OTTAWA—It may be the most sweeping overhaul of Canadian law ever contemplated in one piece of legislation: 425 pages of dense legalese that amends or throws out more than 60 existing federal statutes.

But for many, the complex uproar over the Conservatives’ budget bill has been reduced to a single remark: “There is no bad job.”

It came from Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, who was being pressured to explain the ongoing mystery of how the Conservatives will crack down on jobless people receiving Employment Insurance (EI) once Bill C-38 is passed by Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s majority.

Conservatives haven’t divulged how they plan to change the rules governing whether EI recipients can keep collecting benefits. Sources say the federal cabinet will be given the power to set new rules that will make it harder for those collecting EI to pass up jobs they deem unsuitable or too low-paying.

That’s what Flaherty seemed to be getting at when he said, “The only bad job is not having a job. I drove a taxi. I refereed hockey.”

The remark touched a nerve among Canadians who see the new EI regime as a way to force the unemployed to take any job going or lose their benefits.

“It’s an insult to all Canadians — not just the unemployed,” said Naveen Mehta, human rights director of United Food and Commercial Workers Canada. “It’s this very elitist, condescending, arrogant approach.”

In the Commons, NDP MP David Christopherson said Flaherty can’t tell the difference between “refereeing hockey games while building a future at law school” and “a lifetime of back-breaking work in a mine shaft.” The Conservatives’ “continued attacks on employment insurance are disingenuous, disrespectful and downright disgraceful,” Christopherson said.

Nova Scotia Premier Darrell Dexter weighed in, warning Harper that “employment insurance is one of those electric rails in Atlantic Canada that you want to be very, very careful about.”

The EI uproar is just one part of a mushroom cloud of controversy spawned by the massive budget implementation legislation.

The sweeping bill is a major step in Harper’s long-term campaign to reorient Canada in a more business-friendly, right-wing direction by overhauling social, economic and environmental policies built up over decades.

The more that becomes known about the budget bill, the more it seems to be galvanizing opposition to Harper’s agenda.

The size and scope of the bill is massive. Opposition MPs demanded that it be broken up into smaller pieces of legislation to allow more scrutiny in Commons committee. The Conservatives refused.

Anger is also growing over the government’s determination to use its parliamentary majority to limit debate. It wants the entire package passed before MPs go on summer break next month.

“The whole process diminishes the role of Parliament in the making of laws and making sure the people of Canada understand what’s in the laws that are being passed,” says constitutional expert Ned Franks.

“To the extent that it takes things that normally would be looked at in, say, 10 committees and puts it into one committee and puts it through in two weeks instead of maybe a month each in the other committees, you’re reducing the parliamentary scrutiny opportunities by a factor of 10 or 20,” Franks said. “That’s pretty significant.”

The Conservatives say the bill will receive adequate debate and the wide-ranging environmental measures will be examined by a subcommittee of the Commons finance committee. But that concession is seen as totally inadequate by opposition parties.

Aside from the secretive EI reforms, perhaps the most explosive element in Bill C-38 has been the government’s plan to raise the age of eligibility for Old Age Security to 67 from 65 beginning in 2023.

Touching as it does on the social safety net and coming without any advance warning from the Conservatives in last year’s election, Harper’s OAS surprise has prompted an angry backlash among seniors.

Internal polling by CARP, the seniors’ group, found its members favouring the NDP over the Conservatives for the first time ever.

Explaining the impact of the OAS changes, pollster Nik Nanos says seniors are much more worried about being able to pay their bills than they were in years past. Upsetting older Canadians is a risky move, Nanos adds.

“I think this could absolutely light the fuse,” he told CBC-TV. “Voter turnout for seniors is, like, 80 per cent. For young Canadians, it’s 50 per cent. So seniors, they punch above their weight. They’re more organized.

“But what’s critically important for this particular government is that the Conservative coalition majority is really founded on seniors — seniors who are concerned about economic and fiscal issues and want stability,” Nanos observed. “And when the Conservatives start to engage on issues that affect their day-to-day lives, it can be trouble.”

The impact on voters so far is hard to gauge. But national opinion surveys have shown an upsurge by the Thomas Mulcair-led NDP in recent weeks that has the left-wing party challenging the Conservatives for top spot in the polls for the first time in recent memory.

The NDP is showing impressive strength, says Darrell Bricker, chief executive officer of pollster Ipsos Public Affairs. “You’re looking at the emergence of whatever the counterbalance is to the government.”

Another key area of the budget bill contemplates an overhaul of rules and regulations relating to the environment and natural resources — an overhaul so extensive that some see it as nothing less than a declaration of war on the green movement.

The bill officially scraps Canada’s commitment under the Kyoto Protocol on curbing greenhouse gas emissions and for the first time empowers the federal cabinet to give the go-ahead to pipelines and other major energy projects regardless of the conclusions of regulatory hearings on the feasibility of the projects. Environmental hearings on pipelines and other projects will have time limits and only those directly affected by a project will be allowed to speak at hearings.

Another measure would permit Ottawa to bow out of the environmental approval process in cases where a provincial government could hold the needed regulatory hearings. And the budget earmarks $8 million for a Canada Revenue Agency crackdown on the political activities of charities, some of which the Conservatives have accused of money laundering to pay for the activities of environmental groups funded by “foreign radicals.”

The process for issuing permits under the Species at Risk Act is being altered and the Fisheries Act is being streamlined so only major bodies of water used for commercial, recreational or aboriginal fisheries will be protected.

These far-reaching fisheries changes prompted British Columbia Conservative leader John Cummins to write a personal letter to Harper warning of a voter backlash and complaining that Bill C-38 would put “public ownership” in the hands of the federal fisheries minister rather than Canadians. The minister “then would be able to do as he sees fit with that resource, which may not be in the best interest of the fish or the people, but it is a loss that shouldn’t happen. Historically, we as Canadians, had ownership of the fish and this bill would eliminate that,” Cummins writes.

While Bill C-38 would mean bigger fines for businesses that breach environmental regulations, the green movement sees the legislation in its entirety as a groundbreaking attempt to drastically reshape Canada’s stewardship of the environment on behalf of big business.

The whole thing has set off alarm bells, says Greenpeace Canada spokesperson Keith Stewart. “People — and not just within the environmental movement — are looking at this as an attack on nature and democracy. It’s being done, basically, on behalf of the big oil companies. And it’s unprecedented in Canada. Even my international colleagues are aghast at what Canada is doing. Right now, we’re making Russia look good.”

One thing no one disagrees on is the scope of Bill C-38, which will bring about changes that will be felt by nearly every Canadian. Among its many other measures:

• Cuts 19,200 government jobs amid $5.2 billion in spending reductions.

• Eliminates a wide range of agencies and organizations, from social policy-oriented agencies like the National Council of Welfare and National Aboriginal Health Organization to the watchdog responsible for monitoring the activities of Canada’s spy agency, CSIS.

• Sweeping changes to immigration law that will allow the government to delete the applications of some 280,000 people who asked to come here as federal skilled workers before 2008. Application fees will be returned. The legislation also refocuses immigration policy on economic needs with measures intended to attract younger, better-qualified workers to directly meet labour market demands.

• Changes the Temporary Foreign Worker Program so that foreign employees can be paid up to 15 per cent less than the prevailing local wage under certain circumstances.

• Alters the administration of parks, meaning shorter seasons and fewer services at parks and historic sites.

• Cuts spending on culture, foreign aid and future health-care transfers to the provinces.

The Conservatives say the package is a forward-looking strategy to balance Ottawa’s books and ensure economic growth and job creation over the long term. And they argue that current uncertainty in the global economy means the budget bill needs to be implemented as soon as possible.

But opposition MPs say Canadians are waking up to the right-wing agenda buried throughout the massive legislation.

“I think the public is becoming more aware of what’s wrong with this regime,” Liberal Leader Bob Rae said. “The kind of dictatorial powers which the prime minister is accruing to himself is causing people some real concerns.”