Federal Budget 2025 vs. Mental Health
On November 5, 2025, Mark Carney will unveil his first federal budget in his time as Prime Minister. While you may not think it right away, the Federal Budget can actually have very serious implications for the state of healthcare, and mental health and wellness for people across this country.
“How so?”
You may or may not be familiar with the healthcare funding model in Canada. While the federal government doesn’t typically directly fund healthcare, they can target funding in different directions through the Canada Health Transfer (CHT). This is the pot of money that the Feds give to the provinces and territories, which they can require the provinces and territories to target toward specific areas ie. mental health.
Beyond the CHT, the federal budget can point to what priorities the government has when it comes to health and wellness, access to services, and workforce.
“What should I be paying attention to in the upcoming budget?”
Well, to understand the budget in relation to mental health you’re going to want to be looking for a few items representative of the social determinants of health.
Social determinants of health are the non-medical factors that influence people’s health and well-being.
They include the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work, and age, as well as the systems and structures that shape those conditions like policies, social norms, and access to resources.
These factors can either be protective, or harmful to mental health and wellness. If we have insecure access to affordable housing, expensive groceries, low income & high unemployment, increased exposure to trauma and discrimination it is expected that these social determinants of health will result in worse off physical and mental health outcomes.
Do all of those factors sound familiar?
They should! They represent the very real lives of people across this country and the things that are making it increasingly difficult to thrive day to day.
A few things to look for will be investments in:
Affordable housing strategy
Health & Mental Health Care
Job creation & sustainability
Food security
We are likely all aware that we are living in a time of economic uncertainty which does in fact have a direct link to our wellness.
There have been some small windows into the budget already, here’s what we know so far.
It will be interesting to have a more clear understanding of it coming up today, and seeing what far ranging outcomes may result from it in the coming months and years. Since this Liberal government is a minority, they will not have enough votes to pass their budget without support from other Parties. If they can’t get the necessary support for the budget vote, we just may be heading back into another election season.
Strap in! It continues to be an interesting ride.
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