One in three Canadians is skipping meals. The budget lands tomorrow.

The Salvation Army released its 2026 Canadian Poverty and Socioeconomic Analysis yesterday, and the headline number is hard to sit with: 31% of Canadians have skipped or reduced the size of a meal because they could not afford groceries. That is up from 27% last year, and it is the highest figure in the four years the organization has been tracking it.

The survey reached 1,525 Canadians in September. Among 18 to 34 year olds, the number jumps to 41%. Nearly one in four of those younger Canadians has used a food bank or community food program, up from 15% a year ago. Food affordability has surged into Canadians' top three national concerns, rising 11 percentage points in a single year and overtaking homelessness and housing insecurity in the ranking.

The report goes beyond food. Half of Canadians say they are not confident they could find another affordable home in their community if they had to move. Nearly one in four spends at least half of after-tax household income on housing. And 60% say their household has already felt a financial impact from U.S. tariffs or trade disputes, with 89% worried tariffs will push everyday prices higher still.

Here is the part that stopped me. More than eight in ten people who used support services said it improved their family's wellbeing. The services work. But charitable giving is declining at the exact moment need is rising. Monetary donations fell from 79% to 75%, and participation in charitable activities dropped too. People are stretched too thin to give, which means the safety net is fraying from both ends at once.

Tomorrow, Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne tables Budget 2026. The deficit is expected to land near $60 billion. And the question hanging over it is a simple one: when the money is this tight, who gets fed first?

Because the money is there for other things. In July, the government selected Germany's TKMS as the preferred supplier for 12 new submarines, the largest defence procurement in Canadian history. The boats alone are costed at roughly $20 to $30 billion, with the whole-of-life figure commonly cited around $60 to $80 billion over three decades of operations and maintenance. In April, the government announced the Canada Strong Fund, a $25 billion sovereign wealth vehicle to be seeded over three years. Critics note, fairly, that with a projected deficit above $65 billion, every dollar in that fund is a borrowed dollar.

None of this is to say submarines are frivolous or that a sovereign wealth fund is a bad idea on its own terms. Defence of the Arctic matters. Long-term national investment matters. The submarine bid is projected to generate hundreds of thousands of job-years, and those are real jobs for real people in real communities. That deserves respect, not dismissal.

But here is the question that keeps coming back: what does it mean that we can find tens of billions for submarines and investment funds while nearly a third of the country is eating less?

The people skipping meals are the young worker whose rent eats half the paycheque, the parent choosing between groceries and the hydro bill, disabled Canadians on fixed incomes watching every price tick upward. These are people who cannot simply earn their way out of inflation and cannot effectively advocate for themselves in rooms where budget priorities get set. They are the ones least heard in Ottawa, and they are the ones this report is really about.

Most centrists are not politically aligned with anyone. They are not looking for a left or right answer here. They are looking at a country that found $25 billion for a wealth fund and tens of billions for submarines, and asking a plain question: is anyone in the budget room thinking about the 31%?

A budget is a statement of priorities, whether the government intends it that way or not. Tomorrow we will see the numbers. The question is whether the people in this report will recognize themselves in them.

A nuanced take: a country that can finance submarines and sovereign wealth funds can afford to make sure its people eat, and tomorrow's budget will show whether it intends to.