After a months-long journey through the House of Commons and the Senate, Bill C-15 received royal assent on Thursday evening, officially implementing the 2025 federal budget into law.
With that royal assent comes one trillion dollars in new investments over the next five years; a $78.3-billion deficit for 2025-26; and major commitments to the Canadian tech ecosystem that BetaKit covered when the budget was tabled in November. These investments and policy changes impact the federal government’s approach to AI, quantum, venture capital programs, financial services innovation, and defence.
With royal assent comes one trillion dollars in new investments over the next five years, including major commitments to Canada’s tech ecosystem.
The budget included some big venture capital (VC) commitments, including $750 million to address early-stage funding gaps and a $1-billion commitment to a Venture and Growth Capital Catalyst Initiative that recently got some clarity. A discussion guide released by the federal government this month revealed the three-year commitment is further broken down into $700 million for a funds-of-funds stream, a $200-million life sciences stream, and a $100-million emerging fund managers stream.
The budget implementation bill also officially repeals the Digital Services Tax Act, which became a point of contention in Canada-US trade negotiations for its tax targeting tech giants like Amazon, Apple, Google, and Meta.
RELATED: What’s in #Budget2025 for Canadian tech?
The defence commitments are a clear standout in the 2025 budget, which earmarks $81.8 billion over five years to “rebuild, rearm, and reinvest” in the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF). This includes establishing the Defence Investment Agency and the $6.6-billion Defence Industrial Strategy (DIS). The federal government released more details on the DIS last month and has since used the vehicle to make investments in drone development, quantum, and sovereign space launch capabilities.
Another standout piece of the bill is movement on long-awaited files in Canada’s financial services sector, including in open (or “consumer-driven”) banking and the Stablecoin Act. The act also requires stablecoin issuers to maintain and manage adequate asset reserves, establish redemption policies, implement risk management frameworks, and protect consumers’ sensitive data.
Other budget commitments that are now law include:
- $925.6 million over five years to back a large-scale sovereign public AI infrastructure (using $800 million from the Sovereign AI Compute Strategy);
- Budget 2024’s promised Lifetime Capital Gains Exemption limit to increase to $1.25 million;
- The “Productivity Super-Deduction” offering enhanced tax incentives on all new capital investments, including those eligible under SR&ED;
- $105.9 million (starting 2026-27) to implement new Buy Canadian Policy;
- $79.9 million to ISED over five years for new SMB Procurement Program;
- $84.4 million over four years to ISED to extend Elevate IP program;
- $22.5 million over three years to renew support for the Innovation Asset Collective’s Patent Collective;
- $75 million over three years to the NRC to extend the IP Assist Program;
- Up to $1.7 billion to recruit and fund top researchers to Canadian universities.
More details on Budget 2025 can be found in BetaKit’s extensive coverage here.
Image courtesy Mark Carney on LinkedIn.