{"id":470055,"date":"2026-02-24T20:05:29","date_gmt":"2026-02-24T20:05:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/470055\/"},"modified":"2026-02-24T20:05:29","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T20:05:29","slug":"senators-plan-to-rebuke-government-for-adding-unrelated-policy-changes-to-tax-cut-bill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/470055\/","title":{"rendered":"Senators plan to rebuke government for adding unrelated policy changes to tax-cut bill"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

The Senate of Canada building in Ottawa. Senators plan to offer a rare rebuke of the government over a bill that includes unrelated policy changes.Blair Gable<\/p>\n

Senators did not block the government\u2019s effort to shoehorn privacy rules for political parties into an affordability bill, but they plan to formally criticize the move when the bill is up for third reading. <\/p>\n

The Senate Finance committee agreed Tuesday to adopt a contested section of Bill C-4 \u201con division,\u201d which signals that section of the bill does not have unanimous consent. <\/p>\n

Their report back to the Senate will also include an explanation of their concerns with the proposed privacy regime for political parties. <\/p>\n

Senators are expected to tack on a formal rebuke to the government over its use of a tax-cut bill for an unrelated matter. <\/p>\n

The decision taken by the Senate Finance committee on Tuesday morning broke with the recommendations from the Legal and Constitutional Affairs committee that the privacy provisions be struck entirely, carved out for future study or time-limited. <\/p>\n

But that committee\u2019s report will be included in the report the Finance committee sends on the bill, senators agreed on Tuesday. <\/p>\n

The decision to place concerns on the record with how the government has handled legislation is a rare move for the Upper Chamber. <\/p>\n

It is expected to be followed by a stand-alone report on the government\u2019s use of omnibus legislation in general, an issue raised by senators during debate over C-4.<\/p>\n

The bill is primarily focused on legislating three major tax cuts that were a centrepiece of Prime Minister Mark Carney\u2019s pitch to voters in the spring. <\/p>\n

But the fourth part of the bill seeks to amend the Canada Elections Act to, among other things, make it clear that political parties aren\u2019t subject to provincial and territorial privacy laws.<\/p>\n

That section of the bill was not publicized when the legislation itself was tabled in June. <\/p>\n

Federal political parties are not subject to the kinds of rules around gathering and using data that govern private companies. <\/p>\n

That means voters are limited in their ability to access the information parties have on them, and in the event of data breaches, have limited recourse.<\/p>\n

The decision to legislate an approach is linked to a pending B.C. court case exploring whether federal political parties are subject to that province\u2019s privacy rules. <\/p>\n

The three main federal parties have argued they are not, but lost the original case and have since appealed. <\/p>\n

The proposed changes in C-4 would bring privacy rules for federal parties under the Canada Elections Act and set out privacy standards. <\/p>\n

But Senators said those proposed standards weren\u2019t given enough attention by the House of Commons, and the Senate\u2019s legal and constitutional affairs committee launched a targeted study.<\/p>\n

Representatives from the Liberals, Conservatives and New Democrats told Senators they already have privacy policies in place, and adhere to them, saying the bill is necessary to prevent parties from having to follow a patchwork of provincial rules. <\/p>\n

Privacy and transparency experts argued, however, the federal measures aren\u2019t sufficient in an era of big data and parties should be required to have robust systems in place \u2013 and be able to be held more accountable for how they use Canadians\u2019 information. <\/p>\n

With the Senate Finance Committee\u2019s approval, the bill will now go back to the Senate for third reading, where it could still be amended. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: The Senate of Canada building in Ottawa. Senators plan to offer a rare…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":470056,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5104],"tags":[5,4,72,25,5157,333,73],"class_list":{"0":"post-470055","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ottawa-senators","8":"tag-hockey","9":"tag-nhl","10":"tag-ottawa","11":"tag-ottawa-senators","12":"tag-ottawasenators","13":"tag-politics","14":"tag-senators"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116127408513350158","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470055","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=470055"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470055\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/470056"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=470055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=470055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=470055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}