What's in the federal budget for Ottawa?

Our Matthew Cooper was in the budget lockup today and he's been looking at what this means for Ottawa and Eastern Ontario. Matthew, thank you for joining us. What does the budget hold for the tens of thousands of people who work for the public service? Well, let's start with something we don't see. No new plans to make more cuts to the workforce than the ones already on the go. In fact, the budget says that in August of this year, the core public service was 10% smaller than its peak in 2024, which was the aim of last year's spending review. Some interesting details. Remember all those people who applied to take advantage of an early retirement package? That's expected to save the government $100 million a year permanently. And departments that see more public servants retire than their target will actually lose some operating budget. One last note on the federal workforce, the budget says the government will merge Export Development of Canada and the Business Development Bank of Canada because they both work with businesses and the government's looking to avoid duplication and confusion. But there are no details on what that might mean for the nearly 5,000 people who work at the two crowns and the budget suggests more reorganization of crown corporations is to come. Okay, and there's some... Good news here for the National Museums and the National Art Centre. Yeah, well, that and for the people who love to visit them. First off, families in Ottawa will want to know that if this budget passes, anyone under the age of 25 will be able to visit free. It builds on the Canada Strong Pass from the past few summers. But now young people wouldn't have to pay admission to the National Gallery, the History Museum, Science and Tech Museum, and others year-round. But the institutions themselves have some good news in there as well. About a dozen museums will share close to $800 million over the coming years to upgrade buildings and maintain art and performances. The government says spending money on cultural institutions and artists is important for Canada's sovereignty. Many of these museums have really struggled over the years with the pandemic. Federal funding has been pretty flat and they have even had to make cuts. So this is a big injection of cash. And one last note on this topic, there's $60 million in here or in the budget to take the National Gallery's exhibitions on the road and get art online. So, you know, good news for art lovers in the capital, but also across Canada. Okay, now what about cities? Now, there weren't a lot of specific line items for municipalities, per se, but the budget talks a lot about the work already underway to deal with homelessness. And the federal budget makes a big promise. It wants to end homelessness in a decade. To do that, it says it will provide more than $11 billion over four years. That's not money that goes directly to cities, but into a series of programs, some to help with mental health and addictions, and some with Build Canada Homes that a city might be able to tap into. There's also money for Canadian cities to do some electronic permitting and to use AI, possibly contributing to savings. Thank you for this. Matthew Cooper reporting for us tonight. Thank you.