Budget 2026 reinvests in parts of public service cut last year, economist says

Ottawa's federal public service is getting some of its cuts back. Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada is getting $252 million in 2026-27 for asylum processing and for what the budget calls "building a more responsive and resilient immigration system," including expanded screening with fingerprints and facial images. The Privy Council Office is getting $56 million this fiscal year for "work" and "policy resources." The Citizen reported those figures; they have not been checked against the budget document.

David Macdonald, a senior economist with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, a left-leaning think tank, said the comprehensive expenditure review was "rushed." "When you rush a process like that it's inevitable that you're going to cut a whole variety of programs that you maybe didn't even mean to cut," he said. "Now this budget is quietly renewing parts of those programs in order to ensure that you at least somewhat maintain service levels." He said the government "probably cut much too deeply on the staff side," particularly in the departments hit hardest. "It's just a lot easier to lay people off and close programs down rather than to start them back up, with a six month or a one year delay," he said.

Yves Giroux, the former parliamentary budget officer who served from 2018 to 2025, said it is "a bit premature" to put firm numbers on how many jobs will come back. "Some, for sure, but how many? Very hard to say," he said. He noted that reinvested money may not translate into many full-time positions, since programs may need a limited workforce.

Don Drummond, an adjunct professor at Queen's University who was a key architect of the Chrétien-era program review, was harsher. He said the government "cast it (the spending review) in terms of 'we're cutting this' and 'we're cutting that,' but everything they're cutting is just being plowed back into spending — and then they're adding an awful lot on top of that." He called the process "haphazard," "done in secrecy," and "very superficial."

The Department of Finance said Budget 2026 priorities do not present its measures as a program-by-program comparison with the Budget 2025 reductions. It said it would consider potential measures "as part of the regular budget process." It did not say whether cut programs were topped up.