Finance Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne, left, shakes hands with Prime Minister Mark Carney after delivering his budget speech in the House of Commons on Tuesday.Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press
The federal government plans to make 75 legislative changes through the budget process, adopting a practice that has been criticized as a way of curtailing debate by burying contentious measures in omnibus bills.
The changes include bringing back a restriction on cash payments over $10,000 that had been cut from an earlier bill. Other changes would give the Canada Infrastructure Bank a $10-billion boost and accelerate the development of high-speed rail.
The government has not confirmed how these moves will be brought in, but many will likely be introduced through one or two omnibus budget bills.
Past governments have also used budget bills to make wide-ranging legislative changes. But the manoeuvre has long faced criticism because it leads to less parliamentary scrutiny of the changes than if they were introduced as stand-alone bills.
The budget’s legislative measures section – which was included in an annex in the digital version but not the printed version – lists the 75 separate legislative changes, all accompanied with a brief explanation.
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That marks an increase from the 62 changes in the annex of the 2024 budget, 49 changes in the 2023 budget and 44 in the 2022 budget.
Former parliamentary budget officer Yves Giroux said the practice of using omnibus legislation is increasing in spite of critics’ warnings. He compared the growing use of budget bills to how legislation is approved in Washington.
“If it’s in ‘One Big Beautiful Bill,’ to use a term that’s widely used, I think it could be very challenging for parliamentarians to review each and every one of these proposals,” he said in an interview.
When asked about this criticism, John Fragos, a spokesperson for Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne, said in an e-mail that he can’t comment on a bill until it’s tabled.
“As is customary with every budget, the government will introduce a Budget Implementation Act in due course,” he said.
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Tuesday’s budget indicates that legislation is coming that will reintroduce a proposed legal change that would restrict the acceptance of cash payments worth $10,000 or more.
The controversial provision had been removed from a public safety bill, introduced last month, after criticism of its inclusion in an earlier version of the bill.
The use of budget bills to make wide-ranging changes has evolved over time. References to future legislation used to be sprinkled throughout the text of budgets. Then in more recent years, the budget would include an annex of all legislative changes to come.
This would allow the government to say that it was justified in including the measures in a budget bill because it was mentioned in the budget, even though it was often only a line in an annex.
Tuesday’s budget took a slightly different approach. The 406-page printed version of the budget did not include the annex listing legislative changes.
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Instead, that annex was only included in a larger digital version.
The digital-only portions of the budget also include an annex on the government’s debt management strategy and an annex that assesses budget measures through a gender-based analysis.
Some of the 75 legislative changes include Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act amendments related to data sharing; several amendments to the Bank Act; Human Pathogens and Toxins Act amendments “to modernize the Act and strengthen oversight of human pathogens and toxins;” changes to the Canadian Human Rights Commission; collective bargaining changes for federal public servants; moving to “risk-based oversight” of pesticide management; creating a new Financial Crimes Agency; and legislation governing the recently created Major Projects Office.
The list includes the proposal to make it an offence to accept a cash payment of more than $10,000, including a donation.
Last month, Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree excluded this proposal from Bill C-12, a new, slimmed-down version of an earlier strong borders bill, as it had drawn criticism and he wanted support from opposition parties.
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The restrictions on $10,000 cash transactions are designed to combat money laundering. But some experts warned the measure could cause difficulties for people with no bank accounts as well as residents of small, remote communities where there is spotty WiFi and where cash transactions are common.
Janice Gladue, chief executive officer of TIPI group, an Indigenous-owned financial services company, said “cash is king still in many Indigenous communities. Access to banks is difficult.”
On Wednesday, Bloc Québécois MP Gabriel Ste-Marie raised a question of privilege in the House of Commons about the failure of the government to add the annexes to the paper version of the budget, saying he may move a motion for the issue to be studied by the committee on procedure.
He questioned whether MPs’ ability to carry out their tasks was interfered with by the omission of many pages from the print version.
“That raises serious concerns, especially since this was the version that most members received,” he said.
“This situation not only shows how blatantly unprepared the government was, but, in our opinion, it also violates the right of all members to full and fair information and could obstruct members in the performance of their parliamentary duties,” he added.