Poilievre calls Budget 2026 a 'costly credit card budget' — Conservatives will vote no

By The Canadian Chronicle · Friday, November 6, 2026

Politics · Federal · The Canadian Chronicle

Published Friday, November 6, 2026 · 2 min read

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre rejected Budget 2026 within hours of its tabling on Thursday. His party will vote against it, he said, and his case is built on the debt the budget adds.

What Poilievre said

"The first priority of this budget should have been to save Canadians money," Poilievre said. "But by adding $765 billion in new debt, a record-smashing sum over the next five years, this Prime Minister will inflate the cost of fuel, food and homes."

"This is a costly credit card budget that Canadians can't afford, and Conservatives will vote 'no'," he said. He also called the plan "the single biggest borrowing binge in Canadian history."

The $765 billion figure is Poilievre's own accounting of the borrowing the budget sets in motion. The budget's own tables project deficits of $62.3 billion in 2026-27 and $62.5 billion in 2027-28, falling to $52.9 billion by 2030-31, with no balanced year in the forecast.

The interest argument

Poilievre pointed to the cost of carrying the debt itself. "The single biggest item of spending growth in this budget is not seniors' programs, not health care, not security, not sovereignty," he said. "It is interest on the national debt."

The budget projects debt servicing at $60.2 billion this year, about 10 cents of every tax dollar. Conservative finance critic Michael Chong said the budget "would be better titled 'masters of increasing debt and interest payments,'" and that it sets no credible fiscal anchor to reduce the debt.

The other opposition voice

NDP Leader Avi Lewis attacked the budget from the other direction. He argued that economic sovereignty cannot be built through tax write-offs for large corporations, criticizing the investment incentives at the budget's centre.

Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne made the government's case ahead of the tabling. "With everything going on in the world, I think Canadians understand we need to do more to build this country," he told reporters.

The government holds a majority in the House of Commons. The Conservative vote against the budget is therefore a statement of position, not a threat to its passage — and the argument over the numbers now moves to committee and to the Parliamentary Budget Officer's next outlook.