Media Release: Federal Budget 2025 fails to respond to urgent threats to Canada’s watershed security

Costs to communities from floods, drought and wildfires will continue to grow without action to rebuild local watershed defences and strengthen water protections.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

November 4, 2025

The 2025 federal budget lays out billions for infrastructure, workforce development, and national security. But one foundational element of our infrastructure is missing: our watersheds.

A resilient economy starts with secure, healthy watersheds. Without urgent investment, Canada will keep reacting to floods, droughts, and wildfires — paying more and more to respond to crises we could have prevented.

“Canada cannot build a resilient future on a foundation of degraded watersheds,” said Coree Tull, Chair of the Watershed Security Coalition.  “Every job and every community in Canada depends on fresh, reliable water. Healthy watersheds are the most important infrastructure we have. They are our first line of defence against the impacts and costs of climate disasters on our towns, cities and businesses”.

The new ‘Buy Canadian Policy’ focuses on building and buying Canadian,  yet every sector it aims to strengthen, from manufacturing and housing to forestry, agriculture, and energy, relies on clean, reliable freshwater. “Without watershed security, every business faces growing financial risk from floods, droughts, and wildfires. Canadians can’t grow, build, or buy local without reliable water and healthy watersheds,” said Tull.

Budget 2025 emphasizes building ‘One Canadian Economy’; however, the lack of focus on strengthening watershed security creates major risks. “Fast-tracking water-intensive resource and infrastructure projects without investing in adequate water monitoring and oversight  puts communities and businesses at risk of the same spills, contamination, and over-extraction that have devastated local watersheds  in the past.”

Budget 2025 sets out to shape Canada’s future. To make it truly generational, we need urgent investments in watershed security — the foundation of a secure, prosperous, and resilient Canada.

Additional Quotes

Budget 2025 commits to modernizing fisheries management with AI and other digital tools. “This could be good or bad, depending on how it is done. On-the-ground stock assessment efforts for wild salmon are already at an all-time low and can’t be replaced with AI. Further cuts to this core function could lead to overfishing and job-killing fishery closures”. 

The budget also talks about moving to self-assessment by project proponents for “small, routine, low-risk projects—such as culverts and drains. “This sounds like a risky move. Poorly-placed and undersized culverts can cause landslides and are currently blocking thousands of kilometres of fish habitat, and industry self-assessment often leads to cutting corners. There will have to be some measure of government oversight for this to not end in disaster”.

Aaron Hill, Executive Director of Watershed Watch Salmon Society

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