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Prime Minister Mark Carney will deliver his second federal budget on Thursday, with Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne promising details on growth and sovereignty. The Bank of Canada and the International Monetary Fund project roughly two per cent GDP growth next year, while the OECD expects growth to be lower. Average hourly wages rose about 2.3 per cent year-over-year as of September, short of the three per cent climb in consumer prices.

Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne said on Thursday the federal government will supply 500 MW of compute to Canadian companies. The budget also plans to merge BDC and EDC, and a new Canada Growth Incentive would offer a tax exemption on up to $15 million in capital gains from 2027-28. CFIB president Dan Kelly called it appalling that the government hasn't fixed failing tariff relief measures a year and a half into the trade war.

Ottawa will commit $1 billion over five years to a Government Transformation Fund for information technology projects, according to Budget 2026. Digital Transformation Canada will bring together Shared Services Canada and the Canadian Digital Service to lead AI adoption, the budget said. The government says it is on track to cut the public service by 10 per cent by 2029, with 332,000 federal public servants as of August 2026, down from 368,000 at the 2023-24 peak.

Finance Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne delivered Prime Minister Mark Carney's budget to Parliament in Ottawa on Thursday, proposing to cut the tax rate on new business investment to 6.4 percent from 13 percent. The comparable US rate is 16.9 percent, and the Finance Department estimates the measure would cost $27.7 billion over five years from 2026-27.

Ottawa proposed a Canada Growth Incentive in Thursday's budget, exempting the first $15-million that founders, staff and investors make when selling shares in certain private Canadian businesses. Finance Canada estimates the measure will cost $565-million in tax revenue through the 2030–31 fiscal year, while extending the rollover deadline will cost $150-million over the next five fiscal years.

The federal government's 2026 budget, tabled Thursday, raises quarterly Canada Groceries and Essentials Benefit payments by 50 per cent for the 2026-27 program year. Combined with previous increases, a single person could get up to $1,290 and a couple with two children up to $2,570. Economist Armine Yalnizyan said there is little in the budget for everyday people beyond short-term relief on groceries and gas.

Ottawa's Thursday budget splits the 200,000 spots into two 100,000-person cohorts: workers in pathways such as the Start-up Visa Program, and humanitarian cases such as Ukraine family reunification. The aim is to cut a backlog, and the 380,000 annual permanent resident target is unchanged. Statistics Canada data show the non-permanent share of the population was 6.7 per cent as of July 1.

Blockchain firm TRM said North Korea's TraderTraitor unit was likely behind the theft of $6.3 billion from Binance, the world's biggest crypto exchange, in a Thursday post. Binance said it froze roughly $3 billion in affected assets and later raised that figure to $5 billion on Friday afternoon. Deposits were unaffected and Binance will cover all losses, while withdrawals are suspended and expected to resume in a day or two.