Appropriation Act No. 4, 2025-26

This bill authorizes the federal government to spend a total of $5,408,955,628 from public funds to cover additional government expenses for the fiscal year running from April 1, 2025 to March 31, 2026. This is routine "supplementary" spending authority that tops up the budgets Parliament already approved earlier in the year, covering costs and needs identified since the last appropriation bill.

The money is divided among dozens of federal departments, agencies, and Crown corporations, each for specific purposes. Major recipients include Canada Post ($1.008 billion), the Department of National Defence (over $1.2 billion, including funds for equipment, operations, and a large new Treasury Board fund for defence and security initiatives), Indigenous Services Canada ($509 million, mostly for contributions to Indigenous communities and programs), CBC/Radio-Canada ($150 million), Veterans Affairs ($300 million), Immigration ($172 million), and smaller amounts for museums, research councils, Parks Canada, the RCMP, and other bodies. It also includes a Treasury Board fund of $1 billion earmarked for defence and security spending needs, and write-offs of certain uncollectible federal student loan and other debts.

The bill also contains standard technical provisions: it deems these spending authorizations to have taken effect retroactively from April 1, 2025 (the start of the fiscal year), it allows minor bookkeeping adjustments to government accounts after the fiscal year ends, and it sets rules for how a small portion of funds (in Schedule 2, covering the Canada Border Services Agency and Canada Revenue Agency) can be carried over and used until March 31, 2027 before lapsing. Overall, this is a routine, technical funding bill rather than one that changes policy or law — it simply grants the money the government says it needs to cover previously unbudgeted costs.

This bill authorizes the government to withdraw $5,408,955,628 from the Consolidated Revenue Fund for federal departments and agencies, as itemized in Schedules 1 and 2, for spending in the fiscal year ending March 31, 2026.

• Spending authority — money is released department-by-department and "vote" by "vote" (e.g., $1,008,000,000 to Canada Post, $903,282,146 in National Defence capital expenditures, $508,705,000 in Indigenous Services contributions), each restricted to the purposes and conditions listed in that item.
• Treasury Board discretion — a $1,000,000,000 Treasury Board Secretariat vote lets that body supplement any other department's appropriation for "defence and security initiatives," including creating new grants and contributions, provided the spending stays within a department's existing legal mandate; a further $140,000,000 and $31,195,709 are set aside for public-service pay adjustments the Treasury Board can allocate as needed.
• Debt write-offs — the bill records the writing off of 38,526 student and apprentice loan debts totalling $381,908,993, and 377 annuity-overpayment debts totalling $18,637, extinguishing those amounts owed to the Crown.
• Retroactive and forward-dated effect — section 3 deems fund transfers to have been authorized as of April 1, 2025, and item provisions are deemed effective from that date, though the Act itself is only now being enacted.
• Two-year charging window — amounts in Schedule 2 (e.g., for the Canada Border Services Agency and Canada Revenue Agency) may be spent and charged against accounts up until March 31, 2027, with unused balances lapsing after that; Schedule 1 amounts must be accounted for before that year's Public Accounts are tabled in Parliament.
• Oversight — spending is tied to the Supplementary Estimates (C) already presented to Parliament, and reconciliation happens through the tabling of Public Accounts; the Act itself does not create any ongoing review, appeal or sunset mechanism beyond the lapsing of unspent Schedule 2 funds.