Budget 2025: War on the working class, militarization of the economy and a foreign policy of war and aggression
PM Carney’s first budget followed through on promises made in last spring’s Throne Speech: massive cuts to social spending on public services and social programs resulting in 40,000 job cuts and the loss of services in every public sector; huge increases to military spending in line with the US and NATO’s demand for 5% of GDP (or $150 billion annually) on war preparations, militarization of the economy, and expansion of RCMP, CSIS and police forces across Canada; expanding oil and gas exports and the pipelines needed to do it; expanding mining and export of rare earth elements and other ores while cutting spending on Indigenous services and working to buy off Indigenous opposition to pipelines; eliminating emissions caps and abandoning the environment; cutting $10.3 billion annually in reduced corporate taxes; slashing immigration including foreign students and temporary foreign workers; eliminating health care coverage for temporary foreign workers; toughening jail sentencing and access to bail, and more in the 500 pages of the Budget document.
Instead of creating jobs this budget will destroy vital jobs and services across Canada that working people want and need. It will lead to widespread privatization of public services and make Canada more closely resemble the US. It will build a massive military industrial complex in Canada, closely integrated with the US through NATO and NORAD, and US foreign policy of wars, invasions, and overthrow of sovereign states and governments. It will further weaken Canadian sovereignty and independence, and increase the growing threat of a world war including nuclear war which means the end of the world.
This budget is an agenda that claims to strengthen Canadian independence, but will bring Canada closer to the US, and make it even more subject to US political and economic demands including in the CUSMA free trade deal which is up for renewal in 2026.
PM Carney’s ‘elbows up’ approach is visible in this budget and in his negotiations with Trump over tariffs and the future of manufacturing in Canada – but they’re not aimed at Trump, they’re aimed at workers, women, youth, immigrants, Indigenous Peoples, farmers, and trade unions in Canada.
Carney’s determination to renew the CUSMA deal at any cost is disastrous for workers and for Canada, as the last 37 years of free trade have shown.
This budget mirrors the massive $6 billion cuts to social programs, and 50,000 public sector layoffs delivered by the Chrétien Liberals in the 1990s. But it goes further, with the massive shift of public funds to the military and war. The Liberals’ industrial policy is aimed to support the corporate monopolies, the banks, the resource companies, and the arms industry – not the 40 million working people who create the wealth in Canada.
This is a budget that will deepen social and economic inequality, and has received praise from the International Monetary Fund which is well known for its harsh economic policies and loan conditions, particularly in developing countries.
This is a war budget, a corporate budget and an austerity budget that needs to be rolled back by a broad based people’s coalition of the labour and democratic movements across the country.
The Communist Party calls for a budget that delivers for people, not corporate profits:
• Expanded funding for public services and universal social programs – no layoffs and no privatization.
• Save door-to-door delivery at Canada Post, introduce postal banking, save jobs and expand services now.
• Implement the Calls to Action of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.
• A 75% cut to military spending, with funds re-directed to public services and social programs including early learning and child care, and construction of publicly owned and built social housing across Canada. Create jobs, raise wages, incomes and living standards.
• Restore the luxury taxes on the rich, double the corporate tax rate, and collect deferred and hidden corporate taxes now. The $78 billion deficit helps corporations – not workers.
• An independent Canadian foreign policy of peace and disarmament.
• Withdrawal from NATO and NORAD and cancellation of warships and fighter planes.
• A multi-lateral and mutually beneficial trade policy with the world.
• Withdrawal from CUSMA now.
• An economic policy that builds Canadian secondary industry and manufacturing, creating good, well-paid and permanent value-added jobs.
• Build affordable social housing across Canada now, using a publicly owned corporation, not private developers and builders. People, not profits.
• Roll back and freeze prices on food, fuel and housing.
• Nationalize the auto and steel industries. Build a Canadian car, public transit, planes and trains in retooled and new Canadian plants.
• Introduce plant closure legislation with teeth, to require corporations leaving Canada to just cause for layoffs and closures at public tribunals with the power to prevent closures and moves, to levy fines, and jail terms.
• Raise Employment Insurance to 90% of previous earnings, for the entire period of unemployment, covering all workers.
• Introduce a 32 hour work week with 40 hours of pay.
• Outlaw Section 107 of the Labour Code and back-to-work legislation by federal and provincial governments against striking workers. Defend the right to strike, picket and organize with a Labour Bill of Rights in Canada’s Constitution.
This budget is a disaster for working people and for Canada.
This is a Conservative budget delivered by a Liberal minority government.
The Conservatives approve of the budget, but not the government, which is why they will vote against it. They want an election. They want to win government, so they can deliver this agenda of war and austerity, widespread layoffs and privatization of public services and social programs including Medicare which would generate an estimated $65 million in profits for the new US corporate ‘owners’.
The BQ, Greens and NDP are all willing to support the budget if their budget demands are met. The Communist Party is the only political party to oppose the budget and to call for a People’s Coalition of the labour and democratic movements to stop its roll-out across the country. This is an anti-labour, anti-people budget that can’t stand the light of day, and must be blocked now.
Central Executive Committee, Communist Party of Canada