On December 15, 2011, Bill C-13, Keeping Canada’s Economy and Jobs Growing Act received Royal Assent. Bill C-13 is omnibus legislation designed to implement a number of measures proposed in its 2011 Budget, as outlined in our FTR Now of March 24, 2011, “Federal Budget 2011.”

In part, it:

• amends the Canadian Human Rights Act to eliminate the mandatory retirement age for federally regulated employees unless there is a bona fide occupational requirement;
• amends the Canada Labour Code to repeal a provision that denies federally regulated employees the right to severance pay for involuntary termination if they are entitled to a pension;
• amends the Canada Pension Plan to include amounts received by an employee under an employer-funded disability plan in contributory salary and wages;
• allows eligible volunteer firefighters to claim a 15% non-refundable tax credit based on an amount of $3,000;
• introduces tax anti-avoidance rules for registered retirement savings plans (RRSP) and registered retirement income funds (RRIF);
• introduces rules to limit tax deferral opportunities for individual pension plans;
• introduces rules to limit tax deferral opportunities for corporations with significant interests in partnerships;
• extends the dividend stop-loss rules to dividends deemed to be received on the redemption of shares held by certain corporations;
• clarifies that the “financially dependent” test applies for the purposes of provisions that permit rollovers of the assets of a deceased taxpayer’s RRSP or RRIF to an infirm child or grandchild’s registered disability savings plan;
• provides a temporary measure to refund a portion of employer Employment Insurance premiums for small business;
• amends the pension-to-RRSP transfer limits in situations where the accrued pension amount was reduced due to the insolvency of the employer and underfunding of the employer’s registered pension plan; and
• extends in certain circumstances the period during which an employee may seek unpaid wages from a bankrupt employer or one in receivership under the Wage Earner Protection Program Act.

A number of these tax measures follow the release of previously reported draft proposed changes to the Income Tax Act and regulations by the Department of Finance.

The amendments to the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Canada Labour Code come into force December 15, 2012.

Bill C-13 should be consulted for other coming into force information.