Budget 2025: Progress for Some, but No Plan for the Nonprofit Sector that Holds Canada Together

After more than a year and a half without the release of a federal budget, the nonprofit sector was looking for meaningful inclusion in Canada’s social and economic landscape. Budget 2025 acknowledges and invests in the importance of several programs that support Canadians, but it stops short of addressing the broader, systemic needs of the sector that delivers them. 

The sector welcomes targeted investments such as the National School Food Program, Women and Gender Equality Canada funding, and continued support for Canada Summer Jobs, Youth Employment and Skills Strategy, and the Canada Music Fund. We also support investments in programs such as the Disability Tax Benefit and New Horizons for Seniors, and welcome the introduction of automatic tax filing for low income Canadians.

However, these investments do not add up to a coordinated strategy for the nonprofit sector as a whole. The government’s conception of a “strong social safety net” appears to rest on funding for discrete programs without investment in the organizations, workforce and infrastructure that sustain them. This misses the larger point: the strength of Canada’s social safety net depends on the strength of the nonprofit organizations that deliver it.

The nonprofit sector generates $226 billion in economic activity, representing 8.2% of Canada’s GDP, and employs more than 2.7 million people, more than construction, manufacturing or retail trade. Yet, the nonprofit sector continues to be forced to do more with less. Rising costs, declining charitable donations, a growing shortage of volunteers and increased demand for services have stretched organizations to their limits. Without reliable, ongoing investment in their people and infrastructure, the very organizations that hold Canada’s social safety net together risk becoming too fragile to sustain it. 

While Budget 2025 rightly focuses on innovation, productivity and reducing red tape, it does not extend these priorities to the nonprofit sector. Investing in nonprofit innovation would allow organizations to test and scale prevention models that keep people from reaching points of crisis. Investing in nonprofit data, including continued and expanded support for Statistics Canada’s work to collect and analyze data on the sector, would enable smarter resource allocation, policy and funding decisions. Reducing administrative burdens in the federal grants and contributions system would allow organizations to deliver greater impact with the same public dollars. These are opportunities for smarter, more efficient investment that the government has not yet seized. 

The budget also lacks any coordinated plan to strengthen the nonprofit workforce. The sector faces serious labour market pressures, with high burnout, wage gaps and instability that threaten service continuity. Workforce renewal must be part of any strategy to sustain Canada’s social safety net.

Targeted program investments are welcome, but without structural recognition of the nonprofit sector as a key economic and social partner, Canada risks weakening the very foundation on which those programs depend. 

The nonprofit sector will continue to work with the federal government to ensure that future budgets reflect its essential role in both community well-being and economic growth and to build a Canada that is not only competitive but also caring and resilient.