PEIPrince Edward Island’s business community is cautiously optimistic about investments in the new federal budget, though there are concerns about finding enough people to sustain the workforce.’A lot of sectors… are going to struggle just to stay open,’ says advocateStephen Brun · CBC News · Posted: Nov 06, 2025 10:23 AM EST | Last Updated: 2 hours agoListen to this articleEstimated 4 minutesThe audio version of this article is generated by text-to-speech, a technology based on artificial intelligence.Bianca McGregor, CEO of the Greater Charlottetown Area Chamber of Commerce, says the business community is cautiously optimistic about investments in the new federal budget. (Laura Meader/CBC)Prince Edward Island’s business community is cautiously optimistic about investments in the new federal budget, though there are concerns about finding enough people to sustain the workforce.Prime Minister Mark Carney’s first budget includes big-ticket items to combat a dismal economic outlook — unemployment is up, business uncertainty has spiked and productivity is weak across the country. Bianca McGregor, CEO of the Greater Charlottetown Area Chamber of Commerce, said it remains to be seen whether the federal government can pull off what it’s trying to achieve in what she called a “bold” budget. “We’re really optimistic and excited to see the defence spending and how our aerospace cluster can take advantage of that and work within the region to sort of leverage more work here on P.E.I.,” McGregor said. “There’s lots of positives for [agriculture] and food production, lots of infrastructure investment for things like export diversification.” The 406-page budget calls for $141 billion in new spending over the next five years, which will partially be offset by some $51.2 billion in cuts or a total of $60 billion in cuts and “savings.”When it comes to that defence spending that could benefit P.E.I.’s aerospace industry, it includes an $81-billion funding package for the Canadian Armed Forces — including a Buy Canadian procurement plan. But the budget also includes a plan to slash immigration after years of what the federal Liberals describe as unsustainable growth. Temporary foreign workers and students will see the steepest cuts with admissions falling by about half, with the intent being to help more homegrown workers get jobs. Joe Byrne, president of the Cooper Institute in P.E.I., hoped to see more help for people living on the Island under work permits. WATCH | Islanders react to ‘bold’ federal budget:Islanders give mixed reviews to ‘bold’ federal budgetThere’s an air of cautious optimism across some sectors in P.E.I. after Ottawa’s new federal budget came down Tuesday. CBC’s Laura Meader spoke with several Islanders to get their thoughts about how Prime Minister Mark Carney’s first budget will affect this province.He said the province and the country desperately need workers to fill jobs, but Ottawa is putting more restrictions on the people it needs to do that work. “I think we’re going to find a lot of sectors that are going to struggle just to stay open,” he said. “The federal government consistently looks at workers as just a cog in the economic wheel, and if we would make it so that workers would have liveable wages, sustainable and decent employment, there would be all kinds of workers…. “We make it consistently hard for people who have made a commitment to this country to be able to continue that commitment.”’We need to build’The immigration reductions have come largely in response to a rapid population growth that’s placed pressure on everything from health care to housing. The budget sets aside $51 billion for an infrastructure plan to help build more schools, hospitals, roads, bridges and homes. WATCH | Construction is booming on P.E.I. Are there enough workers to keep up?:Construction is booming on P.E.I. Are there enough workers to keep up?The City of Summerside issued a record number of commercial building permits last year. It’s a similar situation in communities across the Island. As CBC’s Sheehan Desjardins reports, the province’s construction association hopes it can keep up with all that demand. The construction industry in this province hopes to see some benefit from that fund, along with millions in infrastructure investments contained in P.E.I.’s capital budget. Sam Sanderson, executive director of the Construction Association of P.E.I., said some of the labourers required to do that could be recruited from outside of Canada — but most of the association’s focus is on teaching the necessary skills to those here at home. “We’re struggling, but we need to build the infrastructure. If we’re not building it, this country’s not growing. The budget is creating lots of opportunity for new manufacturing, expansion of businesses and things like that,” Sanderson said. “Looking around, there’s not a corner in Prince Edward Island that there’s not some sort of construction going on, so we need that growth to continue and we need the people, so a collaborative effort from all levels of government and industry is going to be more important now than ever before.”ABOUT THE AUTHORStephen Brun is the copy editor for digital news at CBC Prince Edward Island. A graduate of UPEI and Holland College, he has been a writer and editor for a number of newspapers and websites across Canada for nearly two decades. You can reach him at stephen.brun@cbc.ca.With files from Island Morning and Laura Meader
Industries in P.E.I. see positives in new federal budget, but workforce worries persist
