Local businesses say Canada’s 2025 budget offers little relief from tariffs

While Tuesday’s budget was characterized as a “generational investment” when it comes to industry and infrastructure, small businesses say it doesn’t do much to help their tariff woes.

Niko Apparel in Hamilton and its sister facility in St. Catharines, have been manufacturing and shipping sports apparel for the past 35 years.

Around half is shipped to customers in the United States, and the owner Joe Camillo, the owner of Niko Apparel and co-owner of RegattaSport, says the cost of tariffs is starting to weigh on his business.

“It’s been quite tough,” said Camillo. “The way that we’ve had to keep our business is by promising our U.S. customers that we’ll absorb the tariffs.”

He says that means each product that isn’t CUSMA-compliant costs him at least 20 per cent more to export, and he says that it’s closer to 50 per cent once you add the additional fees for brokers to handle all of the new shipping requirements.

“When you’re shipping products that fall under CUSMA and some that don’t, you have to separate them,” said Camillo. “The amount of work and stress that goes to shipping to our greatest partner — our biggest trading partner — is becoming extremely more complicated.”

“It’s a painful process for the small exporter, like us,” said Camillo.

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Though he’s optimistic for a new trade deal, he was hoping to see more support for small businesses included in the federal budget Tuesday.

“For us, it’s not really impacting us in the way we thought it might with lower taxes — with easing the burden of handling the business and shipping,” said Camillo.

“This budget must be generational in its ambition,” said the Minister of Finance, François-Philippe Champagne.

Canada’s finance minister called it an “investment budget” Tuesday, with billions of dollars towards long-term industry and infrastructure projects, but critics say it featured little relief for day-to-day Canadians and small businesses.

“Look, while there was some decent measures in the budget, I have to say, if your business is struggling and looking for help, you are unlikely to find it in the Fall 2025 budget,” said Dan Kelly, the President of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB).

The CFIB also says they were hoping to see more tax breaks for small businesses to help amid tariffs from the United States, India and China.

But that doesn’t mean that Hamilton won’t be seeing any federal dollars – the budget says money from the so-called “Build Communities Strong Fund” will go towards a new downtown YMCA in the city, and leaders in the steel industry are hoping the Fed’s infrastructure funding will help boost demand locally.

“Steel is pretty much in everything — whether it be roads, bridges, hospitals, defence — all of that is sure to build the steel industry here in Canada, as long as we are also committed to procuring Canadian steel,” said Keanin Loomis, the President of the Canadian Institute of Steel Construction.

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