Champagne's biggest test yet — selling a 'generational' budget to anxious Canadians

That tariff battle threatens the country’s economy, and forms the backdrop of the entire budgetary plan.

Champagne will be engaging in down-in-the-weeds discussions with his former bank governor boss — a politician famous for his focus on policy details over politics — while also selling Main Street on what could prove to be an expensive fiscal plan.

Champagne, 55, has worn many hats during his time in politics, but no one in Ottawa would confuse him with the stodgy Bay Street backroom types who tend to end up in the job of finance minister.

He’s an old-school retail politician who prefers pressing the flesh to digital communications. Liberals tend to describe him with one word: gregarious.

“He’s the biggest, most enthusiastic bundle of energy that we have in caucus,” said Liberal MP Marc Miller, a colleague of Champagne’s for the past decade. He said the finance minister is the same person in private and in public.

“In order to be good in politics, you have to be able to present to Canadians the best case,” Miller said. “You can’t just sit there and write an op-ed and be the political equivalent of paint drying on the wall. (Champagne is) not that.”

Champagne’s nickname — adopted by former prime minister Justin Trudeau and Ontario Premier Doug Ford and repeated by many more — is the “Energizer Bunny.”

But he’s also taken on a title once associated with former prime minister Jean Chrétien — the “little guy” from Shawinigan.

Jonathan Kalles, who served as Quebec adviser to Trudeau, said the fact that Champagne grew up in a small town and represents a rural riding will go a long way in helping him convince Canadians he has the plan for the moment.

“In his riding, which is not an urban riding, it’s not super wealthy people, he’s speaking with people who are struggling with cost of living,” he said.

Under the Trudeau government, a series of finance ministers tried and failed to make that link.

Bill Morneau, who grew up wealthy, struggled to show he could relate to regular Canadians and, by his own admission, stumbled when communicating significant tax changes for small businesses. 

The globe-trotting Chrystia Freeland failed to connect with Canadians feeling pinched by the rising cost of living when she said she was cutting her family’s Disney+ streaming service subscription.

Champagne’s strength is in communication, and he clearly enjoys hamming it up with the public.

The minister will hand out his cell number to just about anyone and will actually follow up himself with any promised calls. He’ll also throw his own schedule into the wind just to shake hands and say hello.

“He actually wants to engage with people and not get filtered by staff,” Kalles said. “It may give his staff a heart attack, but he refuses to not be himself. He wants to have that one-on-one conversation.”

Kalles said Champagne is particularly good at remembering past encounters with members of the public, which allows him to come off as “genuine” rather than rehearsed.

Last week, Champagne said his conversations with Canadians in the street told him the country knows that this is not the time for “business as usual.”

“This is like 1945. We need to chart a new course for this country,” he said, comparing the country’s current economic situation to a crisis on the scale of the Second World War.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has warned that if the budget fails to bring down the cost of living, his party will vote against it in the current minority Parliament.

“Instead of trying to provoke a costly election on a costly budget, why not an affordable budget for an affordable life?” Poilievre said in a question period exchange on Monday.

Champagne will need to defend spending measures and cuts at the same time, along with a new accounting practice for the budget. Overall federal expenditures are expected to blow past the level the Conservatives set to restrain the deficit but will likely fall short of demands made by the Bloc Québécois.

Brought into office in the Saint-Maurice—Champlain riding during the Trudeau wave in 2015, Champagne has a decade of political experience under his belt.

He comes with a background as legal counsel in the private sector and ascended rapidly through the political ranks, from parliamentary secretary to infrastructure minister and industry minister.

Champagne has also been the subject of rumours about his possible interest in the Liberal party leadership.

Those questions were set aside by Carney’s leadership win at the beginning of the year — for the moment, at least.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 4, 2025.

Read more on the federal budget at thestar.com