OTTAWA — In its first-ever spring economic update, Prime Minister Mark Carney’s newly minted majority government is promising to spend billions on a strategy to train more skilled workers to help deliver on its plans to build big.
The revised fiscal outlook also shows that while the federal deficit is $11.4 billion lower in the last fiscal year than what was projected in the 2025 federal budget, the deficit is tracking to only decline nominally in the years ahead.
For example, in the current 2026-27 fiscal year, the deficit is projected to be $65.3 billion, down just slightly from the $65.4 billion estimated in the 2025 federal budget.
The document — clocking in at 167 pages cover to cover and titled “Canada Strong For All” — is illustrative of how the government is gearing up to execute on Carney’s ambitious agenda, while steering the country through geopolitical headwinds and uncertainty.
Though after promising to emphasize how their economic plan will benefit all Canadians, the government’s spring statement offers few new line items geared towards consumers’ pocketbooks.
In total, there is $37.5 billion in net new spending in the spring economic update. That number grows to $54.5 billion when including measures announced since the last federal budget.
“Canada is resilient … Canadians are resourceful people,” Finance Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne said in the House of Commons after tabling the spring economic statement.
“Together we can chart a path forward through the fog of uncertainty because Canada has what the world wants and increasingly needs.”More money for workers and athletes
The biggest new commitment contained in the government’s economic update is a new nationwide recruitment and training effort that would see between 80,000 to 100,000 new skilled trade workers hired by 2030-31.
The government says this would create “new opportunities for Canadians” and attract the workers needed “to build more homes and major projects at speed and at scale.”
For this “Team Canada Strong” plan, the Liberals are allocating $5.9 billion over five years, combining initiatives such as wage subsidies, apprenticeship training grants, labour mobility tax credits, training bonuses, and employer incentives.
As Carney alluded to on Monday, the marquee macroeconomic pledge within the spring economic statement is the creation of a national sovereign wealth fund that will give Canadians a stake in major projects. Relatedly, the Liberals plan to make the Employee Ownership Trust Tax Exemption permanent “to empower workers to participate directly in building Canada strong.”
