OTTAWA — Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne

unveiled a budget

with a chorus of new spending initiatives, but also included – and notably, did not include – several measures geared at tackling affordability.

The

government says

it wants to help youth find jobs, with nearly half a million young Canadians out of work.

While the budget addresses cost-of-living and home ownership, the fiscal plan also commits to toppling “unjustified” ATM fees and increasing access to funds deposited by cheque, among others.

Here are some key policies concerning affordability in this year’s budget.

Youth employment programs

Up to 175,000 youth across Canada may soon be supported by three federal programs aimed at developing “work-ready skills” through hands-on experience and training.

The latest budget commits to investing $594.7 million over two years in a federal program that, starting next year, would create around 100,000 summer jobs.

It also proposes $307.9 million to a program that would provide employment and training to around 20,000 unemployed youth. Carney’s fiscal plan would also earmark $635.2 million to support 55,000 internships for post-secondary students

“Canadian youth are facing challenges in the labour market,” the budget reads. “Canada’s new government is committed to supporting youth in building skills to help them gain employment in high-paying careers.”

Automated taxes, and benefits, for low-income Canadians

Striking a different tone than last year’s budget, which included measures to penalize suspected tax dodgers, the latest fiscal blueprint would automate federal benefits for millions of lower-income Canadians who do not file their taxes.

Canadians would “be able to review and confirm a pre-filled income tax return, and the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) will automatically file these individuals’ taxes to ensure they receive government benefits they qualify for,” reads the budget.

The government clarified that these are people who “do not have the resources to [file their taxes] or … think their income is too low to owe taxes.”

However, in case these Canadians opt out of this new service, the fiscal plan promises an additional measure.

“Budget 2025 also proposes to amend the Income Tax Act to allow the CRA to file a tax return on behalf of certain eligible individuals with lower incomes in simple tax situations who do not owe tax,” the government clarified in the budget.

Middle-class tax cuts

As economic uncertainty continues to weigh on Canadians, the government is slashing taxes for those with incomes in the two lowest tax brackets, which was a signature promise from the April election campaign.

“Nearly 45 per cent of the tax relief will go to Canadians with income below approximately $57,000 (the first tax bracket) and 40 per cent to Canadians with income approximately between $57,000 and $114,800 (the second tax bracket),” reads the budget.

The Liberals’ plan states that nearly 22 million Canadians would see tax relief of up to $420 per person, saving two-income families up to $840 a year.

It added that this measure would provide $27.2 billion in tax relief to Canadians over five years, starting this year.

Tackling consumer pain points

Annoyed by pesky bank fees that take an “unnecessary” toll on your wallet? So is the government apparently.

The budget promises to review fees charged by banks and other financial institutions, which include Interac e-transfer and ATM fees.

“We will use every tool and agency at our disposal to address any unjustified fees and pain points for Canadians,” the budget reads, later adding: “We will provide an update on this work in 2026.”

Providing a reality cheque

For those who rely on legacy financial products and services, including cheques, the government says current access-to-cheque fund rules are outdated and “have not kept pace with cost-of-living increases or technological advances.”

The Liberals propose raising the amount of immediately available funds, after depositing a cheque, from $100 to $150, and removing the timing gap between cashing your cheque in person and via other means.

The budget also proposes regulating the number of days banks may hold deposited cheque funds before releasing them to their customers.

National Post

• Read National Post’s full 2025 federal budget coverage
• Mark Carney tables his first budget as prime minister

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OTTAWA — Prime Minister

Mark Carney

is billing his first budget as bold, but it won’t come cheap.

The

Liberal government’s budget

, unveiled Tuesday after months of delay, forecasts a $78.3-billion deficit for fiscal 2025-26, the third highest in Canadian history and the highest ever in a non-pandemic year. The projected deficit is within the range of non-government estimates from recent months.

The budget also revealed new government forecasts that call for modest dips in Canada’s annual deficits over the next four years, but a new $320-billion mountain of debt that will be added to the national balance sheet before the end of the decade.

Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne said this budget marked a “generational investment” so that Canada could supercharge its economy. The deficit forecasts, he said, are “in the range people expected.”

Big chunks of this year’s deficit and the expected new red ink over the next few years can be attributed to the government’s efforts to invest in building a stronger economy that is better equipped to export beyond the United States. Those measures, largely designed to lure at least $500-billion in private investment over the next five years, included investments in infrastructure and housing, spending on skills upgrades for those hit by trade friction, defence expenditures, reducing business costs by allowing more aggressive write-offs, and already-announced cuts to personal income taxes.

But the government’s fiscal numbers have also been rammed by a number of broader economic waves: a slowing global economy, sluggish forecasts for Canada, a decade of weak productivity and corporate investment, and, of course, trade friction with the United States and China.

The net result, according to the budget, is a “weakened” Canadian economy that will produce gross domestic product (GDP) growth of just a hair above 1 per cent this calendar year and next, compared to the 2 per cent that was forecast in the Fall Economic Statement a year ago.

The new economic landscape has meant a cut of $7 billion a year in federal revenue, compared to the figures provided in last year’s economic statement.

It has also meant the addition of new clouds to a fiscal situation that was already dark.

Overall, Ottawa has now accumulated 1.27-trillion in debt, almost half of it within the last five years. With Tuesday’s deficit forecast for this year, the federal government is now on track to have amassed $593.1-billion in debt over the last five years, or 46.7 per cent of the total debt from throughout Canadian history. More than half of that debt, or $327.7-billion of it, can be traced back to the fiscal year 2020-21 that included the start of the pandemic and the various policies that followed.

Canada’s debt will cost taxpayers an estimated $53.4-billion this year in interest payments. Those interest costs are expected to climb to $76.1-billion by the end of the decade as the government expects it will add to the national debt by about 25 per cent over that period.

Conservatives have increasingly focused their criticisms on government deficits and their link to inflation. In Monday’s Question Period, opposition MPs told cabinet ministers that Canadians want “an affordable budget for an affordable life.”

Many economists are also concerned about Canada’s fiscal situation, although there’s also recognition that there is more of an emphasis this year on investments that should benefit the economy for years to come.

The government has in recent weeks been trying to prepare Canadians for the latest grim fiscal news and to avoid some of the associated political fallout.

In a pre-budget speech last month at the University of Ottawa, Carney said that Canada had been put in a difficult position by U.S. tariffs and that it was now time for bold action that would lead to a stronger economy for the long term.

“Now is not the time to be cautious because fortune favours the bold.”

In an effort perhaps to underpromise and overdeliver, Carney also spoke in recent days about how it was time for Canadians to sacrifice, although the budget produced few measures along those lines.

Champagne has emphasized that Canada’s fiscal position is stronger than other G7 countries and has quoted foreign policy makers who said that Canada is one of the few countries with the capacity to invest. Only Japan has a lower deficit-GDP ratio within the G7.

Tuesday’s budget also formalized the government’s move to begin separating day-to-day operational spending and capital investments, those expenditures geared more towards boosting long-term growth. Carney has said that this budgeting change will make it easier to distinguish between regular spending on services and “investments.”

Critics, however, say the move was designed to allow the government to claim that it has balanced the operational side of its books within three years, with the focus no longer on the actual full budget.

National Post

• Read National Post’s full 2025 federal budget coverage
• Mark Carney tables his first budget as prime minister

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OTTAWA — The federal government is taking a hatchet to temporary immigration levels, cutting the number of temporary students it will let in next year by half.

The changes were revealed in a preview of the Carney government’s three-year immigration level plan contained

in the 2025 budget

tabled Tuesday.

While

Prime Minister Mark Carney

plans on plateauing the number of permanent residents coming into Canada annually at 380,000 until 2028, his government is further slashing temporary resident admissions.

In the budget, the government suggested the new plan was necessary because immigration had gotten out of control, a drum frequently beat by the Conservatives recently.

“In recent years, the system became even harder to manage and less functional, and the pace of arrivals began to exceed Canada’s capacity to absorb and support newcomers in the way we are used to doing,” reads the budget.

“We are taking back control over the immigration system and putting Canada on a trajectory to bring immigration back to sustainable levels — allowing us to fulfill the promise of Canada to those who call it home.”

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has called on the Liberals to impose “very hard caps” on immigration levels. During the spring election, he promised to fix the “broken” immigration system.

Tuesday’s budget partly blamed issues with housing supply, the healthcare system, and schools on the rapid growth of temporary resident numbers. Between 2018 and 2024, ratio of non-permanent residents as a total of the Canadian population doubled to hit 7.5 per cent.

“Canada’s new government recognizes that this system is no longer sustainable, and we are determined to make it so, for everyone who lives in and comes to this country,” reads the budget.

But the budget is light on details about how the government expects to hit the new lower levels, whether by imposing a cap or by restricting eligibility criteria, for example. That information will be included in the 2025 Annual Report to Parliament on Immigration to come in the near future.

The most significant cut in Carney’s immigration levels is to temporary foreign student admissions in what will likely be a further blow to many Canadian colleges and universities who have seen their revenues from international students plummet.

The government originally planned to cap foreign student visas at 305,000 over the next two years. But Carney’s government will slash that in half by next year and settle the number at 150,000 annually until 2028.

Overall, Liberals originally projected granting temporary residency to 673,650 people in 2025 and then dropping that number to 516,600 next year.

But Carney’s government opted to cut even further, reducing the number of temporary resident visas to 385,000 next year and 370,000 the following two years. That means Canada will be letting in more than 40 per cent fewer temporary residents between this year and next.

There will be a small increase (20,000) in temporary worker visas issued next year. In the budget, the government said it was considering the needs of industries and sectors impacted by U.S. tariffs as well as the “unique” needs of rural Canada.

The budget notes that the new levels still aim to reduce Canada’s non-permanent resident population to below five per cent of the total population by 2028.

Last year,

the Trudeau government began slashing immigration

levels after years of constant increases. It transformed a planned increase of permanent resident admissions in 2025 to a nearly 100,000 drop, limiting the number to 395,000.

During a press conference Tuesday, Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne said that lowering the immigration levels would help the government better integrate newcomers.

“If you welcome people in your country, you have a duty to allow them to be able to find a place to live, to go to school or to get service in hospital,” he said.

Champagne also pointed to a new budget commitment to spend $1 billion over 13 years to help recruit top-tier international researchers as part of an “International Talent Attraction Strategy and Action Plan”.

“We’re getting back to sustainable levels. On the other end, we’re really focusing on attracting the best and brightest,” he said.

National Post

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OTTAWA — The

first budget

under Prime Minister

Mark Carney

will be tabled by the Liberal government today. And officials promise it will be focused on diversifying trade from the U.S. and boosting investment in Canada.

“It’s an investment budget. It’s a generational shift. This is going to be a great moment for the nation,” said Finance Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne Monday. Champagne attempted to illustrate the new direction by making his own shoes for budget day (with professional help) at a family-owned business in Ste. Tite, Que., a twist on the tradition of finance ministers buying new shoes before budget day.

The financial plan is the culmination of many months of Carney and Champagne vowing to “spend less” to “invest more” to help Canada move away from its largest trading partner, amid the trade dispute with U.S. President Donald Trump.

“We’re moving from reliance to resilience, from uncertainty to prosperity. We’re going to do the kind of things that will make this country stronger,” said Champagne.

On the spending side, the government has telegraphed that there will be billions more dollars for defence, housing and major projects, as well as measures

to boost Canada’s lagging productivity and competitiveness.

But there are plans for spending cuts elsewhere in the public service. This summer, Champagne

asked most departments to start looking for 15 per cent in spending reductions over three years

. National Post has confirmed that there

will be a plan for civil service layoffs as well as job reallocations

. Several other non-permanent programs are expected to see their funding “sunset,” rather than be renewed. Still others will be cancelled, such as the plan by

former prime minister Justin Trudeau to plant two billion trees by 2031

, which sources on Monday confirmed was being chopped.

Champagne is expected to table his budget in the House of Commons shortly after 4 p.m. in Ottawa.

It remains to be seen which opposition party, if any, will support the budget, which could be up for a confidence vote as early as mid-November. The Liberals, with a minority of members, will require a few rival MPs to vote with them, or to abstain, in order to avoid having their government fall, triggering an election.

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• ‘All options are on the table’: NDP to consider abstaining during budget vote
• Young Canadians anxiously await federal budget after Carney warns of ‘sacrifices’

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A violent knife-wielding woman was tasered and “inadvertently” run over twice by a Toronto police SUV during her arrest next to a Tim Hortons drive-thru on Saturday.

The dramatic incident, which was captured in a pair of videos circulating widely across social media platforms, occurred mid-afternoon near Jane Park Plaza shopping centre in the city’s west end, where officers responded to reports of a woman with two large knives.

The woman was “actively damaging” vehicles, according to a Toronto Police Service statement sent to National Post, and had slashed the tires of a police cruiser that had arrived on the scene.

In a video shot by Peter Korchinski and

shared to YouTube

by MadLabs, the armed woman is seen walking through a busy parking lot as police and civilians manoeuvre around her. After she stabs the tires of one cruiser, the officer inside exits and eventually fires his taser as she walks away.

The knives quickly drop from her hands and she falls to the ground as the firing officer and two others immediately rush to subdue her, as seen in another shorter video from a different angle posted by videographer Matt Dagley and others.

A fourth officer, meanwhile, exits his SUV to assist without first putting the vehicle in park, causing it to roll forward onto the suspect and the officer who fired.

The officers appear to push back against the vehicle as their grounded comrade tries to extricate himself to assist. The officer who got out to help then hops back in the cruiser to reverse, but instead hits the gas to again run over the woman, who is heard crying out throughout the ordeal.

“During this response, the officer’s vehicle inadvertently rolled forward into both the suspect and one of the arresting officers,” TPS explained in its statement.

“Back up,” the firing officer yells as he makes it to his knees, with the driving officer quickly complying to get the vehicle off the woman.

Two of the officers struggle to get her under control as the officer who fired the taser limps away to lean on a parked vehicle.

In the longer video, she is seen standing and being restrained by more officers who’ve arrived on scene.

Although paramedics cleared both of significant injuries resulting from the “vehicle contact,” the woman was sent to hospital for further assessment, as is standard when someone has been tasered.

“We are actively reviewing the circumstances and are grateful there were no serious injuries during this dynamic incident,” TPS wrote.

It also won’t notify the Special Investigations Unit because the injuries weren’t severe.

“A serious injury — defined as one likely to interfere with the person’s health or comfort and is not transient or trifling in nature — would trigger the SIU’s mandate to investigate,” they explained.

In a statement from vice president Brian Callanan on X, the Toronto Police Association said it was aware of the video and thankful its officers “were not seriously injured.”

Statement From TPA VP Brian Callanan

We’re aware of the video shared online showing an incident involving our members from this weekend. Our members were responding to calls for a woman, armed with knives, causing damage to nearby vehicles. After deploying a taser, a struggle…

— Toronto Police Association (@TPAca) November 3, 2025

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Prince Harry is coming to Canada this week.

On Monday, the Duke of Sussex’s office announced that he’ll be travelling to Toronto for a series of events ahead of Remembrance Day, Nov. 11.

Remembrance Day, known as Veterans Day in the U.S., where Prince Harry and his family now live, falls on a Tuesday this year. In Britain, the event is Remembrance Sunday and is observed on the second Sunday of the month, which is Nov. 9 this year.

According to

People magazine

and other sources, the prince will participate in a series of events on Wednesday to support the Canadian Armed Forces and the veterans community. This will include a private lunch during which international veterans’ issues will be discussed.

That night, he will head to a private fundraiser for The HALO Trust, the landmine-clearing charity that attracted global coverage thanks to the support of the prince’s late mother, Princess Diana.

On Thursday, Prince Harry is set to visit the Veterans Centre at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre. The hub is one of Canada’s largest care facilities for veterans and provides long-term, complex hospital care to over 150 veterans from the Second World War and the Korean War.

The prince will meet there with Dr. Andy J. Smith, president and CEO of Sunnybrook, and with veterans and medical, therapeutic and care professionals. He also plans to visit the Creative Arts room, where he will meet with veterans who have painted and decorated helmets to be auctioned off at a charity dinner that evening.

The dinner will be attended by members of the Canadian Armed Forces, veterans, government representatives and business leaders.

Sunnybrook’s art therapy program uses creative media, including art and music, to provide cultural, spiritual and emotional support to veterans’ physical and mental health.

News of the visit comes as Harry’s brother, William, the Prince of Wales, is in Rio de Janeiro for the Earthshot Prize Awards ceremony, which takes place on Wednesday, the same day Harry arrives in Canada. Earthshot is a global environmental award that was launched in 2020 by William and the natural historian David Attenborough.

William arrived in Brazil on Monday for a busy week of activities tied to the prestigious prize, which aims to inspire solutions to the world’s most pressing environmental challenges.

The Royal Family has been in the news over the past week since it was revealed that King Charles III had stripped his brother Andrew of his

royal titles and residence

. Formerly known as His Royal Highness Prince Andrew, the King’s brother is now referred to merely as Andrew Mountbatten Windsor, the royals’ family name.

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