Appropriation Act No. 1, 2025-26

This bill is Canada's main funding authorization for the federal government for the 2025-26 fiscal year (April 1, 2025 to March 31, 2026). It formally grants a total of $149,771,149,015 from the Consolidated Revenue Fund to pay for the operating, capital, and grant/contribution expenses of federal departments, agencies, and Crown corporations that aren't already covered by other legislation.

The money is broken down in two schedules covering essentially every part of the federal government, from National Defence and Indigenous Services to the RCMP, CBC, VIA Rail, Canada Post, immigration and health programs, and dozens of smaller agencies and tribunals. Each listed item specifies the department or organization, the purpose of the funding, and the dollar amount. Some of this money had already been advanced earlier in the year through "special warrants" (emergency spending authorized before Parliament formally approved the budget); this bill accounts for those advances and appropriates the remaining amounts needed to fully fund the government's Main Estimates for the year.

The bill also contains standard administrative provisions: it deems the funding to take effect retroactively from April 1, 2025, sets rules for how leftover appropriations can be used to adjust government accounts after the fiscal year ends, and specifies that unused amounts under Schedule 2 lapse (expire) by the end of the following fiscal year. In short, this is a routine, large-scale funding bill that keeps government programs and services running, rather than a change to policy or law in a substantive sense.

This bill authorizes the government to withdraw up to $149,771,149,015 from the Consolidated Revenue Fund to pay for federal department, agency, and Crown corporation expenses for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2026.

• Who can spend it — the Treasury Board and individual departments/agencies listed in Schedules 1 and 2 (e.g., National Defence, Indigenous Services, RCMP, CRA), each authorized to spend only up to the specific amount listed against its named item.
• Purpose restrictions — section 3(1) states that money for each item "may be paid only for the purposes, and subject to any terms and conditions, specified in the item," tying each sum to the description given in the schedule.
• Retroactive effect — section 3(2) deems all these spending authorities to have taken effect on April 1, 2025, before the bill's passage.
• Contingency and carry-forward funds — the Treasury Board Secretariat's votes include standing authorities to supplement other appropriations for "miscellaneous, urgent or unforeseen expenditures" ($1,000,000,000), for "government-wide initiatives," and to carry forward unused operating and capital budgets from the prior year, without specifying in this Act what those future expenditures will be.
• Borrowing and loan authorities embedded in the schedule — for example, Parc Downsview Park Inc.'s borrowing limit is raised from $100,000,000 to $300,000,000, and various departments are authorized to make loans (e.g., to Indigenous claimants, under the Department of Industry Act) as listed.
• Oversight — amounts not spent by the relevant deadlines (before the fiscal year's Public Accounts are tabled in Parliament, or by March 31, 2027 for Schedule 2 items) lapse; there is no further approval mechanism in this Act beyond the amounts and purposes already specified, and no sunset clause beyond the automatic lapsing of unspent funds.