By Kiegan Irish, Advocacy Officer, and Dean Dettloff, Research and Advocacy Officer
Development and Peace — Caritas Canada (DPCC) expresses its disappointment with Canada’s overwhelming silence on financial commitments to international aid and development in its 2026-2027 budget. While the world continues to pose complex challenges and uncertainties, allocating funds for these purposes would help to encourage a future that is more cooperative, peaceful and prosperous for everyone, including Canadians. Instead, the Government of Canada has chosen to continue to follow trends among other nations to withdraw from the essential task of building a world that works for all.
It appears that the current budget maintains significant cuts to official development assistance (ODA) from its 2025-2026 budget, despite breaking a 2025 campaign promise by Prime Minister Mark Carney to not cut international aid.
Avoiding further cuts to an already insufficient budget is not a cause for celebration, and we remain committed to urging Canada to increase its spending on ODA. Over the past several months, Canadians passionate about international solidarity have called, written to, and met with their Members of Parliament to show that the Government would find supporters across the country if it chose to take a leadership role on the world stage when it comes to international aid and development. It is a shame that the Government has chosen to ignore these voices.
In fact, issues related to overseas development assistance, including humanitarian aid and development, do not even appear in the text of the budget.
Canada has a long way to go to be truly on track for justice. Its 2026-2027 budget shows that Canada is not ready to affirm the need for more funding in international aid and development, the very sectors that make the world safer and more reliable for Canadians and for our sisters and brothers around the world. DPCC remains committed to raising these issues, with hope that the Government might step into leadership on the international stage for the sake of the world’s most vulnerable people.
The government entitled its budget “Masters of Our Destiny.” Canada rightly wishes to establish itself without risky dependencies on external desires or pressures. Without tying our destinies to others in solidarity, however, Canada will not secure a prosperous, peaceful future for Canadians.
In DPCC’s pre-budget submission to the government, we quoted Pope Francis’s challenging words in Fratelli Tutti, an encyclical that has also animated the work of Pope Leo XIV: “The true worth of the different countries of our world is measured by their ability to think not simply as a country but also as part of the larger human family” (§141). Such measurement is troubling in light of Canada’s 2026-2027 budget. We remain hopeful that Canada might yet discover the courage to take the path of international solidarity, recognizing that the destiny of Canadians is not separable from the destinies of people around the world.
For more information on Canada’s spending for international solidarity, read our campaign Backgrounder.