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Photo by James West/CP file

But Conservative and New Democrat critics are worried about how the Liberals could find loopholes within that promise, should they want to shift money around.

The description of the fund could leave room for interpretation, they say, because instead of committing the government to the specific table in the budget that Ferland mentioned, it just says the money is “in support of initiatives announced in the Budget of February 27, 2018.”

In the past, programs announced in budgets would first be approved by the Treasury Board, then added to supplementary estimates for approval in Parliament, so that each had their own line. Instead of going through that process, lumping $7 billion worth of spending into one vote means Parliament will only get a detailed breakdown after the fact.

The Liberal government has not necessarily been prompt in spending money announced in previous budgets. According to a report by the Parliamentary Budget Officer at the end of February, only three-quarters of money announced in the 2017 budget had been allocated.

“Our main concern from the outset is that if Treasury Board has discretionary control over a $7-billion fund, and the government underspends in one area, it could simply shuffle the money to a completely different area. And then Parliament would have lost its ability to control and approve that movement of money,” said Conservative finance critic Pierre Poilièvre.

“We want a legally binding commitment that money’s only going to go where the government says it’s going to go,” he said, adding that if this is nothing more than a glorified “slush fund,” Liberals should expect major public backlash and “hell to pay” in Parliament.