Thursday, March 26, 2026 – This afternoon, Minister of Finance Peter Bethlenfalvy released Ontario’s 2026 Budget, A Plan to Protect Ontario, which focuses on six key themes: productivity and innovation; a competitive business environment; infrastructure and housing; trade and competitiveness; talent and workforce; and reliable, affordable, and clean energy.
Minister Bethlenfalvy emphasized for weeks that while the government cannot eliminate uncertainty (i.e. U.S. trade war, international conflicts), it can mitigate risks through a responsible, balanced fiscal approach that supports core public services and infrastructure, while maintaining flexibility to respond to economic headwinds.
The budget outlines total spending of $244.2 billion, including $101.2 billion in health spending, up from the $91.3 billion in health spending committed in last year’s budget. This year, the deficit continues to grow to $13.8 billion to both strengthen the self-reliance and resilience of Ontario’s economy and give Ontario more fiscal room ahead of the Canada–United States–Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) negotiations. The government is projecting a balanced budget by 2028-29.
Santis Insights
The 2026 Ontario Budget reflects a government deliberately managing health care risk and playing it safe, rather than pursuing even more bold and broad-based structural reforms. Given the finance minister’s message ahead of the budget regarding “efficiency” and “sustainability” in health spending, the sector was holding its breath to find out if any new substantive funding would be in this year’s budget. New health investments are largely targeted, modest, and defensive against public opinion, focusing on primary care and home care as system stabilizers.
What’s in: Support for vulnerable sectors. It’s become common practice for a Progressive Conservative (PC) government, during times of economic uncertainty and fiscal belt-tightening, to direct limited dollars towards the highest areas of need and helping the most vulnerable groups. The budget had a few pleasant surprises, not just for health care, but also strategic investments in supportive housing, autism, and developmental services.
What’s out: Mental health, skills training, cancer treatments. Previously a core priority for the government during the pandemic, there was no mention of new investments in mental health and addiction, with the exception of the Homeless and Addiction Recovery Treatment Hubs (HART Hubs) initiative. There was additional funding for skills training for women, but no mention of the flagship skills training fund that shall not be named. There was also no mention of the marquee Funding Accelerated for Specific Treatments (FAST) program, launched last fall, though there was an honourable mention in the footnotes that planned health spending increases were in part due to cancer treatment services (pp. 184).
Risks and opportunities: The government has made ambitious commitments on primary care team expansion, digital health infrastructure (EMR, AI adoption), and new home care models (Hospital 2 Home), and it intends to see those solutions through to the next election. The government is actively seeking delivery partners and solutions, particularly homegrown ones.
Conversely, the environment for net new funding remains constrained unless tied to access, burden reduction, patient outcomes, and/or system efficiency. If the government continues to rely on incremental changes, it may not keep pace with underlying system pressures (e.g., hospital structural deficits, inflation, workforce gaps, capital needs). This creates risky future pressure points that could reopen in a more politically charged environment, such as the next election.
The bottom line: The year ahead will focus on implementation and getting the hard things done, as the Ford government enters the second year of its third mandate. Successful health advocacy will need to align tightly with the government’s core frame: improving access, building community-based capacity for care, and demonstrating measurable system impact within existing fiscal guardrails.
Health and Life Sciences Highlights
Primary Care (previously announced)
- Increasing primary care expansion funding from $2.1 billion to $3.4 billion until 2029 (see our previous Rapid Recap).
- Setting up a new provincewide Primary Care Medical Record system, starting first with a market-sounding exercise.
- Funding the development and expansion of 18 primary care teaching clinics provincewide with up to $300 million to improve primary care access for more Ontarians.
Hospitals and Infrastructure
- Investing more than $1.1 billion in additional hospital funding for 2026-27, which includes an increase of up to 4% in base and targeted hospital funding. This is in direct response to the Ontario Hospital Association’s concern over the sector’s $1 billion in structural deficits.
- Investing approximately $64 billion over the next 10 years in health capital infrastructure, including nearly $50 billion in capital grants, to support more than 50 major hospital projects that would add approximately 3,000 new beds.
- Redeveloping the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO) Integrated Treatment Centre, which will consolidate eight existing sites into a single, modern, and fully accessible facility (previously announced).
Health Human Resources
- Expanding the Ontario Learn and Stay Grant to include two new medical laboratory programs at Canadore College and Confederation College (previously announced).
- Investing $124.2 million over the next three years for clinical training and education funding to continue supporting the expansion of 2,000 registered nurse seats and 1,000 registered practical nurse seats at publicly assisted colleges and universities.
Life Sciences and Research
- Investing up to $4 billion through the new Protect Ontario Account Investment Fund to support strategic sectors, including AI, life sciences, defence, manufacturing, and critical minerals research and development.
- Allocating $107 million investment over three years for the Critical Technology Initiatives (CTI) program with upcoming call for proposals to seek CTI delivery partners. The renewed funding will target critical technologies in key sectors, such as advanced manufacturing, automotive, life sciences, mining, defence, agriculture and smart infrastructure.
- Renewing the Life Sciences Scale-Up Fund with $24 million over three years to help small and medium-sized enterprises commercialize products and scale operations.
- Developing a new Artificial Intelligence Industrial Strategy for a summer 2026 launch. The funded strategy will support the scale-up of Ontario-based AI firms, expand access to sovereign computer and data resources, increase adoption and deployment across communities and businesses in key sectors with a focus on Ontario-made technology and talent, establish clear governance frameworks, and enhance AI literacy.
- Providing $117.1 million over three years for the Ontario Research Fund–Research Infrastructure.
- Maintaining support for Ontario’s research institutes through $26 million over three years.
- Guaranteeing a $250 million investment to Saugeen Ojibway Nation and Bruce Power through the Indigenous Opportunities Financing Program. This will help expand Bruce Power’s world-leading isotope production capacity and enhance Ontario’s global role in delivering cancer-fighting treatments (previously announced).
Long-Term Care
- Allocating $139.4 million additional funding annually to support high-quality, resident-centred long-term care.
- Continuously investing $6.4 billion since 2019 to build 58,000 new and upgraded long-term care beds to modern design standards by 2028. As of February 2026, nearly 26,000 beds (164 projects) are either open, under construction or approved to start construction.
- Investing $133.6 million through the Build Ontario Fund, in partnership with Arch Corporation, for four long-term care homes, creating more than 570 new and redeveloped beds.
Home and Community Care
- Doubling its commitment to the home and community care sector by investing an additional $1.1 billion over a three-year period in this budget, on top of a $1.1 billion investment in November’s Fall Economic Statement.
Social Services
- Committing $407 million over three years to help community organizations serving individuals with special needs and developmental disabilities, as well as for survivors of gender-based violence or human trafficking.
- Adding $186 million in new funding for the Ontario Autism Program.
- Providing $53 million over three years to expand supportive housing initiatives for vulnerable populations and enhance access to critical mental health services and housing supports.
Other Notable Budget Commitments
- Buy Ontario: Actively working to strengthen Ontario’s domestic capacity to minimize reliance on foreign supply chains. This includes developing vendor lists of Ontario-based and Canadian suppliers to support their participation in the provincial procurement processes, thereby ensuring more opportunities for local businesses and workers across Ontario.
- Small Business Tax Relief: Effective July 1, 2026, cutting the small business corporate income tax rate from 3.2% to 2.2%.
- Housing Relief: Temporarily eliminating the HST for eligible buyers of new homes valued up to $1 million, with rebates of up to $80,000.
- Freedom of Information (FOI) Requests: Retroactive changes back to 1988 in the budget bill to protect the records of Cabinet Ministers, their Parliamentary Assistants, and their offices from FOI requests.
- Data Governance: Housekeeping measures to smooth the way for the province’s primary care EMR initiative, among other digital government initiatives.
Opposition Reaction
Both opposition parties chose to attack the PC’s (lack of sufficient) health care commitments in the budget, among other key areas.
Marit Stiles, Leader of the Official Opposition of Ontario (NDP) and Jessica Bell, Shadow Finance Minister, released a statement giving Ford an ‘F’ for failing Ontarians. Stiles and Bell criticize the budget cuts and inaction for health care, education, employment, housing and overall affordability across the province.
The Ontario Liberals responded to the budget with a similar take to the NDP, stating that the Ford government does not care about Ontarians. They specifically called out unemployment, OSAP cuts, family doctor access, and affordability as areas where the budget fell short, referring to the current government as “out-of-touch conservatives”.
Mike Schreiner, Leader of the Green Party of Ontario, chose to respond by accusing the Premier of serving wealthy donors and corporations rather than everyday Ontarians. Schreiner’s press release titled “Ford to Ontarians: you’re out of luck” specifically refers to Premier Ford’s focus on a proposed tunnel under the 401 and the intended takeover of Billy Bishop Airport, instead of addressing health care, education and rising energy costs in the province.
Further Reading
Read the press release here.
Explore the full budget online here.
Reaction and commentary from media sources:
- Ford government runs deeper deficit, punts budget balance amid pessimistic outlook
- Ontario’s 2026 budget sees deficit hit $13.8B amid looming global instability
- Ontario deficit nearly doubles as province tables $244.2 billion budget in face of ‘unpredictable economic shocks’
- Ontario budget 2026: Not many new affordability initiatives, deficit climbs to $13.8B
- Ontario to boost home care funding, may miss long-term care bed goal
Santis Webinar: Ontario Budget Unpacked: Where Health Priorities Sit Today & What’s Next?
Join Santis Health on April 1, 2026, at 12:00 p.m. EST for a timely webinar unpacking what the 2026 Ontario budget means for the province’s health system, the government’s progress on core priorities, and what it means for the health system providers.
Drawing on deep experience in government and health-system strategy, Santis Health advisors will walk through the political context behind the budget, stress-test the assumptions embedded in the government’s plan, and highlight where risks and opportunities may emerge over the coming months. The session will conclude with practical takeaways to help health organizations and industry leaders navigate the policy signals coming out of the 2026 Ontario budget.