Image Credit Jeff Stapleton/CBC
Manitoba’s Budget 2026 includes several incremental supports for emissions reductions but ultimately fails to make adequate investments in climate solutions to back up the commitments in Manitoba’s Path to Net Zero. While we are pleased to see increases in support for transit (to reduce fares), extended electric vehicle rebates, wildfire response, and environmental programs and remediation, these measures fall far short of the level of investment needed to accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels and protect what’s precious amidst the escalating climate emergency.
“With Manitoba’s near-term climate targets and action plan coming this spring, the absence of significant climate investments in this budget casts doubt on their seriousness and viability,” says Laura Cameron, Director of Programs and Strategy for Climate Action Team Manitoba (CAT). “A climate plan without investment is simply a wish list. The choice to double down on balancing the budget while further cutting taxes is pushing greater climate costs and devastation onto the next generation, while missing myriad opportunities to grow low-carbon industries and jobs.”
The budget’s investment to eliminate transit fares for youth is a positive step toward improving affordability and accessibility. But to meaningfully increase ridership and reduce vehicle emissions, we also need to improve transit service and access for all. For a third budget in a row, the current government has failed to restore the 50-50 transit funding agreement—which they advocated for while in opposition—instead opting to maintain the PC-era basket funding model. Restoring and expanding 50-50 funding for transit services would provide social and economic benefits to riders across the province, enabling people to travel more easily to work, medical appointments, school, and social gatherings.
The government missed many other opportunities to invest in ways that simultaneously address climate, affordability, and health. This budget offered no new funding to scale up building retrofits and ground-source heat pump installations beyond Efficiency Manitoba’s existing spending commitments, even though such investments would have created jobs in urban and rural communities while lowering energy bills and improving indoor air quality.
The government jeopardizes any progress on climate by its push for fossil fuel exports through the Port of Churchill, with the budget highlighting the potential for LNG exports and a new $10 million Port of Churchill Catalyst Fund to attract private-sector involvement. This Catalyst Fund is at high risk of subsidizing fossil fuel expansion, and must have safeguards to prevent this. To usher in fossil fuel infrastructure expansion in 2026 is to deny the reality of the crisis we are facing and the social and scientific imperative to transition.
“This is the government’s third budget, and third strike on climate investments,” says James Wilt, Policy Development Manager for CAT. “This budget is a betrayal of the government’s commitments to making serious progress on climate change in the Pathway to Net Zero, instead continuing only to make small incremental changes that will not achieve our goals.”
While the Province is facing clear fiscal pressures, many of these are due to its adherence to PC-era tax cuts benefiting wealthy households and corporations, and from further tax cuts introduced in this budget (totalling $50.7 million in lost revenue), including the education property tax credit increase and the PST reduction. The permanent gas tax reduction implemented last year also results in approximately $32 million in foregone revenue per year.
Climate change is already wreaking havoc on government budgets, as droughts reduce hydroelectric generation capacity and wildfires require costly evacuations and suppression. These costs will only grow the longer that the government delays meaningful action. Progressive taxation reform to support proactive social and environmental investments is imperative.
Media contact:
Meghan Mast
Communications Manager, Climate Action Team Manitoba
204-558-4648