The federal government has opened its consultation session for the upcoming budget, with a submission deadline of May 22, 2026 (details about how to submit your own recommendations can be found in our post here.)
This year, we focused on the following four major recommendations:
- Make the Disability Tax Credit (DTC) an effective, accessible, and accountable gateway to federal disability supports for all who need them
- Broaden the DTC definition and create alternate pathways to the Canada Disability Benefit (CDB)
- Remove financial and administrative barriers to DTC access
- Reform DTC dispute resolution
- Make the Canada Revenue Agency work for low-income people
- Make Employment Insurance accessible, adequate, and fair for all workers, including those in precarious, part-time, low-wage, and migrant work
- Make EI accessible to all workers
- Raise benefit rates to levels people can live on
- Fix the structural exclusion of migrant farmworkers from EI
- Make substantial investments to ensure income security and to advance self-determination of Indigenous Peoples
Canada enters Budget 2026 amid a sustained affordability crisis that is eroding already inadequate incomes. As income inequality continues to deepen, low-income households and workers in precarious employment are left to shoulder the heaviest burden. These challenges reflect long-standing policy failures that have left Canada’s income security system inaccessible and inadequate for many.
The federal government cannot rely on incremental fixes or temporary measures to patch over deep, entrenched gaps in the system. It must make structural changes that create a stable, lasting foundation for income security.
You can read our full submission in the window below, or by clicking here (link will open a PDF.) You can endorse our recommendations by including them in your own budget submission.