Spending highlights
Housing: $8.5 billion in new funding, plus promises to rejig existing programs that would tie money such as federal transit funds to housing builds. The funds address everything from freeing up more federal lands to build houses to helping cities put in infrastructure they need to support those homes.
Defence: $8.1 billion over five years. The funding covers all aspects of the Forces, from child care for soldiers to new helicopters, frigates and ammunition.
School lunches: $1 billion over five years to expand access to school food programs for 400,000 kids.
A new disability benefit: A longpromised program worth $6.1 billion over six years and then $1.4 billion a year after that to help supplement incomes for people living with disabilities.
Health measures: $1.5 billion over five years to support the launch of a national pharmacare plan, plus money for foreign credential recognition and supporting the mental health of Black Canadians.
Electric vehicles: $607.9 million over two years to top up an existing program aimed at getting more people to buy electric vehicles.
New national parks: The creation of the Pituamkek National Park Reserve in Prince Edward Island, the Ojibway National Urban Park in Windsor and a new marine conservation area reserve in B.C.
Research and development: $1.8 billion over five years to support Canadian scientific, health and social sciences and humanities research.
Confronting hate: $273.6 million over six years to support communities, policing initiatives and training and security infrastructure.
Loans: The budget is replete with billions in new spending on lowcost or no-cost loan programs. Among them: money to build new child-care centres, apartments and secondary suites. There’s a major new loan program for Indigenous communities to build natural resource and energy projects. Ottawa is also expanding student loan forgiveness to more fields of study.
Where the money is coming from: The budget projects $21.9 billion in new revenue. A big part is a new capital gains tax. How much tax people pay on the sale of certain assets over $250,000 will rise from half to two-thirds. The measure is expected to net $19.4 billion over five years. Ottawa is also increasing taxes on cigarettes by $4 per carton of 200 cigarettes to make $1.36 billion over five years.
No-cost measures and promises: New penalties related to auto theft, including efforts to regulate the sale of devices that can be used to steal cars.
New legislation will also be introduced to prohibit cellphone service providers from charging people a fee to switch companies.