It also hands OSFI new enforcement powers and puts stablecoins under Bank of Canada oversight
A 423-page budget law just raised the capital gains exemption to $1.25 million and rewrote the rules for mutual funds, banking and stablecoins.
Bill C-15 — the Budget 2025 Implementation Act, No. 1 — received Royal Assent on March 26, 2026, roughly four months after being introduced in the House of Commons on November 18, 2025. Sponsored by the Minister of Finance and National Revenue, the legislation implements provisions of the federal budget tabled in Parliament on November 4, 2025, and it reaches into virtually every corner of the financial services regulatory landscape.
So what actually changed?
Start with Part 1. The Lifetime Capital Gains Exemption now applies on up to $1.25 million of eligible capital gains for dispositions occurring on or after June 25, 2024, with indexation of the limit to resume in 2026. For most wealth professionals, that single provision changes the math on disposition strategy conversations from coast to coast.
Succession planning gets more room, too. The Act exempts the first $10 million in capital gains on the sale of a business to a worker cooperative and amends the corresponding exemption for sales to an employee ownership trust. For both transaction types, the reserve period effectively doubles — the legislation changes the computation references from "1/5" and "4" to "1/10" and "9," stretching the reserve from five years to ten. Business owners weighing cooperative or employee ownership transitions can now spread the tax hit over a much longer runway.
Fund managers should sit up for this one: a corporation can no longer qualify as a mutual fund corporation where it is controlled by or for the benefit of a corporate group. That provision targets corporate-controlled fund structures head-on, and firms relying on mutual fund corporation structures will want to take a hard look at their setups.
On the anti-avoidance side, the Act removes the tax-indifferent investor exception to the synthetic equity arrangement anti-avoidance rule. It also aligns the taxation of investment income and active business income earned and distributed by controlled foreign affiliates with the rules that currently apply to Canadian-controlled private corporations — a shift that lands squarely on advisors running cross-border structures. The legislation rounds out Part 1 by reforming Canada's transfer pricing rules and narrowing the rules related to reporting by trusts.
Then there is the new Consumer-Driven Banking Act, tucked into Division 9 of Part 5. The Act repeals the previous version and enacts a fresh framework to ensure that individuals and businesses can safely and securely share their data with the participating entities of their choice. It covers accreditation, national security, data sharing, security safeguards, consent, authentication, liability, complaints, administration and enforcement and screen scraping.
What does that mean in practice? Participating entities — including banks and other financial institutions — will be required to share client data as directed by the consumer at no charge, obtain express consent, and set up both internal and external complaints processes. Screen scraping is out. A regulated data-sharing regime overseen by the Bank of Canada is in. For wealth firms housed within or connected to major banks, the compliance work starts now.
The Act goes further on the institutional side. Division 11 modernizes prudential limits by repealing certain provisions that impose limits on federally regulated financial institutions with respect to debt obligations and borrowing, consumer and commercial loans and investments in real property and equity. Division 13 doubles the equity threshold related to the public holding requirement from $2 billion to $4 billion.
And OSFI comes out of this with a bigger stick. Division 14 gives the Superintendent of Financial Institutions the power to issue directions of compliance in respect of unsafe or unsound practices in the conduct of the affairs of federally regulated financial institutions. The Superintendent is also no longer prevented from disclosing information to any federal government agency or body for purposes related to the regulation or supervision of financial institutions. That opens up new channels between regulators that did not exist before.
The digital asset crowd gets its own chapter. Division 45 enacts the Stablecoin Act, which imposes duties on persons that create stablecoins and make them available for purchase, directly or indirectly, by persons in Canada. The Bank of Canada is tasked with maintaining a public registry of stablecoin issuers, and issuers must maintain a reserve of assets to fulfill their redemption obligations and establish governance, risk management, and data security policies. The Act prohibits issuers from offering interest or yield on stablecoins and requires the use of qualified custodians for reserve assets. Advisors fielding client questions about digital assets finally have a regulatory framework to point to.
The sanctions and anti-money laundering regime tightens, too. Division 18 amends the Special Economic Measures Act to allow the Governor in Council to require financial institutions to report to the Minister of Finance on property they hold that is owned, held or controlled by a person, including a foreign state, identified under that Act, and on any profits realized from such property. The Minister of Finance may also direct a financial institution to pay those profits to the Receiver General. Division 37 amends the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act to prohibit the disclosure of reports, or the information contained in them, related to discrepancies in information discovered in the course of verifying the identity of persons having beneficial ownership or control of an entity.
One more worth flagging: Division 5 amends the Red Tape Reduction Act to allow ministers, subject to certain conditions, to grant temporary exemptions from the application of provisions of certain Acts of Parliament and instruments with the aim of encouraging innovation, competitiveness or economic growth in the clean technology or financial technology sector. Think sandbox for fintech.
Division 22 rounds things out by enacting the Canada Development Investment Corporation Act, which continues the Corporation and sets out its purpose to assist in the creation and development of businesses, resources, property and industries of Canada by providing advice and support to the Government of Canada and by making investments and managing assets that advance Canada's economic growth and development.
The bill got a thorough going-over on the Senate side. The Standing Senate Committee on National Finance began a pre-study on November 26, 2025, and 10 additional Senate committees were authorized to examine specific elements of the legislation before it formally arrived in the upper chamber. Third reading in the Senate wrapped on March 26, 2026 — the same day it received Royal Assent.
For wealth management professionals, investment fund managers, and compliance teams at federally regulated financial institutions, this is not one to let sit in the reading pile.
