The 2025 budget spells organize as 'organise,' catalyze as 'catalyse,' recognize as 'recognise'

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Lost amid the deficit figures and tax adjustments of the 2025 budget is that the document is the purest manifestation yet of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s bizarre insistence that Canadians employ British spellings in their English.

When Canada last had a federal budget in April 2024, the text followed the typically idiosyncratic conventions of Canadian English. Some words, such as “colour,” followed a British spelling. While others, such as “analyze,” went with an American spelling.

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But the 492 pages of the 2025 budget have been diligently scoured to remove U.S.-style spelling. Harmonize has become “harmonise.” Specialize has become “specialise.” Organize has become “organise.”

And the budget is very much an anomaly in this regard.

Official House of Commons transcripts continue to employ the prior forms of “harmonize” and “organize,” among others. The official text of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms uses the spelling of “recognize” as opposed to the budget’s spelling of “recognise.”

The more than 2,000........

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