Bill S-12 (Historical)

Incorporation by Reference in Regulations Act

An Act to amend the Statutory Instruments Act and to make consequential amendments to the Statutory Instruments Regulations

This enactment amends the Statutory Instruments Act to provide for the express power to incorporate by reference in regulations. It imposes an obligation on regulation-making authorities to ensure that a document, index, rate or number that is incorporated by reference is accessible. It also provides that a person is not liable to be found guilty of an offence or subjected to an administrative sanction for a contravention relating to a document, index, rate or number that is incorporated by reference unless certain requirements in relation to accessibility are met. Finally, it makes consequential amendments to the Statutory Instruments Regulations.

Incorporation by Reference in Regulations Act

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, can the hon. member for Newton—North Delta explain for me, because I cannot figure it out, what has changed since 2009, when this Parliament and the Standing Joint Committee for the Scrutiny of Regulations recommended against these broad and flexible ways of short-circuiting public scrutiny and access to review of the regulatory process?

At that time the members of the joint committee said, “What this really means is that it allows rules to be imposed without having to go through the regulatory process”.

This is part and parcel of a number of changes we have seen happening, including in Bill C-60, where there would be intervention at the political level over collective bargaining by crown corporations or through more discretionary powers at the hands of ministers. Slowly but surely, the executive in this country—the Prime Minister's Office, which is subservient to the will of Parliament—will have all the levers of power it needs to rule, with Parliament merely an anachronism.

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Mr. Speaker, that is the reason we are prepared to go to committee: to ask those tough questions and get the kind of clarification and put checks and balances in place so that government does not ram through a bill just because it has a majority, which the Conservatives will probably do anyway.

However, I believe it is our responsibility to go there, get the clarification for ourselves and try to limit the power of the executive so the Conservatives do not keep expanding that power.

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, l want to thank my other colleagues for having raised the level of debate on the bill before us.

When I was asked to speak on the bill earlier today, it looked like one of those dry and incomprehensible things that would be very difficult to get one's teeth into. However, upon reading it, I discovered there is actually a huge change being proposed in the powers of Parliament and the ability of Parliament to do its job, which is to make laws that affect the lives of Canadians. It is such a huge change because the bill proposes to make legal what the government has apparently already done 170 times since it has been in office without some check and balance on that ability.

The bill proposes to make legal the ability of the Governor in Council, which is the 60 men and women who make up the Privy Council, I suppose, to make regulations that are open-ended, to make regulations that are determined by third parties and to make regulations that are actually put in place by some other agency, maybe even a foreign government.

That is huge. It is very difficult for me, as a parliamentarian, to accept.

That said, there may in fact be rare occasions when it is appropriate to incorporate by reference a regulation that is created by an agency that everybody understands, trusts and accepts as the agency that is the world's leading expert on X, Y or Z. With that in mind, the NDP is determined that the bill go off to committee to see if we can whittle down this power to something that is acceptable.

I will read the summary of the bill, which is:

This enactment amends the Statutory Instruments Act to provide for the express power

—a power the government has actually already taken—

to incorporate by reference in regulations. It imposes an obligation on regulation-making authorities to ensure that a document, index, rate or number that is incorporated by reference is accessible. It also provides that a person is not liable to be found guilty of an offence or subjected to an administrative sanction for a contravention relating to a document, index, rate or number that is incorporated by reference unless certain requirements in relation to accessibility are met. Finally, it makes consequential amendments to the Statutory Instruments Regulations.

On the issue of accessibility, it says “unless certain requirements in relation to accessibility are met”, and those are not defined. Is that going to be a regulation to the Statutory Instruments Regulations? I ask because the definition of “accessibility” is not here.

I could not get a straight answer from any of the Conservatives I was able to ask questions of as to what exactly “accessibility” means in the context of the bill. It is not provided by the bill itself, yet the summary suggests that there are certain requirements in relation to accessibility. However, they are just not here. Does that mean we are regulating the regulations? It is very confusing.

The bill would put extreme amounts of power into the hands of the executive. As we have already experienced in this House, there have been complaints by certain members of the government party about too much power being in the hands of the executive. Those complaints led to a series of interventions before the Speaker of the House to ask that the Speaker actually rule to limit the power of the executive in controlling its ability to speak in this chamber. I would think that those same members of Parliament would be concerned that the bill before us would put even more power into the hands of the executive without any checks or balances or any way for the Parliament of Canada to determine in advance whether or not it is appropriate to incorporate by reference, which is what the bill suggests we should give the executive the power to do.

There is a Latin phrase, delegatus non potest delegare, which means that a delegate cannot give his power to another delegate. One cannot transfer one's ability to somebody else and say, “Here, you do it for me.”

That is essentially what this bill is suggesting should happen to the laws of this land, that we will make the law, as Parliament, but we will let somebody else determine how that law is actually written. That kind of rubs the wrong way. That is not something that I signed on for, to give somebody else the power to make the laws that we have been sent here to make.

I understand there is a majority position in the House, and so I do not get a whole lot of say. The government rejects any say we try to have in legislation 99.3% of the time, but at least we have that opportunity. This would actually give that power to a third party, to someone outside of this chamber, to change the laws of Canada. The government has already done it on 170 occasions, but until now it has been on a case-by-case basis. This act would actually make it legitimate every time. I have some difficulty with that.

Other legislatures have looked at this problem and come up with rules around how this delegation of authority should be used. Perhaps that is something we should be talking about in committee, because we are not going to have any amendments here. Maybe there are places and times when delegating a regulation is an appropriate thing, but we need to know when those times are and what those regulations would be.

I would suggest, as was suggested by some other legislatures on this planet, that one of the things would be only if it is impractical to do otherwise than to transfer that authority. It should be expressly authorized. It should be clearly quantified. The rules regarding subsequent amendment to that regulation should be clearly stated, so that we cannot just have some third party deciding how to change those regulations.

There should be consultation before those regulations are incorporated. There should be access, and we have talked about access. There ought to be accountability in the hands of the minister. If a minister is going to actually delegate his or her authority to a third party, that minister then has to be accountable for whatever that third party does.

None of that is spelled out in this bill. I worry, too, that we open the door to creating regulations that are in another jurisdiction, in another country, in another part of the planet. As an example, we have privacy regulations in this country that determine that our personal information should be kept private, should be kept in a way that is not disclosed to third parties. However, as we have discovered over the past few years, many of our banking institutions, our utility companies and our telephone companies routinely put that information in other countries.

Does that mean that the government could then legitimize that practice by making those other countries' privacy laws apply to those transactions? That would bother me. I would not want to have that happen. I do not want some other country determining the privacy of my personal information. It then encourages the harmonization of our laws with other perhaps less democratic jurisdictions or perhaps less forward-thinking jurisdictions or perhaps less effective jurisdictions. I do not want to encourage the government to get lazy.

On the issue of accessibility, I have asked the question several times, “Is this accessible in terms that a person with a disability would understand?” I have not gotten a clear answer from the government.

It appears that the word “accessible” is just the word “accessible”. There is no definition of what accessible means anywhere in this act. There is no definition of what is not accessible. It just says it must be accessible. Does that mean that if I have $250 to get a copy of the regulation, I have to pay $250 to get a copy of the regulation from some third party, if that is what that third party wants to charge? Does that mean it is then therefore accessible, because somebody with money can get it?

That is not what our normal level of accessibility is. Accessibility means that all of our laws are published in such a way that libraries across the country have them, and all of the regulations are available to anybody in this country who can walk into a library and get them for free.

Does the word “accessible” mean that we can have costs now for the regulations that are part of the laws that govern this country and, therefore, if a person does not have the money it is no excuse?

The other concern I have, and some my colleagues have already mentioned it, is the origin of this legislation. It is ironic that we are discussing a Senate originating bill when we are in the midst of quite an all-consuming controversy about the Senate.

Many Canadians have phoned me and have emailed me to say they no longer have any confidence or trust in the Senate and that they no longer have any use for the Senate. We are dealing with a government bill originating in the Senate that gives the government huge, sweeping powers and originates from an organization, the chamber down the hall, in which many Canadians have lost complete confidence. Many Canadians have lost complete confidence in the Conservative government's ability to use the Senate. They are calling upon the Government of Canada and us as parliamentarians to do away with the anachronistic and unrepresentative organization down the hall.

That then lends me to have some difficulty dealing with a bill that came from there when Canadians are saying they do not trust it. I am not certain that will not colour how we deal with future bills from the Senate, or even this bill. If this bill from the Senate, where I am told to not trust what they are doing, because the place is rife with difficulties, should this bill not have originated there? Should this bill, and any bill that were are dealing with, originate here in the House for it to be trusted and accountable to the people?

In terms of the actual specifics of what the government has done over the past few years, the example that jumps immediately to mind is Bill C-38 from last year, which was the first bill of the big 450-page omnibus bill that eliminated the old Environmental Assessment Act and replaced it with a new, more tepid, Environmental Assessment Act. "More tepid" is probably the best thing I could say about it. Buried in that act is exactly what this bill intends to make law:

(1) A regulation made under this Act may incorporate by reference documents that are produced by a person or body other than the Agency, including a federal authority referred to in any other paragraphs (a) to (d) of the definition “federal authority” in subsection 2(1).

(2) A document may be incorporated by reference either as it exists on a particular date or as amended from time to time.

(3) The Minister must ensure that any document incorporated by reference in a regulation is accessible.

(4) For greater certainty, a document that is incorporated by reference into a regulation is not required to be transmitted for registration or published in the Canada Gazette by reason only that it is incorporated by reference.

Therein is the most telling example of what is intended by the government. This is not something that is benign or innocuous because some other agency does a better job of determining health and safety regulations. We now have given over to an agency and we have no idea who it is because the regulation has not yet been made.

Schedule 2 of that act said that the components of the environment that can be studied in an environmental assessment will be determined by regulation. Until that regulation is published, we cannot really study the environment. Now, we learn that the government can also incorporate by reference some other agency's determination of what the environment is. It can determine whether or not human health, the socio-economic well-being of Canadians and the physical, cultural, architectural and historical heritage are part of the environment. All of these things are no longer defined. They are incorporated by reference. That regulation now can be determined by some other body or agency.

Maybe that “some other body or agency” is a provincial government. Maybe it is a territorial government. Maybe it is the Government of Venezuela. It does not say.

There is nothing specific in this regulation whatsoever. It says we can do whatever we want. The minister can also enter into an agreement with a foreign state or a subdivision of a foreign state or any institution of any such government or an international organization of states or any institution of such an organization with respect to Canada's environment. This is part of what bothers me with this huge law. We are walking down a road that lends itself to letting other people decide what is good for Canadians and I want to know exactly what is in here. We have absolutely no knowledge whatsoever of what the government intends to do by suggesting that regulations defining the environment can be determined by some other body and can be amended from time to time by some other body. That body is not defined. There is no justification for doing that.

We have had an Environmental Assessment Act for many years that had a good definition of the environment. Why the government chose to change it, we can probably guess. This is a classic example of what we are afraid of. By making this legal, the government will take really key things that are important to Canadians and make the regulations governing them amendable by some third party and we have no idea who they are.

I am trying to be helpful here. I will give an example of something that might actually be a good way to incorporate a regulation by reference. If, for example, the Minister of Health were to determine that there needed to be a regulation governing diesel exhaust and its effect on humans adjacent to a rail corridor, something that is near and dear to the people in my riding, she might decide to make that regulation accord with the World Health Organization's standards, which most people agree are by far the most up-to-date and scientifically accurate standards. The World Health Organization would then be, by reference, the standard by which Canada would measure carcinogens and particulate matters as a way of regulating them. That may be an example of something where incorporation by reference is actually not a bad thing. We would not have to duplicate the effort of the World Health Organization. We could feed into the World Health Organization rather than creating our own system of measurements and standards. That is not all this bill says.

Another possibility is the Labour Code has health and safety regulations that include references to elements of the environment to which a worker in a federally regulated workplace might be exposed. There might be an organization out there that actually publishes good standards that all in the House could agree that, as amended from time to time, are not a bad way to go. However, we do not have any limit that says we should agree on them first.

In conclusion, we do not necessarily disagree with the premise, in some limited circumstances, of ambulatory references, references that can be changed from time to time without reference back to the House, but we need some strict controls on when and how they are used. That is not in this bill. We need the agreement of all in Parliament on the specific reference. That is not in this bill. We also need at least some guidelines and controls for the government to actually utilize when it is drafting legislation so that it knows that this is not something that will run afoul of the general agreement that we might be able to give if we can put some guidelines, controls and strictures around this regulation-setting power by the government.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Okanagan—Coquihalla, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the member across the aisle for his speech. I would like just to go through a few points in it.

He did mention some of the changes that happened to Bill C-38 to amalgamate 41 different agencies into 3. Obviously, there were some changes there, and so I think some answers need to be forthcoming.

For example, he said the minister would be able to delegate authority to certain processes that had not been yet named. That is simply because we work with our provincial partners that have equivalency or may want to substitute certain environmental processes to ensure it gets done on a timely basis. Whoever has the most expertise, I think, should be in charge of that process, whether it be the federal government or the province. That is to be worked out.

However, if we look at labour and environmental health and safety, we work with the provinces all the time, and so when we harmonize these things, it would be better for business, better for Canadians—one set of rules.

Again, I have heard multiple references to amendments. People have said that we say we welcome amendments. I say we do.

However, here is the problem. The member for Kings—Hants, in Bill C-45, put 300 amendments forward, each one like 101 bottles of beer on the wall, such as asking for one day to be changed as to when the bill would then take effect.

I would like to hear from the member one amendment that is—

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

Order, please.

The hon. member for York South—Weston.

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would agree with the member opposite if that is what Bill C-38 said. However, it does not say that we are to harmonize our regulations with the provinces. It does not say that at all. It says that the minister may make regulations that can be amended at any time and those regulations can reference other jurisdictions, not just the provinces. It could be anywhere. Bob's towing company could be the one setting the regulations for our environment. That is not acceptable.

If it specifically mentioned the provinces, I would not have a problem with it.

In my speech, I actually referred to some specific things that could be done to make this a better bill, but maybe he was not listening.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, in listening to the member's comments on the bill, I thought he seemed to be very much focused with respect to the whole issue of delegation. He even made reference to a Latin phrase, I believe it was, in which it talks about how, if a person is delegated something, he or she should not be empowered to delegate. I respect what it is that the member is saying. I think it is a well-principled position.

If the bill passes and goes into committee stage, there should not be any doubt that there would be additional delegation from a group, so to speak, that was already delegated the responsibility.

Given the member's comments that he did not get elected to support that sort of thing, why would he then personally vote in favour of the bill going to second reading?

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, in the same vein of what happens in a union meeting when somebody moves a motion, somebody seconds it so it can get discussed. That is what we are saying here. The government is doing it anyway. The government is actually passing these portions of its bills 170 times so far without any strictures around them. If we are going to stop the government doing certain things, the bill has to go to committee and amendments need to be brought forward to limit what the government is already doing.

I hear what he is saying about delegatus non potest delegare. That is a basic principle. However, as I also said, there may be, on rare occasions, places where it makes sense for Parliament to actually do that. We should examine ways of making that happen that would not be too scary.

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I very much appreciated my colleague's speech on the bill. I thought it was very well thought out. I was particularly interested in his opening comments in which he talked about the power of the executive, the power of the cabinet to make decisions that troubles even the government's own backbenchers, frankly, as we have read in the media in recent days and weeks. That is troubling, especially when we reflect on the things that have happened in the media in the last couple of weeks. Accountability really is at the core of what we are trying to establish, and the bill again tries to undermine some of that accountability.

Conservative Senator Linda Frum said: “Incorporation by reference is a widely used drafting technique currently, but this bill would legitimize it...”. This is really important. She is saying they are doing it already on the government side, but what they are trying to do now is cover themselves after the fact by bringing in legislation that would validate what they have been doing 170 times already.

I am not sure we want to provide that kind of cover retroactively. I wonder if my colleague could comment on whether he thinks it is appropriate to use a Senate bill to cover the government's butt—it is not Hamilton language, but it is probably as parliamentary as I can get here—whether that is an appropriate use of this kind of legislation to cover something that the executive has been doing without, frankly, the requisite authority.

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, that is exactly right. The bill retroactively fixes the problem the government ran into when it discovered what it was doing did not have the blessing of both chambers, did not have the blessing of the committees that deal with the status of regulations. One of the things we do not like to have happen is that, when government makes a mistake, it asks us to bless it retroactively. That is not something we are prepared to do.

On the other hand, if Conservatives convince us that there are occasions when this kind of behaviour warrants consideration by the houses of Parliament, then let us go there, let us have those discussions, but let us not get in the business of fixing the mistakes of the government retroactively in order to cover its backside.

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

Mr. Speaker, there seems to be a certain misunderstanding with regard to our position on this side of the House, so let me clear it up. We want to get this legislation forward because we actually want to study it and we want to improve it. I think that is what the official opposition does. It presents questions, it seeks weaknesses in legislation, it proposes amendments and, depending on the reaction we have from the other side, we decide whether or not it is valuable to support when it comes to the other readings.

My hon. colleague pointed out that there are substantial questions we have at this point. For example, what are the costs involved in guaranteeing access to incorporations by reference? What access-related obstacles could arise? Is the public generally aware of these regulations? What can we do about that? What sort of feedback can we receive from the public about these regulations and their accessibility? All these things would be good going forward. Also, what guarantees would be in place to ensure that the documents will eventually comply with the Official Languages Act? All these things I believe my hon. colleague spoke to and I would like simply for him to tell us whether or not that is indeed a valuable thing to engage in, and whether or not we will see any openness on behalf of the government?

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, if history is our guide, we will not see any agreement on the other side of the House to any possible amendments to the bill. However, like the man beating his head into the wall over and over again, we are going to go there again because we do want to make Parliament work. That is part of why we came here, to try to make laws that are good for all Canadians and to make Parliament work, to make both sides of the House actually do their job.

Therefore, we will examine the bill, examine whether we can support it with amendments and put those amendments forward to the other side. Hopefully, members will actually listen.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to join this debate, although at times it can seem rather obtuse and obscure. There are all kinds of adjectives, I suppose, to describe it from the perspective of even parliamentarians who may not be as well versed as my colleague from Hamilton Mountain around the idea of regulatory change and what those regulatory statutes actually mean.

As someone who used to be a municipal councillor, I know all too well that when we pass things like a safe water act, for instance, in the province of Ontario, when the act comes to municipalities, it is not the act that scares us but the regulations. When the act comes down, it is about two and a half to three pages, and then the book comes, and it is sometimes really quite thick with the regulations that one now has to put into force or enact or find a way to do. It is those pieces that ultimately make that piece of legislation work and that form the backbone of the legislation, if you will. In fact, it would be the nuts and bolts. That is how it makes all of these things work.

Many of us in this place, I would suggest, know that we pass legislation and debate it in this place, but then off it goes somewhere else where the regulations that go behind the legislation to give it teeth or put meat on the bones are put in place, so it can go forward and actually mean something.

The regulations get drafted in different ways and it all becomes part of that bigger piece that the general public would see as that maze of government bureaucracy they say they deal with. They do not actually necessarily deal with the act specifically; they deal with the specific regulations, nine times out of ten. When they come to our office to complain about something, it is the regulation of the particular act they are complaining about, not the act that may have been passed in this House.

What I found quite astounding was the number of regulations. We are literally talking about thousands. At the moment there are at the federal level approximately 3,000 regulations comprising 30,000 pages of text.

For folks to wade through that material to find out what the regulations are that might impact them in whatever sphere of life they are in, whether it be business or other things they are partaking in as a general part of their lives, is quite a daunting task when they come up against something and they try to figure it out.

We find, to give it some sense of context, there are about 450 statutes of 13,000 pages. Again, the acts themselves that we pass here are such minor pieces of the overall legislation when the regulations are finally written and enacted and put behind it. That speaks to the volume of material that folks would have to navigate to try to figure out what they need to know, what they do not need to know and what their obligations and their rights are, because obviously regulations give us certain rights as well as obligations.

What if some folks breached one of the regulations? They need to understand the regulation because, as a traffic officer explained to me when I used to sit on a municipal police association board, going through a stop sign and saying we did not see it is not a defence. Ignorance of the law is no defence. If we did not see the traffic signal and just kept driving, that is not a defence. The same thing happens with regulations. The fact that we do not know about them is not a defence, because there is an obligation for us to know and understand them. It also gives us the right under the regulations to do certain things, whatever that happens to be, based on the regulations.

Ultimately it is a dual piece of rights and obligations. One needs to find a way to understand them, but to understand them, we have to be able to find them. When we talk about this incorporation, whether it be a static piece or an ambulatory piece, and lots of folks have gone through definitions of what are they, what they are not, and how they would change, how do those folks who actually look at them know that they have changed and say that they will act accordingly?

I know that I need to put x number of green books on a table, as they are in front of me here in the House, followed by three white books at the end. That is the regulation. Then somebody changes them, because it is an ambulatory piece of regulation. It is not static. We can take the three white books off the table and add two orange ones. New Democrats like orange, so we are going to put two orange ones down. Then we test everybody by asking them if they know how many green books are on the table and whether the three white ones are at the end. They would say yes, but they would fail, because we put two orange ones there. That means that they are out of office now, because they voted wrong, and the orange ones are going on the other side, which will probably happen in 2015, quite frankly. There was a change that nobody really knew about, and it was as simple as moving three books and putting two orange ones there.

What if we were to do that to food safety regulations? We have reciprocal agreements with our largest trading partner, the United States, and we have them with other countries around the world. They stand us well in a lot of different ways. We understand that we have a robust safety system in the agriculture sector at the producer level and when it comes to food processing and food handling. We accept that the United States also has a robust system. We accept as quid pro quo that what they do and what we do is good. We accept their standards and they accepts ours.

We get into this idea that we can change the regulations. Canada has regulations on our side and the United States has regulations on their side. We have similar regulations with our other trading partners. What if folks start changing food safety regulations? Most folks would say that they trust our American trading partner. They say that we do not have to worry about it. That country makes some changes that are probably okay and we will be fine. What happens if it is a country that is less trustworthy? I will not point the finger at any one country, but lots of us could identify a country where some of its food products have been less than safe, whether that be melamine in milk or other things that have happened.

What happens if those countries change a regulation and we change our regulation as well? Have we done our consumers justice by ensuring that the system is safe? We said that it was safe, and we changed the regulation, because it was an ambulatory regulation. We allowed it to be changed, because someone else changed it. We initially accepted a system that accepts other country's regulations. They changed one and we just accepted it, because we can do that now. No checks and balances are in place to make sure that we do not do that.

My colleague from Hamilton Mountain asked a question of my colleague from York South—Weston. We already know that a number of regulatory changes have been made, even though there was no authority to make them. I think she said that there were 170. It was not once or twice. My colleagues on the other side who sit with her on that committee also know that this is the case. They heard the testimony. It was not an issue of somebody slipping up and forgetting. One hundred and seventy times is a pattern. That is not a mistake. That is not a matter of somebody forgetting and forgetting to call the minister. The House should have looked at the information. It should have gone through the process and it should have had its due course. It does not seem as if that is right.

If we are now, as my colleague has said, changing legislation to cover off that period, and those 170 plus go forward, how do we ensure the rights of this House and of parliamentarians to do the job people want us to do? Our role is not just overseeing the public purse to hold government to account. If regulatory changes are coming down from different boards or agencies within the federal government's domain, then surely we should have the right to ensure that we have input.

My colleague from Okanagan—Coquihalla spoke quite eloquently about the idea that this is a non-partisan committee. It is made up of all kinds of folks who do not actually vote. It has a sense of building consensus. I am not too sure that the legislation says that. What happens if it becomes the executive that takes on that role and the rest of us do not have an oversight role? We are looking for answers to some of those questions.

That is why we want to send it to committee and look at amendments. Even though my friends across the way may not be happy about it, we want to send it to committee to try to make it better. They would be pleased with that rather than upset by the fact that we may not be saying the nicest of things about it. One would think that it is what they would want us to do, even though we are pointing out what we do not think works well. We will help them out, unlike my friends down at the end who do not want to vote to send it to committee and do not want to study it. That is their choice. Earlier I heard something about an open mind. I guess it is a closed mind on this particular issue, but that is the way it goes. They have decided against it, and that is okay. That is the great choice with democracy. One gets to decide whether to say yes or no. In this case, we will vote to send it to committee and study it. Ultimately, it is about democracy. It is about our right to have a say and have input with respect to legislation and its regulations.

As I said at the beginning, the regulations are quite often more important to people than the bill. Ironically, quite often, we get tied up looking at the bill. It is very important, no question. I would never want to suggest to the drafters of the legislation that somehow it is not important. There might be some parts of the legislation that the other side drafts that we would not find important or would vote against, and have. Budgets come to mind. However, regulations clearly have an impact on people's lives and that is what they run up against quite often, not the specifics of an act. That is where folks have difficulty.

I recognize that the other place exists, at least for now. If Canadians were allowed to vote probably over 70% would vote. We know that there is a constitutional requirement to have seven provinces and 50% of the population and so forth. We all know that. However, if we asked Canadians tomorrow if they wanted that place, they would want to get rid of it. My friends down at the far end still want to defend it in some sort of beleaguered way, since their leader said just two weeks ago that they just need better guys in there, not better people, which would include women. I can see where he is coming from when it comes to that. I certainly can tell him that I know a lot of women who were not pleased when he said that.

Bill S-12 started in the other place. One of my colleagues earlier talked about bills starting there or here, but they always have to come here. In my view, they all ought to start right here. There should be no bills starting with an “S”. They should all start with a “C”, and we should deal with them. This is the people's House. We will pass them if indeed that is the will of the people's House. We do not need the Senate to either rubber-stamp bills or throw them out. That is what they did to my good friend and leader Jack Layton. It did not even take the time to look at the bill. It tossed it aside. That is not democracy when the Senate tosses aside a bill that this House has passed twice.

If that is their attitude, not to mention the latest shenanigans that have gone on over their expenses, then it is time for them to go. It is long overdue. The time is long since past.

I said something months ago in the debate on what was the Senate reform bill, which seems to have disappeared. It has gone off to the Senate now, it seems. At the time I said this to my colleagues across the way, it just happened that one of Canada's favourite coffee houses, Tim Hortons, was having its roll up the rim contest at the same time as we were debating. I was standing right here, as a matter of fact, and I said, “Mr. Speaker, it is time to roll up the red carpet”, just like we roll up the rim.

Canadians will be the winners when we roll up the red carpet. Every single Canadian would not have to worry about rolling up the rim and maybe winning a donut or a coffee or a car. Not everybody gets one; I have rolled up many a rim and not gotten too many winning roll-ups, I must admit. However, without a doubt every Canadian would win if we rolled up the red carpet.

We would roll up that red carpet and wish them all well. I would be the first to stand in line, shake all their hands and wish them well. I would not have a problem doing that and I would do it with a smile on my face and a sincere thanks to many of them.

There are many good folks down there. Hugh Segal is a prime example. I think Senator Hugh Segal is a remarkable individual, a remarkable Canadian who does remarkable work. Unfortunately, it is time for Senator Segal to go.

Senator Kirby was a remarkable man down there as well, and he did remarkable work. He left on his own. Romeo Dallaire is also in the Senate. There are a great number of them. We have identified three, but over the years there have been a good number of them. We have given three examples; finding three is not bad for New Democrats.

However, we cannot find a New Democrat down there, probably because they do not want to go there.

I see my friends down at the end are a little restless. Clearly they are worried about the appointment that is never going to come, so the hour must be getting late. It truly must.

I would invite my colleagues down the way to come with me. In fact I invited my colleague from Winnipeg North last fall. He probably does not remember, but I invited him to come with me. Let me try to quote myself again. I invited my colleague to come arm in arm with me to walk down the hall together, roll up the red carpet, wish them a Merry Christmas and send them on their way, never to return. It is not Christmastime, but we could wish them happy holidays and ask them to not ever come back.

Oddly enough, if we had had regulations and had done it the way that this government suggested and that place was regulated, we could just have changed the regulations and gotten rid of them all. Unfortunately, we do not.

I have less than two minutes left. I really want to thank my colleague on the other side. I say this with great sincerity, because he has been the person who is really keen on this legislation. He has been up asking questions and he debated earlier. I give credit to the member for Okanagan—Coquihalla. He actually answers.

He and I also have an affinity for wine. We have the two greatest wine regions in the country, Niagara being the finest and his being after that.

However, what I would like to say is that there are a whole pile of others on the other side who really have not been bothering with the legislation. They do not seem to want to bother with the legislation, so let me just say this to them: I would love to give them the opportunity to discuss their own bill. Therefore, I move:

That the House do now adjourn.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

The question is on the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.