Today, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, the Honourable Chrystia Freeland, released Budget 2021: A Recovery Plan for Jobs, Growth, and Resilience, the Government of Canada’s plan to finish the fight against COVID-19 and ensure a robust economic recovery that brings all Canadians along.

The COVID-19 recession is the steepest and fastest economic contraction since the Great Depression. It has disproportionately affected low-wage workers, young people, women, and racialized Canadians. For businesses, it has been a two-speed recession, with some finding ways to prosper and grow, but many businesses—especially small businesses—fighting to survive. Budget 2021 is an historic investment to address the specific wounds of the COVID-19 recession, put people first, create jobs, grow the middle class, set businesses on a track for long-term growth, and ensure that Canada’s future will be healthier, more equitable, greener, and more prosperous.

The following highlights from Budget 2021 can be found below: 

Increasing Old Age Security for Canadians 75 and Over: 

• During the pandemic, many seniors have faced economic challenges as they took on extra costs to stay safe. Additionally, many seniors are living longer and relying on monthly benefits to afford retirement. After a lifetime of hard work, they deserve a secure and dignified retirement. That is why the government is committed to increasing Old Age Security (OAS) benefits for seniors age 75 and older.

The government plans to implement this commitment in two steps.

• Budget 2021 proposes to meet the immediate needs of this group of seniors by providing a one-time payment of $500 in August 2021 to OAS pensioners who will be 75 or over as of June 2022.
• Budget 2021 then proposes to introduce legislation to increase regular OAS payments for pensioners 75 and over by 10 per cent on an ongoing basis as of July 2022. This would increase the benefits for approximately 3.3 million seniors, providing additional benefits of $766 to full pensioners in the first year, and indexed to inflation going forward. This would give seniors more financial security later in life, particularly at the time when they face increased care expenses and greater risk of running out of savings.

Health care and the COVID-19 Pandemic:

• The Government of Canada’s top priority remains protecting Canadians’ health and safety, particularly during this third, aggressive wave of the virus and its variants.
• Vaccine rollout is underway across Canada, with federal government support in every province and territory.
• Budget 2021 invests in Canada’s bio-manufacturing and life sciences sector to rebuild domestic vaccine manufacturing capacity, and has a plan to improve long-term care and mental health services.

Job Creation and Small Businesses:

• We said we will have Canadian’s backs – and we will extend business and income support measures through to the fall.
• We will make investments to create jobs and help businesses across the economy come roaring back.
• The budget will: support almost 500,000 new training and work opportunities, including 215,000 opportunities for youth; support businesses in our most affected sectors such as tourism and arts and culture; and accelerate investment in digital transformation of small and medium-sized businesses.
• Budget 2021 is a plan that puts the government on track to meet its commitment to create 1 million jobs by the end of this year.

Early Learning and Child Care:

• Budget 2021 makes a transformative investment to build a Canada-wide early learning and child care system.
• This is a plan to drive economic growth, a plan to increase women’s participation in the workforce, and a plan to offer each child in Canada the best start in life.
• This plan will aim to reduce fees for parents with children in regulated child care by 50 per cent on average, by 2022, with a goal of reaching $10 per day on average by 2026, everywhere outside of Quebec.
• Budget 2021 will invest almost $30 billion over the next five years and provide permanent ongoing funding.

A Green and Clean Future:

• Budget 2021 is also a plan for a green recovery that fights climate change, helps more than 200,000 Canadians make their homes greener, builds a net-zero economy by investing in world-leading technologies that make industry cleaner and reduces pollution, helps Canada reach its goal of conserving 25 per cent of our lands and oceans by 2025, and creates good middle-class jobs in the green economy along the way.

Our Responsible Fiscal Plan: 

• Canada entered the pandemic in a strong fiscal position. This allowed our government to take quick and decisive action, supporting people and businesses, and to make today’s historic investments in the recovery.
• The greatest danger to our economy would have been not doing enough; strong fiscal support is necessary to prevent economic scarring and make sure Canada’s recovery leaves no one behind.
• Budget 2021 is a prudent plan that sets out a new fiscal anchor that is committed to reducing the federal debt as a share of the economy over the medium-term and unwinding COVID-19-related deficits.
• This framework is prudent and sustainable, with the federal debt-to-GDP ratio expected to fall to 49.2 per cent by 2025-26 and the deficit to reach 1.1 per cent of GDP that same year.

More details can be found here.