About the Ontario Chamber of Commerce The Ontario Chamber of Commerce (OCC) is the indispensable partner of business and Canada’s largest, most influential provincial chamber. It is an independent, non-profit advocacy and member services organization representing a diverse network of 60,000 members. The OCC convenes, mobilizes and empowers businesses and local chambers in pursuit of its purpose: to bring inclusive and sustainable prosperity to Ontario’s businesses, workers, and communities.
The OCC is the indispensable partner of business. © 2026. Ontario Chamber of Commerce. All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-1-998700-11-0
2026 Federal Budget Submission
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A Message from the President & CEO Dear Minister Champagne, The Ontario Chamber of Commerce (OCC) welcomes the opportunity to participate in Canada’s 2026 budget consultation process. Across our province and country, there’s a growing understanding that Canada faces a moment of historic risk and opportunity, and a conviction that we must transform our economy at a scale and speed not seen in generations. Success demands mobilizing the financial, intellectual and human capital of the private sector, working in partnership with government. That is why Budget 2026 must strengthen Canada’s competitiveness through a sustainable growth agenda that unleashes business investment, entrepreneurship, innovation, and productivity. To achieve this, we must invest strategically in cultivating a thriving business climate, healthy communities, talent development, and infrastructure. This submission, representing the collective voice of our network’s diverse 60,000 members and nearly 145 local chambers of commerce and boards of trade, outlines 15 key recommendations for the upcoming budget. We look forward to continuing to work with businesses of all sizes and the Government of Canada to position our nation for inclusive, sustainable prosperity. Sincerely,
Daniel Tisch, APR, FCPRS, ICD.D President and CEO
2026 Federal Budget Submission
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2026 Federal Budget Submission
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A Competitive Business and Trade Environment Canada’s competitiveness depends on enabling businesses to invest, grow, and access markets despite ongoing trade-related uncertainty, weak productivity, regulatory barriers, and limited access to capital. By reducing barriers to growth and targeting key strategic sectors, Canada can build a more productive, resilient, and inclusive economy. 1. Lower Barriers, Unlock Investment, Build Strategic Advantage: Improve Canada's investment climate by modernizing the tax system, easing regulatory burden and the cost of doing business, advancing economic reconciliation, and directing federal support to strategic industries such as defence, artificial intelligence, and critical minerals. This includes: a. Advancing Pro-Growth Tax Reform •
Launch a comprehensive, expert-led, and time-bound review of Canada’s corporate and personal tax system, coordinated with provinces and territories, to strengthen incentives for business investment in productivity and growth, reduce complexity and compliance costs, and encourage labour force participation. As this review gets under way, the federal government should take ‘no-regret’ actions to: o Reduce the overall tax burden on businesses to keep them competitive as tariffs impact margins, including by extending short-term relief on the federal excise tax on fuel, and making the Productivity Super-Deduction permanent to continue incentivizing business investment in productivity-enhancing technology and infrastructure. o Reform tax features that penalize firms as they scale, including raising the threshold amounts under which the Small Business Deduction applies, and capital is taxed. This should include further simplifying SR&ED eligibility and administration. o Establish a Canadian Patent Box Regime that grants a preferential corporate income tax rate on IP exclusively developed in Canada.
2026 Federal Budget Submission
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o Broaden capital gains rollover provisions for gains that are reinvested in qualifying Canadian assets within a specified period. o Expand access to capital for Indigenous businesses through improved utilization of the Indigenous Loan Guarantee Program to facilitate greater equity ownership in major projects. This should include lowering transaction minimums that exclude smaller communities and mid-sized projects, and clearer guidance on the capital and credit-risk treatment of federal guarantees to reduce financing costs and improve access to lending. b. Unlocking Growth in Canada’s Strategic Industries •
Artificial Intelligence for SMEs and scale-ups: Establish a dedicated AI Adoption Accelerator for SMEs and scale-ups, providing sector-specific implementation support, demonstration projects, and hands-on advisory services to accelerate the transition from experimentation to operational deployment, to advance Canada's target of 60 per cent business AI adoption by 2034.
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Critical Mineral Mining and Processing: Accelerate development by extending and enhancing the Mineral Exploration Tax Credit, expanding flow-through share eligibility under the Canadian Exploration Expense framework, and broadening the Clean Technology Manufacturing Investment Tax Credit to brownfield mine development expenses. Expand financing tools through the Canada Growth Fund, Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC), Export Development Canada (EDC), Canada Infrastructure Bank (CIB), and federal Indigenous loan guarantee programs to keep pace with Canada’s development ambitions.
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Defence and Dual-Use Supply Chains. Build on the new Small Business Procurement Program to make it easier for Canadian SMEs, dual-use suppliers and Indigenous businesses to compete for defence opportunities by improving visibility into upcoming procurements, accelerating security clearances and controlled goods registration, and ensuring major contracts create opportunities for Canadian subcontractors.
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Agriculture: Help scale Canada’s agri-food and processing sector by establishing a National Food Security Advisory Council to support the implementation of the National Food Security Strategy and other relevant federal initiatives, bringing together industry leaders and key federal departments to remove barriers to investment and sector competitiveness.
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Low-Carbon Industrial Development. Deliver Canada's sustainable investment taxonomy on the announced timeline, and publish a coordinated, multi-year clean-investment roadmap covering industrial carbon pricing, clean-economy investment tax credits, and carbon contracts for difference. In addition, continue optimizing Clean Economic Investment Tax Credits (ITCs) to ensure they remain technology- and project-neutral (e.g., expand eligibility to include district-connected heat pumps, significant intra-provincial electricity transmission projects).
2. Diversify Trade within Canada and Across the Globe: Expand market access for Canadian businesses by removing the internal barriers that fragment Canada's domestic economy and by equipping firms with the tools, financing, and coordinated support needed to diversify beyond the United States. Canada should build more, make more, trade more, and buy more from ourselves. This includes: a. Building a Single Canadian Market •
Strengthen the Committee on Internal Trade (CIT) and the Regulatory Reconciliation and Cooperation Table by publishing clear annual priorities, firm deliverables and timelines for action on each item, and transparent public reporting.
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Accelerate implementation of the 30-day credential-recognition standard with provinces and territories, expand provisional licensing, and establish national digital credential verification in priority sectors.
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Work with the parties to implement the 2026 interprovincial trucking agreement on a fixed timeline by aligning permitting, routing, driver-training and safety requirements and developing interoperable carrier and driver records across jurisdictions.
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Design a system of positive fiscal incentives to spur provincial and territorial dismantling of barriers to internal trade and labour mobility within target timelines.
b. Helping Businesses Reach New Markets •
Work with provinces, territories, and chambers of commerce to provide “concierge” services to help businesses access priority non-U.S. markets, coordinating trade missions, export financing, certification support, and buyer matching for SMEs in key sectors.
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Create a single intake and referral system across EDC, BDC, the Trade Commissioner Service, regional development agencies, and CanExport, with public reporting on uptake, processing times, and gaps.
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Healthy and Sustainable Communities Canada’s competitiveness depends on the health, safety, and livability of its communities. Yet, our towns and cities show clear signs of strain. This is particularly evident in Ontario, home to 40 per cent of Canada’s population. Pressures on health system capacity, uneven access to services, demographic change, and growing economic uncertainty affect productivity, labour force participation, and talent attraction. Many communities struggle to sustain year-round economic activity and attract the investment, visitors, and skilled workers needed to grow. By strengthening health systems, accelerating innovation, and investing in the cultural and visitor economy, the federal government can help build more resilient communities while supporting long-term economic growth and prosperity. 3. Invest in Trade-impacted Communities and Businesses in partnership with Chambers of Commerce in every region: Canada’s Regional Development Agencies should work with their provincial and local chambers to help businesses navigate the effects of tariffs. This includes: a. Ensuring support programs are properly designed and cover all businesses and sectors needing them, with special attention given to resolving gaps in eligibility for sole proprietors, owner-operated firms and businesses with zero to nine employees, which are especially vulnerable to trade-induced disruptions. b. Connecting high-potential businesses with new supply chain and procurement opportunities; and c. Convening discussions to build regional investment attraction or taking part in outbound trade diversification delegations. 4. Improve Alignment of Health Systems and Strategies Across Canada: Collaborate with provinces and territories to strengthen access to healthcare through improved workforce development and planning, care delivery, and pan-Canadian data interoperability. This includes: a. Aligning and integrating national programs (e.g., National Pharmacare Plan, Canadian Dental Care Plan) with existing private and provincial programs to support Canadians without coverage to reduce burden while preserving system integrity. 2026 Federal Budget Submission
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b. Ensuring national workforce strategies, specifically for health and human resources (HHR), are expedited to include building a standardized health workforce dataset (e.g., Health Workforce Canada) that better informs health workforce planning. c. Anchoring common interoperability and data standards within planning and change management efforts for the Connected Care for Canadians Act (Bill S-5) and the Pan-Canadian Interoperability Roadmap, as provinces and territories look to develop and implement their own digital health systems. d. Implementing dedicated mental health funding through existing health transfer and bilateral funding agreements, with targeted investments for underserved communities in partnerships with provinces, territories, and Indigenous communities. 5. Drive Innovation in Canada’s Life Sciences Ecosystem: Strengthen Canada’s global leadership in life sciences by accelerating domestic research and innovation, expediting patient access to new treatments, and cultivating opportunities for investment in Canada. This includes: a. Applying the Pharmaceutical and Life Sciences Sector Task Force recommendations to accelerate patient access to innovative medicines and health technologies. This requires streamlining approval, assessment, and reimbursement processes, including faster reviews and access pathways by Canada’s Drug Agency and the pan-Canadian Pharmaceutical Alliance. b. Prioritizing investments throughout the life sciences ecosystem, including renewing existing envelopes, implementing proven access pilots (e.g., Ontario’s FAST) in collaboration with provinces and territories, and creating new funding streams that attract world-leading companies, encourage innovation, and facilitate higher-risk ventures. 6. Embed Arts, Culture and Tourism in Economic Development Strategies: Grow Canada’s cultural and visitor economy by embedding arts, culture, and tourism into economic development strategies, while balancing creator protections and protecting Canadian cultural sovereignty. This includes: a. Developing a coordinated cultural and tourism strategy that embeds the sector in economic action plans, including trade and export priorities, alongside stable and predictable funding streams and departmental capacity (e.g., Global Affairs Canada, Department of Canadian Heritage). This should include resources that enable long-term planning, cultivate opportunities to scale and grow internationally, and attract investment and visitors in the culture and tourism sector. 2026 Federal Budget Submission
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b. Expanding Canadian cultural data infrastructure (e.g., Culture Satellite Account) to provide frequent, detailed, and regionally relevant data on the sector’s economic impact, workforce composition, labour market trends, investment patterns, and business performance. c. Developing a balanced intellectual property (IP) framework that strengthens copyright protections for artists and creators in AI development while enabling responsible innovation and commercialization. This could include ensuring licensed use and compensation for copyrighted works, rejecting expanded text and data mining exceptions, and requiring disclosure of AI training data.
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Qualified People, Diverse Talent Canada needs a labour market where immigration, skills development, and workforce supports align with where employers need them most, strengthening both newcomer pathways and domestic talent pipelines. Recent labour market research projects nearly two million postsecondary job openings in Ontario through 2035, spanning the trades, health care, business and finance, and STEM and education roles. Closing this gap requires coordinated action across postsecondary institutions, immigration policy, and domestic talent pipelines alike. Building a future-ready workforce requires integrating immigration, education and workforce development agendas to help employers grow, communities thrive, and workers succeed. 7. Align Immigration and Workforce Strategies with Regional and Sectoral Needs: Ensure Canada’s immigration system actively and accurately responds to evolving regional and sectoral labour market realities. This includes: a. Increasing Ontario's Provincial Nominee Program allocation to better reflect the province's share of Canada's population, economic output, and workforce demand. Prioritize admissions in high-demand sectors such as skilled trades, engineering, mining, and healthcare, and high-performing international postgraduate students. Targeted, temporary foreign work permit extensions can support those already employed in critical sectors facing acute labour shortages. b. Reforming foreign credential recognition to align immigration selection with workforce planning, licensure pathways and employment integration outcomes, through improved coordination between Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC), Health Canada, Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED) and Global Affairs Canada. c. Increasing the number of recipients for the Canada Global Impact+ Research Talent Initiative to strengthen Canada’s ability to attract and retain top global talent. Outstanding tri-council1 funding commitments should also be advanced to support Canada’s research ecosystem. 1
Tri-council funding refers to research funding jointly administered by Canada's three federal research agencies, which includes the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC).
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d. Fulfilling commitments to transition the Rural Community Immigration Pilot into a permanent stream, supported by predictable multi-year allocations, greater flexibility around occupation-level caps in sectors with sustained demand, and dedicated settlement and retention supports in rural communities. 8. Connect Talent Development with Employers: Invest in pathways for Canadians to productively navigate and contribute to the workforce through paid work-integrated learning (WIL), Indigenous-led skills development, and faster support for workers facing sectoral change. This includes: a. Tying access to WIL funding, including the Student Work Placement Program, to a “Match, Pay, Report” model that connects employers with qualified learners, requires paid placements, and sets clear expectations for simple, transparent outcomes reporting proportionate to the businesses’ size and capacity. b. Expanding investments in Indigenous-led skills training to increase Indigenous participation in highdemand sectors by bolstering support for the Indigenous Skills and Employment Training (ISET) Program, broader apprenticeship programs, and WIL opportunities in partnership with Indigenous governments, employers, Indigenous Institutes and educational institutions. c. Partnering with provinces to co-fund targeted education-to-workforce grants in critical Northern sectors (e.g., mining, energy, and related technical trades) by expanding programs modelled after the Ontario Learn and Stay Grant (where funding is tied to local service commitments) and working with regional institutions to meet strategic industry needs. d. Ensuring workforce development intermediaries and employment service providers have direct, streamlined access to federal reskilling funding under Labour Market Development Agreements, enabling faster response for mid-career workers affected by sectors experiencing transitions (e.g., energy, mining and critical minerals).
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9. Support Workforce Transitions to Expand Participation and Ensure Continuity: Strengthen Canada's workforce foundations by improving childcare delivery, modernizing Employment Insurance (EI), and enabling timely government intervention on deadlocked labour negotiations in federal workplaces. This includes: a. Enhancing the delivery of the Canada-Ontario Early Learning and Child Care Agreement to increase the supply of affordable, accessible childcare, and building a pipeline of childcare providers to enable greater workforce participation among parents. b. Applying a tripartite-led approach to EI reforms (involving government, employers and workers), based on a comprehensive review of the current system, to ensure EI’s governance, programs, policies, and operations are sustainable, affordable, inclusive, and relevant for current and future generations of Canadian employers and employees. 10. Restore the Predictability of Canada’s Supply Chains by Updating the Canada Labour Code: Expand the federal labour minister’s powers to promote effective collective bargaining without relying on repeated labour action at ports, railways, airlines and other federally regulated workplaces. This should include the ability to appoint a special mediator earlier in the process to help parties reach an agreement, and to refer disputes more swiftly to binding arbitration when supply chains are threatened.
2026 Federal Budget Submission
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Growth-Enabling Infrastructure Canada’s infrastructure commitments must translate into completed projects. To get there, governments should work with industry and Indigenous partners to accelerate housing, electrification, major projects, trade corridors and resilient community infrastructure. Early government action is helping. Thanks in part to the recent Canada-Ontario Partnership to Build and associated HST relief on home purchases, new home sales jumped by 130 per cent year-over-year in the second quarter. But securing real momentum depends on building more on a larger scale, creating new sources of demand for Canadian materials while we accelerate large-scale construction in transit, mining and trade-enabling infrastructure. To get there, Canada must improve coordination, investment certainty, access to reliable, affordable and clean electricity, and public accountability. 11. Accelerate Housing and Housing-Enabling Infrastructure: Close Canada's housing gap by providing builders the financing certainty and supportive housing capacity they need to build at scale. This includes: a. Building on the momentum of Build Canada Homes, the Apartment Construction Loan Program (ACLP) and the Housing Accelerator Fund/Build Communities Strong Fund by extending predictable, multi-year financing commitments and clear approval and funding disbursement timelines. Pair this funding with technical assistance and common data standards for planning and reporting for affordable housing and housing-enabling infrastructure (e.g., water, wastewater and transit). b. Expanding federal capital investments in supportive and transitional housing models through agreements with provinces, territories, municipalities and Indigenous partners, while supporting the integration of housing with locally delivered health, employment, and wraparound social services.
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12. Modernize Infrastructure Planning, Approvals and Delivery: Restore investor and public confidence in Canada's infrastructure system by making regulatory review predictable, transparent, and accountable. This includes: a. Implementing the National Infrastructure Assessment through a rolling long-term infrastructure plan, regionspecific investment roadmaps and transparent reporting on infrastructure needs. Funding commitments and delivery progress, including project benefits, anticipated economic impacts, infrastructure requirements and community impacts, must be regularly communicated to support public confidence and informed decision-making. b. Expanding “one project, one process” by establishing predictable, coordinated and transparent regulatory processes that maintain environmental oversight and meaningful Indigenous consultation. This should include published federal service standards, using provincial impact assessments as the foundation for federal decisions where appropriate, coordinating downstream permitting, and implementing cooperation agreements across willing provinces and territories, while reducing duplication and delays. c. Publishing an annually updated, forward-looking federal priority project plan spanning energy, critical minerals, transportation and other nationally significant infrastructure, with target approval timelines, funding and permitting status, infrastructure dependencies and regular progress reporting. d. Coordinating federal and provincial Crown consultations for major projects by aligning engagement and information requirements, reducing duplicative government processes and providing Indigenous communities with capacity funding for early, meaningful participation and economic partnership. 13. Build National Energy and Strategic Infrastructure Corridors: Secure Canada's economic future by moving decisively on the energy and infrastructure corridors that unlock resource, manufacturing, and technology investment. This includes: a. Developing an actionable national energy and infrastructure corridor framework with provinces, territories and Indigenous partners to identify priority routes and infrastructure needs, coordinate public and private financing and align regulatory approvals.
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b. Co-investing, through the Major Projects Office, in nationally significant transmission, transportation, pipeline, liquefied natural gas (LNG), broadband and other enabling infrastructure that unlocks mining, critical minerals, manufacturing, data centres and emerging technologies. Major electricity loads must also be assessed against their broader economic contributions, including employment, domestic investment, innovation capacity and strategic economic benefits. c. Supporting implementation of Canada's electrification strategy through federal tax measures that help manage the costs of expanding electricity infrastructure (including strategic intra-provincial transmission projects) and maintain competitive electricity rates for businesses, supporting investment, productivity and industrial growth. 14. Expand Regional Connectivity, Economic Opportunity and Resilient Community Infrastructure: Connect Canadian businesses, workers and communities to economic opportunities by delivering long-promised transportation links, climate resilience investment to mitigate mounting costs, and universal broadband access. This includes: a. Delivering existing federal passenger-rail commitments, including ALTO high-speed rail, leveraging private capital and the Canada Infrastructure Bank where appropriate, and advancing regional and crossborder connections such as the Toronto-Chicago passenger rail project. b. Providing a decisive surge in long-term federal funding for climate adaptation and natural infrastructure, matching the scale of the threat posed by climate change fueled disasters such as forest fires, flooding and erosion, which threaten critical infrastructure and whole communities with increasing frequency and severity. c. Closing remaining rural and remote broadband gaps while improving network speed, reliability and redundancy, modernizing federal access rules for passive infrastructure and coordinating broadband deployment with electricity, road and other infrastructure upgrades. This includes extending the Productivity Super Deduction immediate expensing policy to fibre-optic cable (Class 42).
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15. Strengthen Trade, Transportation, and Supply-Chain Infrastructure: Enhance Canada's trade competitiveness by investing in the ports, corridors, and waterways that link our economy to both domestic and international markets. This includes: a. Prioritizing federal investment in nationally significant ports, airports, railways, border crossings, highways and waterways, including trade- and resource-enabling infrastructure in Northern and rural communities, including Toronto Pearson and Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport. b. Co-funding critical Trans-Canada Highway upgrades to reduce bottlenecks (e.g., Highway 11 and 17 in Northern Ontario) through targeted infrastructure grants, to strengthen trade corridors, mineral development, interprovincial supply chains, and economic security. Recognizing their strategic role as essential, safe trade corridors for minerals, interprovincial supply chains, and economic security. c. Developing a resilient Great Lakes-St. Lawrence maritime strategy with provinces and industry, supported by sustained investment in ports, waterways and related infrastructure maintenance, rehabilitation and capacity.
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