Ontario’s 2026 budget is silent on Premier Doug Ford’s earlier campaign promise to upload Ottawa’s LRT, leaving the city with a growing transit funding gap and no relief in sight.

The Ford government’s eighth budget, released Thursday and titled Plan to Protect Ontario, promises measures to help the provincial economy as unemployment hits 7.6 per cent, but it also forecasts a $13.8-billion deficit — much larger than the $7.8-billion deficit predicted previously.

While the latest budget touts major LRT and transit projects in the Greater Toronto Area such as extending subways and expanding the Go Transit network in major hubs across western Ontario, there’s zero mention of helping Ottawa’s struggling transit system or plugging the gaping hole in OC Transpo’s budget.

The province reiterates its nearly $1-billion investment to help the Toronto Transit Commission purchase 55 new trains, and $850 million to help refurbish GO Transit train cars as part of the government’s 10-year, $63-billion transit plan.

Meanwhile, the Ottawa’s transit funding picture has worsened.

In a report released this week, OC Transpo noted it ended last year with a $52-million deficit as fare revenue fell short and other levels of government failed to come to the rescue. That’s even worse than the $47 million transit deficit forecast mid-year.

‘It feels like we’re being overlooked’

The city’s 2026 budget included a $46-million “placeholder” for transit, built on the assumption that Metrolinx would take over responsibility for the city’s LRT. Last month, Mayor Mark Sutcliffe told CBC’s Ottawa Morning that “it takes time but we’re moving the ball down the field” on that file.

“There is nothing that targets [Ottawa] specifically,” said University of Ottawa political science professor Geneviève Tellier in French after reviewing the budget documents on Thursday. “It feels like we’re being overlooked.”

Tellier noted the provincial budget as a whole contained “almost new announcements,” and the few new initiatives it did contain are provincewide, such as “the famous HST holiday on new homes.”

The budget does mention some “next steps” on road projects in the region including a plan to widen Highway 17 between Renfrew and Arnprior. A request for proposals to design the 22.5-kilometre expansion has been issued, but the budget contains no further details about an expected timeline or cost.

The province took its first concrete step toward the twinning project back in November 2023, with the opening of a new bridge and interchange at Calabogie Road in Renfrew County.

The budget also mentions the province’s plan to fund the maintenance and rehabilitation of Highway 174 in Ottawa’s east end, though no updated numbers have been released. As part of its “new deal” with Ottawa, the province pledged in 2024 to take over the operation and maintenance of the highway.

Shifting to HART hubs

The province had already announced it would be pulling funding from seven supervised consumption sites across Ontario, including two in Ottawa, as part of a move away from harm reduction and toward an abstinence-based model known as homelessness and addiction recovery treatment, or HART hubs.

The budget reiterates the government’s plans to wind down provincial funding for active drug injection sites across Ontario and advance its HART hub model, but doesn’t announce any new funding for those initiatives.

The budget also allocates $41 million over three years for a provincewide school resource officer program, after Bill 33 was passed in November. Ottawa’s largest school board cut the program in 2021 after racialized and 2SLGBTQ+ students raised concerns about the presence of police officers in schools.

(In January 2025, Ottawa police launched a new program assigning one officer to each of Ottawa’s four districts, but not to specific schools.)

The budget did not present a clear path toward addressing the ongoing deficits many school boards in the region are facing.

A CBC News analysis of school boards’ financial health last fall found two-thirds of the province’s 72 boards were in deficit or just breaking even.

Ottawa’s largest board, the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board (OCDSB), is facing an $11.5-million deficit this academic year, forcing it to consider digging even deeper into an emergency fund that’s already millions of dollars in the red.

According to Tellier, municipalities are losing out in this budget.

“If we had to name the big losers in this budget, I would tell you it’s the municipalities because they aren’t being spoken to directly. They aren’t even being told, ‘Look, there’s something coming, we have ideas,'” Tellier said.

“On that front, it’s really total silence.”