, and artificial intelligence (AI).
“Pretty much anyone that is leading innovation when it comes to what they are doing in their sector, they would fall under our scope,” he said, adding that “our requirement, which sets us apart from other business councils, is that we require all of our members to be headquartered in Canada, founded in Canada, and want to stay Canadian, and we don’t allow foreign national [companies] into our organization.”
This requirement is why CCI is looking to engage with the federal government to better understand which companies will be eligible for the many funding opportunities announced in the budget.
For example, the government is looking to invest $1.0 billion, in 2025-26, to create a new Defence and Security Business Mobilization Program at the Business Development Bank of Canada “to provide loans, venture capital, and advisory services to help small-and
medium-sized businesses contribute to Canada’s defence and security capabilities,” according to the document.
Perhaps the most important inclusion in the budget for CCI’s members was the initiatives that would fund innovation in dual-use technology, said Perry.
Budget 2025’s defence section includes various funding streams to support companies in research and development and innovation of dual-use technologies for civilian and military purposes. Perry pointed to another investment in the budget which seeks to provide ISED with $656.9 million over five years, starting in 2025-26, to “develop and commercialise dual civilian-military technologies in a range of industries,including aerospace, automotive, marine, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, biodefence, and life sciences.”
CCI is also pleased to see the government give more attention to AI and quantum computing, noted Perry.
“It is a good step forward, we are really happy to see the government thinking about this,” he said. “When it comes to how this money is going to be spent, it really needs to be provided to domestic companies that are building and scaling here [in Canada], because, as we saw with the cloud act, that really puts our data in some challenging situations if foreign governments want to access it.”
Perry was specifically referring to the federal government looking to dedicate $925.6 million over five years, starting in 2025-26, to support a large-scale sovereign public AI infrastructure. $800 million of that funding is set to be sourced from funds previously provisioned in the fiscal framework, according to the budget.
“It’s important that we have this conversation about sovereignty and when we talk about sovereignty, we need to talk about where our data is stored and how it’s handled,” he added.
