The Red-Tape Reduction Act (Bill C-15) threatens the rights of everyone in Canada, including First Nations and future generations, to health and safety, and endangers our natural environments and our legal protections. Bill C-15, the Act to implement certain provisions of the 2025 Budget, is an omnibus bill touted as a finance tool. It is anything but.

Buried deep in Bill C-15 are provisions that would allow the government’s Ministers to exempt any entity from the application of any provision of any federal law, other than the Criminal Code. It could apply to projects or activities they consider “encouraging innovation, competitiveness or economic growth”, if the
Minister is of the opinion it is “in the public interest”.

Ministers would have radically new discretionary power to decide when and how federal legislation applies, and to whom. But laws should apply equally to all, regardless of status, wealth, or power.

How does this uphold the current government’s pre-election platform, which stated “we cannot lose sight of the impact our choices will have on our children and grandchildren; we must always be mindful of long-term sustainability and the kind of economy and environment we want for them”?

“We insist that the federal government withdraw this undemocratic section of the Bill”, stated Diane Girard, spokesperson for Seniors for Climate Action Now! which spearheaded the coalition. “We are deeply disturbed by this autocratic move by the Carney government. We can build a strong economy while upholding the standards and laws Canadians fought so hard to create.”

If these provisions of the Bill pass, vital decisions about the economy, people’s rights and welfare and the environment can be made behind closed doors, without being subject to any kind of review or possible legal challenge by the public or by Parliament. Ministers could grant exemptions from environmental protection, labour law, access to information and privacy, and safety of food and drugs regulations, to name just a few. They might even try with treaty rights.

Lobbyists from the nuclear industry, the oil and gas industry, the mining industry and the pharmaceutical industry, for example, would however still have access to the ministers making these closed-door decisions.

The Coalition calls on all Parliamentarians to support amending Bill C-15, to delete the proposed modifications to the existing Red Tape Reduction Act, sections 203 to 209 of the Bill (Part 5, Division 5).