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Canada's Spring Budget Landed, The Deficit Is a Fraction of What Was Forecast.
News for residents of the “11th province”: Canadians abroad.
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Canada's Spring Budget Landed and the Deficit Is a Fraction of What Was Forecast.
Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne tabled Canada's spring economic update on Tuesday, and the headline number surprised almost everyone. The government ran a deficit of $25.5 billion between April 2025 and February 2026 - well under the $78.3 billion projected in November's budget, with one month still to account for. Higher oil revenues from the Iran war and what the government called tighter spending discipline were credited with the improvement.
The update also formalized Carney's Canada Strong Fund, a new sovereign wealth fund seeded with $25 billion. The pitch is unusually direct for a government program - Canadians will be able to buy into it through a retail investment product, earning dividends alongside the private sector and international partners. Carney described it as "a people's fund" for nation-building projects in energy, critical minerals, agriculture, and infrastructure.
For Canadians abroad, the fiscal situation matters in ways that don't always make the headlines. Benefits show up as a stronger balance sheet affects the dollar, borrowing costs, and eventually the returns on any Canadian savings or investments you're still holding. The deficit being less than a third of what was feared is a figure worth knowing.
Read more: CBC News / CBC News
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Americans Are Applying for Canadian Citizenship in Droves. The Wait Is Already 10 Months.
Last year, Americans set a record for Irish citizenship applications - 18,910 of them, up 63% from the year before. Impressive. But Irish law mostly limits citizenship by descent to people with a parent or grandparent born in Ireland. Canada's Bill C-3, passed in December 2025, removed that kind of restriction entirely. Now anyone who can trace any Canadian ancestor - no matter how many generations back - is able to claim citizenship by descent.
An estimated 900,000 French Canadians settled in the northeastern United States between 1840 and 1930. Today's descendants all qualify. Google Trends data shows American searches for "Canadian citizenship by descent" running at more than three times the volume of searches for the Irish equivalent. The processing time for a certificate of citizenship has doubled to 10 months, and demand is still on the rise.
Read more: CIC News