Ottawa — Elizabeth May, Green Party Leader and MP for Saanich–Gulf Islands, joined by former Green MP and Housing and Disability Inclusion Critic Mike Morrice, highlight the winners and losers in the Liberal 2025 budget:

This budget is full of sacrifices for programs Canadians rely on — climate action and nature, and healthcare expansion — but not for billionaires, multinationals, and foreign-owned fossil fuel giants.

Canada’s legally binding climate commitment under the Paris Agreement is completely lost. So too the oil and gas cap is gone, as well as numerous climate-related programs, while oil and gas production is increased.

The budget’s “Productivity Super-Deduction” is an accelerated capital cost allowance explicitly intended to reduce Canada’s marginal effective tax rate to be competitive with Mr. Trump’s tax-cutting “Big Beautiful Bill.” “Levelling the playing field” by meeting the lowest international tax rates is a race to the bottom — never a winning strategy.

A national electrical grid is a cornerstone for real decarbonization. The budget offers piecemeal tax deductions, but no federal strategy or leadership essential to bring the provincial players together.

The Green Homes program has been abandoned because it was too popular — the new Build Canada Homes has no provision for retrofits of existing housing stock, the most effective way to reduce emissions from the housing sector.

“This budget sacrifices $56 billion in public services — like a program that helped folks in my community retrofit their homes and save money on their energy costs — all while foreign-owned fossil fuel giants and billionaires continue to make off like bandits,” said Morrice.

Losers in the budget are Nature, with no announced funding for meeting 30-by-30 commitments to protect Canada’s nature, nothing for west coast salmon rehabilitation, no mention of the Indigenous Guardians program, and cuts to overseas development assistance when the world’s poor need it most.

Adaptation to climate change is mentioned only in a commitment to lease four new fire-fighting aircraft — a tiny contribution to what needs to be a major nationwide effort.

A $484 million reduction in spending at Indigenous Services is not aligned with true reconciliation.

Losers are Canada’s small business owners — representing 50% of GDP and providing 66% of private sector jobs — small business is barely mentioned in this budget, overshadowed by “Projects of National Significance” (read: major corporations). “The ‘backbone’ of the Canadian economy desperately needs a chiropractor,” said Green Small Business Critic Michael Holbrook.

No funds to help Canadians who want to go electric. No cuts in tariffs that make solar more expensive for Canadians.

Nothing to enhance the disability benefit to raise people with disabilities out of poverty.

The huge cuts in public services will cause years of pain.

On the plus side, Greens welcome funding for the CBC, $1 billion for supportive housing, the continuation of funding for the school lunch program, continuation of expanded dental care, high-speed rail, and the foreign credentials recognition fund. The Building Canada Homes program commits, as Greens demanded, to a clear definition of affordability. The Youth Climate Corps could be transformational, but as a two-year program at $40 million, it is at best a pilot project.

The big winners are the multinationals able to access the Productivity Super-Deduction — big foreign corporations like General Electric, Hitachi, and others lined up for billions in subsidies for unproven nuclear technology. Multinationals like Shell, Petronas, Mitsubishi, KOGAS, and PetroChina (disguised by the name – LNG Canada), and others able to gain Cabinet designation as “projects of national significance.”

“The bottom line for us as Greens is that, without amendments achieved through negotiations over the next few days, we cannot support this budget,” said Leader Elizabeth May.

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