Each year, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives partners with experts from across the country, including researchers at PSAC, to create the Alternative Federal Budget.

This initiative explores what’s possible, providing a detailed roadmap for a federal budget that ensures all Canadians have access to high-quality public services, the income support needed to escape poverty, and the means to address pressing issues like income inequality, climate change, the rising cost of living, racism, and truth and reconciliation.

Additionally, the budget outlines how the federal government can fund these transformative changes through a range of progressive taxes.

This year’s AFB is produced in anticipation of a federal election in 2025. As such, it’s written with political party platforms in mind. It is hoped this serves as inspiration and guidance to all political parties as Canada moves towards an election.

• Read the full 2025 Alternative Federal Budget

A strong public service that delivers the programs and services Canadians rely on every day is key to many of issues that the Alternative Federal Budget touches on.

The chapter on public services contains several measures that will ensure Canada’s public service remains healthy, productive, and respected by its employer. These include actions that:

• Create good jobs and fill staffing needs in the federal workforce.
• Resolve pay issues caused by the Phoenix pay system and take measures to prevent such a disaster from happening again.
• Reverse changes made to the Public Service Superannuation Act that introduced a two-tier pension scheme, ensuring all public service employees are covered by one unified system.
• Collaborate with public service bargaining agents to establish best practices for telework, ensuring the future of work is flexible and adaptable.
• Champion pay equity by holding to the spirit of the Pay Equity Act 2021 and appropriately funding the Pay Equity Commission.

Read the public services chapter in the 2025 Alternative Federal Budget.

Canada has the resources to address the crises ahead, while also providing a decent life for all its residents and remedying historic injustices, both at home and abroad. This AFB is a roadmap on how to do just that.

With an election on the horizon, the Alternative Federal Budget serves as a reminder that a better Canada is indeed possible – all that is needed is the political will.