Legislation passes to implement Budget 2025: Canada Strong

Legislation passes to implement Budget 2025: Canada Strong

From: Department of Finance Canada

News release

March 26, 2026 - Ottawa, Ontario - Department of Finance Canada

The global landscape is rapidly changing, leaving economies, businesses, and workers under a cloud of uncertainty. In response, Canada's government is focused on what we can control: building a stronger economy and creating good career opportunities with higher wages for Canadians.

Today, Bill C-15, the Budget Implementation Act, 2025, No. 1, received Royal Assent. This key piece of legislation will help the government deliver on its plan to build one united economy, empower Canadians to get ahead, and protect our country and sovereignty - today, and for generations to come.

As part of Bill C-15, the government will build a stronger economy to make life more affordable for Canadians by:

• Investing in Build Canada Homes to help double the pace of affordable home building over the next decade.
• Delivering the Clean Electricity investment tax credit (ITC) to accelerate the investments needed to expand our clean electricity grid and enhancing the suite of existing Clean Economy ITCs to further support investments in clean technologies, clean technology manufacturing, and carbon capture, utilization, and storage.
• Introducing a Productivity Super-Deduction - a set of enhanced tax incentives covering all new capital investment that allows businesses to write off a larger share of the cost of these investments right away.
• Accelerating the path to construction of Alto High-Speed Rail, Canada's first high-speed railway, reaching 300 km/hour from Toronto to Québec City, to speed up travel within Canada's most populated corridor.
• Supercharging investment in research and development by enhancing the incentives available through the Scientific Research and Experimental Development program and introducing measures in Budget 2025 to simplify the administration of the SR&ED program and cut in half the processing period for claims.
• Introducing a temporary Personal Support Workers Tax Credit to provide support of up to $1,100 per year to eligible personal support workers.
• Helping provide meals for up to 400,000 Canadian kids annually by establishing long-term, stable funding through the National School Food Program Act.

As part of Bill C-15, the government is strengthening and protecting Canada's financial sector and making it work better for Canadians by:

• Combatting financial fraud by requiring banks to have policies and procedures to detect and prevent consumer-targeted fraud, and to mitigate its impacts, collect and report data on fraud to the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada, and allow consumers to disable certain account features, and adjust maximum transaction amounts.
• Enhancing access to funds deposited by cheque to give Canadians quicker access to their own money and reduce reliance on short-term credit like payday loans or overdraft protection, especially for low-income Canadians and seniors.
• Helping credit unions grow and compete by making it easier for them to enter the federal framework and expand so they can continue to serve more Canadians.
• Completing the consumer-driven banking legislative framework to allow Canadians and businesses to securely share their financial data with third-party providers and give consumers clearer choices and better tools to manage their finances.
• Creating a regulated space for stablecoins to further support innovation and help build trust in digital payments.

Bill C-15 also introduces a voluntary Early Retirement Incentive (ERI). To support the implementation of the government's Comprehensive Expenditure Review, the ERI allows for a strategic, compassionate federal workforce reduction. By prioritizing attrition rather than layoffs, the government aims to create a more efficient, productive, and effective public service that is better equipped to serve Canadians.

In addition to the measures enacted with the passage of C-15, the government is advancing a number of important measures from Budget 2025. This includes:

• The Build Communities Strong Fund, which helps communities revitalize and build new infrastructure such as roads, bridges, water systems, and community centers, as well as infrastructure that enables housing, health care, and education.
• The First and Last Mile Fund to support strategic mining and infrastructure projects that are key to developing Canada's critical minerals supply chains and getting critical minerals to market.
• Investments in Canada's security and sovereignty to modernize the Canadian Armed Forces and meet NATO targets of 2% GDP spending. This includes a new Defence Investment Agency to streamline procurement, a new Defence Industrial Strategy, improved personnel compensation, and the launch of BOREALIS, the new Bureau of Research, Engineering and Advanced Leadership in Innovation and Science.
• Hiring 1,000 new RCMP personnel and 1,000 new Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) personnel as part of the government's reinforced public safety and border security strategy.
• Protecting workers and businesses in sectors most impacted by U.S. tariffs and trade disruptions with over $25 billion announced to give workers and industries the tools they need to build a more resilient Canadian economy. Key initiatives include the $5 billion Strategic Response Fund, immediate liquidity relief for impacted sectors, extended Employment Insurance income support, an expanded Work-Sharing program, and targeted training for 50,000+ workers.
• A reinforced "Buy Canadian Policy" backed by nearly $186 million over five years to prioritize domestic suppliers and materials in federal procurement, particularly steel, aluminum, and softwood lumber.
• Strengthening trade beyond the U.S through the Trade Diversification Corridors Fund (TDCF) - which is designed to fund projects at ports, railways, and roads, expanding export capacity and improving supply chain resilience. On March 4, 2026, a call for proposals weas launched for three eligible program streams.
• Reinforcing Canada's sovereignty, enabling regional economic development, and connecting Northern and Indigenous communities through the $1 billion Arctic Infrastructure Fund. On March 4, 2026, a call for proposals was launched for two eligible program streams for projects in the Yukon, Northwest Territories, Nunavut, Nunavik region of Quebec, and the Nunatsiavut region of northern Labrador.
• Launching the Canada Global Impact+ Research Talent Initiative to recruit world-leading researchers in critical fields that will deliver direct economic, societal and health benefits for Canadians.
• The creation of a new Financial Crimes Agency to act as Canada's lead enforcement body against money laundering and complex financial crimes.
• Automatic Federal Benefits for the 2026 tax year, which will provide pre-filled tax returns starting in spring 2027, reaching up to 5.5 million low-income Canadians by the 2028 tax year.
• Renewing the Canada Strong Pass to help families and young people travel and explore Canada for less in summer 2026.
• Launching the Canada Groceries and Essentials Benefit, replacing the former GST/HST credit, to assist 12 million low- and modest-income residents with the rising costs of groceries and other goods.
• Delivering meaningful, tangible affordability relief to Canadians by passing Bill C-4, which reduced the lowest personal income tax rate from 15% to 14%, removed GST on new homes for first-time buyers, and permanently removed the consumer carbon price.

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