“Our renewed focus today is unlocking the door to the middle class for millions of younger Canadians,” Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland wrote in the foreword to the 430-page budget she unveiled in the House of Commons on April 16, 2024.
“We’ll build more housing and help make life cost less,” she said. “We will drive our economy toward growth that lifts everyone up.”
Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland
“We’re making life cost less,” Freeland stated, adverting to measures proposed by Budget 2024, including the launch of: a new $6.1 billion Canada Disability Benefit over six years (and $1.4 billion ongoing) in aid of more than 600,000 working-age persons with disabilities; a new $1-billion-over-five years National School Food Program to help expand access to school food programs to more than 400,000 children, as well as a new $1-billion Child Care Expansion Loan Program to create more child-care spaces and renovate existing child-care centres; and an estimated $1.1 billion extension this year of increased student grants and interest-free loans.
Finally, Freeland said, “We are growing the economy in a way that’s shared by all,” with planned initiatives that “will increase investment, enhance productivity and encourage the kind of game-changing innovation that will create good-paying and meaningful jobs and keep Canada at the economic forefront” while also “making Canada’s tax system more fair by asking the wealthiest to pay their fair share, so we can invest in prosperity for every generation, and because it would be irresponsible and unfair to pass on more debt to the next generations.” (See story on Budget 2024’s business- and tax-related measures here.)
Notably, on the justice front, Budget 2024 proposes $440 million over five years, starting in 2024-25 (i.e. $80 million this fiscal, followed by $90 million in each of the following four fiscal years) “to support access to legal aid in the criminal justice system” and “to help reduce court delays.”
The federal budget also proposes $273.7 million over five years, starting in 2024-25 ($72 million in each of this fiscal year and next, followed by $44 million per year for the subsequent three years), and $43.5 million ongoing, to be directed to the federal Department of Justice for immigration and refugee legal aid services.
As well, Budget 2024 proposes to provide $30.6 million over three years, starting in 2024-25, to Justice Canada “to continue funding legal advisory and education services for victims of workplace sexual harassment.”
Without disclosing any details, Budget 2024 flags the government’s intention to introduce changes to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act’s (IRPA) refugee determination system “to simplify and streamline the claims process in support of faster decisions and quicker removals.”
“To uphold the integrity and fairness of the asylum system, Budget 2024 proposes to provide Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, the Canada Border Services Agency and the Immigration and Refugee Board with $743.5 million over five years, starting in 2024-25, with $0.9 million in remaining amortization, and $159.5 million ongoing, to support the stability and integrity of Canada’s asylum system,” the government said. “Of this amount, $72 million over two years, starting in 2027-28, and $36 million ongoing would be sourced from existing departmental resources.”
On the subject of superior court judge shortages, and having been heavily criticized in the media and by the judiciary for more than a year because of federal government delays in appointing superior court judges, Budget 2024 proposes to “redistribute” 17 superior court positions allocated to Alberta — which Ottawa states Alberta has “chosen not to create, resulting in 17 unused judicial seats intended for unified family courts” — "to courts in jurisdictions where they will be put to use.”
“To implement this change, Budget 2024 announces the government’s intention to amend the Judges Act to move 17 superior court judicial positions from Unified Family Courts to provincial superior courts,” the federal government said of the posts, for which it pays the judges’ salary and benefits; the judicial support services are paid for by the provinces.
The “federal government will ensure funding for Canada’s justice system does not go to waste, as some provinces have chosen to do,” Budget 2024 states. It proposes to reallocate $50.2 million over five years, starting in 2024-25, and $10.9 million ongoing, for the Office of the Commissioner for Federal Judicial Affairs “to redistribute 17 judicial positions to provincial superior courts currently experiencing capacity issues.”
And faced with chronic difficulties in recruiting judges to the itinerant Federal and Tax Courts, particularly from the cadre of senior practitioners in major centres like Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal, who may not want to, or be free to, move to the nation’s capital, Budget 2024 announces the government’s intention to launch consultations on a proposal to repeal the longstanding Ottawa residency requirement — a move strongly favoured by the chief justice of the Federal Court. “Eliminating residency requirements would allow for a wider and more diverse pool of applicants,” the government states.
Budget 2024 also proposes to amend the Tax Court of Canada Act to allow its members to grant leave, in special circumstances, to a corporation or other unincorporated association or entity, to be represented by a director, officer, employee, member or partner. Currently, corporations can only be represented by counsel at the Tax Court of Canada (except in appeals governed by the informal procedure).
Budget 2024 proposes to invest $273.6 million in Canada’s Action Plan on Combatting Hate to “support community outreach and law enforcement reform, tackle the rise in hate crimes, enhance community security, counter radicalization, and increase support for victims.”
Ottawa further proposes to provide $7.3 million to address the rise in antisemitism and a further $7.3 million to address the increase in Islamophobia.
The government is proposing to redirect $30.4 million for the buyback of assault-style firearms, sourced from existing departmental resources.
Budget 2024 also sets out more than five dozen proposed measures requiring new legislation or amendments (in addition to dozens of tax-related measures), including such justice-related initiatives as:
- Amending the Canada Pension Plan to “end entitlement to a survivor’s benefit following a CPP credit split,” “top up the death benefit for certain individuals” and improve children’s benefits.
- Amending the Telecommunications Act to prohibit service providers from charging consumers “switching” fees, require providers to provide consumers with a self‑service mechanism to cancel or modify their plans and require service providers to notify consumers in advance of contract expiry and provide information on available plans in market.
- Introducing legislation to “establish a framework for consumer-driven banking.” This would include amendments to the Bank Act and the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada Act to expand the agency’s mandate, as well as “foundational framework elements related to scope, system participation, criteria and process for the technical standard, safeguards in respect of personal financial data security and integrity, and common rules to address privacy, liability and security.”
- Creating criminal offences related to auto theft involving the use of violence or links to organized crime, possession or distribution of an electronic or digital device for the purposes of committing auto theft and laundering proceeds of crime for the benefit of a criminal organization. Budget 2024 also proposes to add a new aggravating sentencing factor if an offender involved a young person in committing a crime. The government said it intends to amend the Radiocommunication Act to regulate the sale, possession, distribution and import of devices used to steal cars. “This will enable law enforcement agencies to remove devices believed to be used to steal cars from the Canadian marketplace,” Budget 2024 states.
- Amending the Red Tape Reduction Act to give all Cabinet Ministers authority to “enable regulatory sandboxes, which would provide them with the authority to grant temporary exemptions to legislation or regulations to allow for testing of products, services, processes or new regulatory approaches.” Ministers could offer “limited exemptions to existing legislation and regulations, streamlining the regulatory system and reforming regulations to modern business realities.”
- Expanding the Employment Equity Act to include more designated equity groups and modernize the statute.
- Amending the Canada Labour Code to require employers in federally regulated sectors “to establish a right-to-disconnect policy, limiting work-related communication outside of scheduled working hours,” which the government said is expected to benefit up to 500,000 employees in those sectors. “Further, on the topic of worker misclassification, Employment and Social Development Canada and the Canada Revenue Agency will enter into necessary data-sharing agreements to facilitate inspections and enforcement.”
- Amending the Canada Labour Code “to improve job protections for federally regulated gig workers by strengthening prohibitions against employee misclassification.”
- Amending s. 347 of the Criminal Code to add a prohibition against offering or advertising credit at a criminal rate of interest and removing the requirement to obtain attorney general consent to start proceedings.
- Authorizing and enabling the use of federal prisons for “the purpose of high-risk immigration detention,” via amendments to the IRPA and the Corrections and Conditional Release Act.
- Introducing legislation to “eradicate forced labour from Canadian supply chains and to strengthen the import ban on goods produced using forced labour.”
- “Strengthening” the supervision, enforcement and information-sharing tools of Canada’s money laundering, terrorist financing and sanctions evasion, including by amending the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act (PCMLTFA), the Criminal Code, the Income Tax Act and the Excise Tax Act.
- According to Budget 2024, amendments proposed for the PCMLTFA would “enhance the ability of reporting entities under the PCMLTFA to share information with each other to detect and deter money laundering, terrorist financing and sanctions evasion while maintaining privacy protections for personal information, including an oversight role for the Office of the Privacy Commissioner under regulations”; permit the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC) to disclose financial intelligence to provincial and territorial civil forfeiture offices to support efforts to seize property linked to unlawful activity and to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada to strengthen the integrity of Canada’s citizenship process; enable anti-money-laundering and anti-terrorist-financing regulatory obligations to cover factoring companies, cheque-cashing businesses and leasing and finance companies “to close a loophole and level the playing field across businesses providing financial services” and allow FINTRAC to publicize more information around violations of obligations under the PCMLTFA when issuing administrative monetary penalties “to strengthen transparency and compliance.”
- Related amendments to the Criminal Code would allow courts to issue an order to require a financial institution to keep an account open to assist in the investigation of a suspected criminal offence; and allow courts to issue “a repeating production order to authorize law enforcement to obtain ongoing, specified information on activity in an account or multiple accounts connected to a person of interest in a criminal investigation.”
- And Budget 2024 says proposed amendments to the Income Tax Act and Excise Tax Act would: “ensure Canada Revenue Agency officials who carry out criminal investigations are authorized to seek general warrants through court applications, thereby modernizing and simplifying evidence gathering processes and helping to fight tax evasion and other financial crimes.”
- And, as announced in Budget 2023, the Canada Financial Crimes Agency (CFCA) will become Canada’s lead enforcement agency against financial crime, bringing together expertise necessary to increase money laundering charges, prosecutions, and convictions, and the seizure of criminal assets. Budget 2024 proposes to provide $1.7 million over two years, starting in 2024-25, to the Department of Finance to finalize the design and legal framework for the CFCA.
- According to Budget 2024, amendments proposed for the PCMLTFA would “enhance the ability of reporting entities under the PCMLTFA to share information with each other to detect and deter money laundering, terrorist financing and sanctions evasion while maintaining privacy protections for personal information, including an oversight role for the Office of the Privacy Commissioner under regulations”; permit the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC) to disclose financial intelligence to provincial and territorial civil forfeiture offices to support efforts to seize property linked to unlawful activity and to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada to strengthen the integrity of Canada’s citizenship process; enable anti-money-laundering and anti-terrorist-financing regulatory obligations to cover factoring companies, cheque-cashing businesses and leasing and finance companies “to close a loophole and level the playing field across businesses providing financial services” and allow FINTRAC to publicize more information around violations of obligations under the PCMLTFA when issuing administrative monetary penalties “to strengthen transparency and compliance.”
- Amending the Impact Assessment Act to bring it into conformity with the Supreme Court of Canada judgment in Reference re Impact Assessment Act, 2023 SCC 23, which ruled that parts of the Act are unconstitutional. Amendments to be proposed to the Act would make “targeted efficiency improvements” to advance the principle of “one project, one review,” including by clarifying and reducing timelines for major projects, so they can get built faster.
- Planned measures would set a target of five years or less to complete federal impact assessment and permitting processes for federally designated projects and a target of two years or less for permitting of non-federally designated projects; issue a Cabinet Directive to drive culture change, achieve new targets and set out clear federal roles and responsibilities within and across departments with the objective of getting clean-growth projects built in a timely and predictable manner; build a Federal Permitting Dashboard that reports on the status of large projects that require permits to improve predictability for project proponents and increase the federal government’s transparency and accountability to Canadians; set a three-year target for nuclear project reviews, by working with the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission and Impact Assessment Agency of Canada; and consider how the process can be better streamlined and duplications reduced between the two agencies. “The proposed amendments will ensure the Act is constitutionally sound, facilitating efficient project reviews while advancing Canada’s clean growth and protecting the environment,” the government said. “An amended Act will provide certainty for businesses and investors through measures that include increasing flexibility in substitution of assessments to allow for collaboration and avoid inter-jurisdictional duplication, clarifying when joint federal-provincial review panels are possible and allowing for earlier agency screening decisions as to whether a full impact assessment is required after the planning phase.” The government said the amended Act would remain consistent with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act. The government also will work to establish a Crown Consultation Coordinator “to ensure efficient and meaningful Crown consultation with Indigenous peoples on the issuance of federal regulatory permits to projects that do not undergo federal impact assessments. The government will consult First Nations, Inuit, Métis and modern treaty and self-governing Indigenous partners on the design of the Crown Consultation Coordinator.
- The Impact Assessment Agency of Canada will continue to be the Crown consultation body for all federal decisions related to projects that undergo federal impact assessments.” The federal government said more details on its ministerial working group’s recommendations will be published in an “action plan in spring 2024.” “Further analysis of opportunities for improving the efficiency of the impact assessment process will be undertaken as part of the five-year review of the Impact Assessment Act’s designated project list, which will occur later this year, following the coming into force of the amended Act,” Budget 2024 states. The review will involve consulting with the public and Indigenous partners.
- Planned measures would set a target of five years or less to complete federal impact assessment and permitting processes for federally designated projects and a target of two years or less for permitting of non-federally designated projects; issue a Cabinet Directive to drive culture change, achieve new targets and set out clear federal roles and responsibilities within and across departments with the objective of getting clean-growth projects built in a timely and predictable manner; build a Federal Permitting Dashboard that reports on the status of large projects that require permits to improve predictability for project proponents and increase the federal government’s transparency and accountability to Canadians; set a three-year target for nuclear project reviews, by working with the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission and Impact Assessment Agency of Canada; and consider how the process can be better streamlined and duplications reduced between the two agencies. “The proposed amendments will ensure the Act is constitutionally sound, facilitating efficient project reviews while advancing Canada’s clean growth and protecting the environment,” the government said. “An amended Act will provide certainty for businesses and investors through measures that include increasing flexibility in substitution of assessments to allow for collaboration and avoid inter-jurisdictional duplication, clarifying when joint federal-provincial review panels are possible and allowing for earlier agency screening decisions as to whether a full impact assessment is required after the planning phase.” The government said the amended Act would remain consistent with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act. The government also will work to establish a Crown Consultation Coordinator “to ensure efficient and meaningful Crown consultation with Indigenous peoples on the issuance of federal regulatory permits to projects that do not undergo federal impact assessments. The government will consult First Nations, Inuit, Métis and modern treaty and self-governing Indigenous partners on the design of the Crown Consultation Coordinator.
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