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.

Multilateral Instrument in Respect of Tax Conventions Act

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is always an honour to stand on behalf of the citizens of Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola. I will be sharing my time with the very capable member for Calgary Rocky Ridge, who in addition to his duties as member of Parliament, also stands as the shadow minister for national revenue. Even though this is a finance bill, ultimately it is the CRA and the Minister of National Revenue that will become accountable for this. I know he will have many things to say on that end of it.

The two are very important, because, for example, in 2013-14 and particularly in the 2014 budget, the former minister of finance, the hon. Jim Flaherty, had opened consultations on the subject of base erosion and profit sharing. He did this specifically so he could go to the G20 and be able to make proposals and participate fully in those discussions on base erosion and profit sharing, which we are the beneficiaries of today.

I must give the government a little credit for taking its ideological blinders off. It does not seem to say that this is a Harper initiative. It has not blamed the former prime minister yet. I certainly hope that as we go through my speech today it will recognize sometimes there is much need for a new government to carry on the very good work of a previous government. We should not always judge something simply because of who had started an initiative.

During my time as the parliamentary secretary to the president of the Treasury Board in the previous Parliament, we worked on some pretty technical legislation from time to time. I will admit to having a certain affection for regulatory related bills that could provide benefits to Canadians and Canadian industry, particularly if they are done in such a way that is harmonized to reduce red tape. We recognize that Canada is increasingly becoming a competitor on the world stage, and we are likely to see more international trade, not less.

We must also recognize that with that come challenges. As one example, we have a situation where over this past summer the Liberal government was forced to modify its national carbon policy. Basically, it provided more carbon tax relief to some of Canada's biggest polluters. This is not unlike what happened in my home province of British Columbia, where greenhouse growers and cement manufacturers, to name a few, have been given so much in subsidies, exemptions or other kinds of carbon tax relief there is actually a word for it. It is called “carbon leakage”. It is defined in the 2018 B.C. NDP provincial budget as “...industries that compete with industry in countries that may have low or no carbon price. If BC loses market share to more polluting competitors, known as carbon leakage, it affects our economy and does not reduce global greenhouse gas emissions.” This is the same reason this Liberal government provided increased carbon tax relief to big polluters, because, ultimately, they compete with industry in the United States and elsewhere that do not have a nationally imposed carbon tax.

We are not here to debate the carbon tax. I am using it as an example because it illustrates the importance of being competitive. As we all know, being competitive in the corporate world often comes down to the bottom line, and we know how much the bottom line bears on our businesses, at least on this side of the House, as the Conservative Party has a very strong understanding. This creates a situation where, ultimately through creative, and some would argue dubious accounting practices, some companies can find creative ways to transfer wealth created in one country into another country with a much lower tax regime. Some countries even make a point of creating a regulatory and financial environment that actively encourages this sort of behaviour.

How do we fix that? Obviously, one approach would be an attempt to lower taxes to a level on par with some of these countries to stop the outflow of revenue. Many refer to this as the “race to the bottom” approach.

There is possibly another solution, which brings us to Bill C-82, which we are debating here today. What if we could get as many countries as possible to sign on to a common regulatory fiscal taxation approach that would better protect countries from this problem? Having similar fiscal language with respect to taxation would help reduce the regulatory red tape burden more than if we went at it piecemeal.

Not to mention there are greater efficiencies in adopting the kind of universal standard with OECD countries which sign on as opposed to having the same individual countries try to collect and negotiate separate tax treaty agreements among themselves.

To be fair, this multilateral instrument allows for Canada to quickly and efficiently update its agreements so that both the CRA and the tax authority in the adjoining country will immediately start to proceed, as the multilateral instrument has said, through the existing tax treaty. It is a very efficient way.

This is called, obviously, the multilateral convention to implement tax treaty related measures to prevent base erosion and profit shifting. Because that is a mouthful, we will simply refer to it as the MLI agreement. This work was started with the former Conservative government and I am pleased that the current government is continuing to work on this to the point we are here today debating the ratification agreement. Again, the agreement covers 75 jurisdictions worldwide and it is expected in the near future it will be over 100. That is a good thing.

While there are many benefits to the agreement, I should say it is not without some criticism. Some have suggested adopting the OECD MLI would result in the loss of tax autonomy for the country in question; however, I would point out there are provisions in the MLI agreement that allow countries to opt out of certain parts of the MLI at their discretion. This, by extension, can allow countries to still enable a specific tax structure but ultimately might provide unique tax benefits in certain areas. While some may consider that to be a bad thing, I also believe having a framework that allows some competitive incentive that keeps overall taxation levels in check is an important tool for countries to have.

Ultimately, this agreement is more targeted toward those who transfer money between countries for the sole purpose of avoiding taxation. Some people might say that some of this might be borderline tax evasion and in certain cases there may be, but let us be clear that Canada already has existing laws on tax evasion. That is not legal and the CRA should pursue those people who push the envelope much too far and know they are past the envelope.

I believe this agreement is more targeted toward specially transferred money between countries for the sole purpose of evading. In balance, I believe that is positive. Some have said that these types of agreements have not been successfully implemented in Canada before, but I would disagree with that. In the previous Parliament, we passed Bill S-12, An Act to amend the Statutory Instruments Act and to make consequential amendments to the Statutory Instruments Regulations. That bill proposed the ability to import standardized regulations from other jurisdictions so we have parity here in Canada. That makes it much more convenient for Canadian manufacturers as it can be extremely costly in addition to meeting a plethora of different standards in other jurisdictions.

Getting back to the MLI, time will tell the overall effect of this. The challenge right now is that some of these tax avoidance schemes are entirely legal, so this agreement creates a taxation environment that would provide common tax measures that will help to eliminate abusive taxation policy.

Before I close, I would like to take a moment and relay one concern I do have. As we know, the United States is not a signatory partner to this agreement. Given the close relationship in industry between our two countries, with many companies having U.S.A. and Canadian ties, there could be long-term impacts down the road. Obviously we also see concern over NAFTA where we will need to be vigilant in monitoring our competitiveness with our neighbours to the south.

Overall, I believe the bill is an important one and moves Canada in the right direction in parity with the majority of our G20 partners. I will be voting for the bill and believe that added scrutiny at committee stage, particularly on some of these thorny points, will be beneficial. I appreciate the House hearing my thoughts on the bill today.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I won't be too long on this.

I don't know if it will be friendly or not, but this is about consistency with what has actually been passed in the House of Commons. There was quite a debate on this in the House of Commons, to get it through. It went through the several readings, then it went through committee, then it came back, and now it's in the Senate. I would hate for the Senate, in it's consideration of this bill now, to ask why a committee of the government is voting against the definitions it proposed, which passed in the House of Commons.

It will be kind of interesting, actually, when the Senate finds out that we have basically gone against the human rights definition proposed by the government previously. I think they're going to have an interesting conversation. Questions will probably arise from the Conservatives in the Senate as well. I won't say that we unfortunately don't have Senate members, because we've chosen not to have Senate members. That's another discussion, and I'm not filibustering, so I won't get into that.

I do want to point out though that as this bill is travelling through the Senate it's going to be interesting to see how they actually see this, and whether or not this could mean some amendments to the bill coming back to the House of Commons. Then the House of Commons will have to deal with it. If the Liberals are being inconsistent with disability, gender, and all those things, as well as the things that I've proposed here on a previous Bill S-12, it will be rather interesting to see whether or not that has consequences. I'm getting a little tired of trying to do favours for the Liberals here, but at any rate, I think it's very important.

Now the distinct difference in this, in terms of mental and physical disabilities, besides the issue of it being consistent, is that there has been a lot of discussion in society about mental illness and its affect on the workplace. In fact, you've even seen corporations take that up as well, by raising funds and so forth. There has been a better distinction with regard to mental illness and awareness. Before, it was seen as shame and not coming forth. Now we've seen stars and celebrities come out with mental health expressions in terms of their own personal struggles. There is one Canadian, obviously, Howie Mandel, as well as others who have chosen at personal risk to come forward and be champions of this. Now it's getting a little bit more notoriety than ever before in the sense that an awareness is there.

Awareness is also taking place in the school systems. There was a lot of bullying taking place in the past that was often related to some mental illness problems, which can resonate even from the home. There's also a whole series of problems that we now have with the use of medications and where they go. This is an issue that's complicated, because it can affect getting access to medications that are correct for a person, and the use of those medications. One of the interesting things to watch, sociologically, over the last number of years has been the progression of mental illness, now being associated with the workplace.

Why I think this is so important for the boards of directors, and for the expression of this, is that it will show again that the most important thing is action, not words. Action on this will actually get corporations to identify those champions, if they want to self-identify. It won't make them do it if they don't want to, but they will self-identify with the mental illness, and it will count on the board. Say, for example, Howie Mandel or somebody else wants to go on a board and self-disclose, he'll be able to do that and that will show role models. One of the biggest things that has taken place with regard to any type of piercing of the establishment of rule-based systems that are racist, sexist, and discriminatory are role models.

Having this in the bill, in terms of medical and physical disability, will also be an identification source that we won't just pass on to regulations. For example, even here, if it weren't mentioned, it could potentially go unmentioned in the regulations. It's one of those ones that shows as a modernization and is very important.

Again, we can't underestimate how this bill can enforce legislation and information. We've heard testimony over and again, specifically, that having quantifiable information will lead to that diversity.

I'll leave it there, Mr. Chair. I'm hoping that somebody else might want to chime in on it, but again, I think it shows leadership.

Right now we have all these days in ribbons on the Hill. We have so many ribbons that we wear for different things. One of them is for mental illness. Here's a chance for us to do something about it, so let's do it. All we're talking about is including this in the motion. The main motion is yet to be discussed.

This is the subamendment we're talking about, so it doesn't mean that you are agreeing that it will go forward just yet. You're asking for its inclusion.

Incorporation by Reference in Regulations Act

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, after I was elected in 2011 by my constituents in Gatineau, to whom I am grateful for this immense honour, our then leader, the great Jack Layton, did me the honour of naming me co-chair of the Standing Joint Committee on Scrutiny of Regulations, a joint committee of the Senate and the House of Commons. I admit that I wondered what a committee like that was all about.

I heard the member for Malpeque say that he would rather watch paint dry than attend a meeting of that committee. In my opinion, members of that committee have to be passionate about the law and have an immense respect for our role as legislators.

What is more, that role is not just about creating laws and bringing them into effect. It is also about making the related regulations. The law is one thing, but that law often requires the creation of dozens of regulations for its implementation.

I want to thank the members of the committee, but especially all the experts who guide us in that committee. However, I no longer have the pleasure of being a member of that committee. It is true that I wondered what that committee was all about. In reality, I also wondered at first if I was being punished, but I realized that I was not. My leader at the time felt that my background as a lawyer with 30 years of experience, which I sadly admit in the House, made me a prime candidate to co-chair the committee.

I saw first-hand the thoroughness of the experts and of the departmental and House staff who provided support as we carried out this difficult work. Every week we had a foot-high pile of documents to examine during a two-hour committee meeting, and I am hardly exaggerating. One might have said it was challenging and rather dry, but it was necessary work nonetheless.

I would like to give a little background. Members forget that Bill S-2 was originally introduced in 2012 by the Conservative government in the form of Bill S-12.

At the time, as deputy justice critic for my colleague from St. John's East, our justice critic, and as a member of the Standing Joint Committee on Scrutiny of Regulations, I also had the great pleasure of being responsible for Bill S-12.

From the beginning I have been saying that this bill is a sleeper. I am pleased that we have another opportunity to debate it, although it is at third reading. We did not have much time to debate second reading and report stages, and there were not many meetings of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights.

My colleague from La Pointe-de-l'Île continues the work on Bill S-2 that I had started on Bill S-12, and I thank her for that. She took this on during the study in committee and at all stages in the House.

I called this bill the sleeper of this legislature because this is a bill that could have a huge impact on the lives of Canadians. I do not get the impression that members on the Conservative benches have taken it as seriously as they should have. I said this when I spoke at report stage. It has not drawn much attention from the media, aside from journalist Tom Korski at Blacklock's Reporter. What he wrote in 2012 might have been what first tipped me off.

The title of the article was:

“Senate Quietly Ends 171 Years Of Scrutiny With Bill”.

The article said:

An obscure Senate bill will end 171 years of open scrutiny of regulations governing virtually every aspect of the economy and national life, critics say.

The government legislation…would permit the introduction of new rules without plain disclosure of all related laws—

It would end a practice that predates Confederation.

At the time, some senators expressed their opinions, including Senator Harb, who has since retired and is dealing with other problems.

He said:

“This is a big, big problem. There is little awareness of this bill. If regulated industries become aware of what is in this bill, there will be outrage.”

Senator Marjorie LeBreton, a senator that the Conservatives might be more inclined to listen to and the government leader in the Upper House at the time, refused an interview.

The government bill was introduced without fanfare in the Senate on October 17, 2012.

I find this next part interesting. It quotes Mac Harb:

In the House of Commons too many MPs ask questions. In the Senate there are many new senators who do not understand the history of these procedures. The Senate is a dull place. I think they are trying to force it through.

The article explains the practice. It states:

Under a practice that dates from 1841, all federal rules and decisions must be plainly published for public scrutiny to provide Canadians “their rightful access to the laws and regulations that govern their daily lives,” according to the Canada Gazette Directorate, the federal agency that prints all details of legislation.

Under bill S-12, An Act To Amend The Statutory Instruments Act [now Bill S-2], regulations could be delegated—

—and that is also important—

—from unpublished sources “as amended from time to time” in a little-known practice called “incorporation by reference”....

“This cuts down on the onerous amount of material that would have to be included in a number of regulations,” a bill supporter, Senator Linda Frum, told the Upper House.

That, I would say, is probably the main argument for the government—to really trim down and help out—because it is true that there are tens of thousands of pages per year. I do agree, but we have to do it in a correct fashion.

Still quoting Senator Frum, the article continues:

“If a regulation provides that hockey helmets must be manufactured in accordance with a particular Canadian Standards Association standard, the effect of that reference is to make that standard part of the regulation without actually reproducing the text of the standard in the regulation itself.”

That seems to make sense.

It continues:

In debate, Senator Harb called the bill “a blockbuster” that would permit the government to enact new regulations without public scrutiny or parliamentary approval.

As quoted in the article, Senator Harb said:

“Once we lose control, things may very well go off the rails.”

I will not read the rest of the article to the House. That was probably the first little thing that set off alarm bells with respect to the study of Bill S-12 at the time, which is now Bill S-2.

It may be the price the government opposite is paying for the lack of transparency, collaboration and co-operation on the part of the government and its senior members. That has been prevalent and we need only think of the 100 gag orders that have been imposed. How many times did we present reasonable amendments in committee in an attempt to improve bills? How many times did Conservative colleagues sitting on a committee tell us that it made sense? How many times did we move motions that committee members seemed to agree with, only to see that the members on Conservative benches had been told what to do by the Prime Minister's Office or the office of the minister concerned?

In the long run, it means that we will be a little more cautious in our analysis. As I have often said every time new Conservative justice bills were introduced, the devil is in the details. Often, it is just smoke and mirrors. However, sometimes, in a large bill with many pages that seems to make sense, a small provision destroys all the political capital that the government could have earned. When we were young and we did something wrong, our parents would tell us that we had lost their trust and that we would have to earn it back. The official opposition is finding it very difficult to trust this government because of what it has done. I am thinking of access to information, for example, the reports and the fact that people sometimes have to wait four or five years to obtain the information they requested. We are here for Canadians, but the Conservatives do not often seem to think so.

I will now move on to another extremely important aspect, which is the law itself. Bill S-2 contains a variety of problems. It amends the Statutory Instruments Act and makes consequential amendments to the Statutory Instruments Regulations. I am not sure whether everyone has carefully read the act amended by Bill S-2 and before that by Bill S-12. However, subsection 3(1), which concerns the examination of proposed regulations, is extremely important. It is the key to why the House and the Senate created a joint committee on scrutiny of regulations. This stems from the very important responsibility of ensuring that our regulations are consistent. It often felt quite trivial at the Standing Joint Committee on Scrutiny of Regulations. The differences lay in the wording and the words used, involving either translation and bilingualism issues or errors in the French or the English versions. More often than not the errors were in the French version, because most legislation was developed in English and there were translation errors. We saw how long it took for the experts supporting us in committee to obtain information. I am sure that the Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board, if he is sincere, will admit how many good kicks, some of them hard, we had to give to the more resistant departments—I will not name the Department of the Environment or the Department of Transport—which took an inordinate amount of time to reply to our experts, who wrote to these departments on behalf of the committee for information on how they drafted their regulations. We need to remember the importance of regulations when we see a process that will bypass all that. With all due respect for my friends across the way, that is the impact this bill will have.

We need to remember the importance of regulations. We do not talk about it often in the House, and that may be why there is a kind of polite disdain. When I was trying to get a teeny tiny budget for the joint committee, a Conservative member told me in another committee that it was probably the most useless committee. That is what some Conservative members think of the Standing Joint Committee on Scrutiny of Regulations, and I am terribly worried about that. I still have not gotten over that comment. I know that many people share that opinion because the committee's work seems so boring. One has to really love the law, and one has to love reading regulatory texts. I know that the Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board is like me: he adores that kind of work. It is essential work.

We will not have many more opportunities to talk about Bill S-2, which we will vote on later this afternoon. The bill number indicates that it is from the Senate. It has already gone through the Senate process before coming here. That is another problem I just cannot get over. I have already commented on this issue many times. If this bill is as important as they say it is, I do not see why it was brought in through the back door.

Section 3 of the Statutory Instruments Act states the following:

3. (1) Subject to any regulations made pursuant to paragraph 20(a), where a regulation-making authority proposes to make a regulation, it shall cause to be forwarded to the Clerk of the Privy Council three copies of the proposed regulation in both official languages.

(2) On receipt by the Clerk of the Privy Council of copies of a proposed regulation pursuant to subsection (1), the Clerk of the Privy Council, in consultation with the Deputy Minister of Justice, shall examine the proposed regulation to ensure that:

(a) it is authorized by the statute pursuant to which it is to be made;

(b) it does not constitute an unusual or unexpected use of the authority pursuant to which it is to be made;

(c) it does not trespass unduly on existing rights and freedoms and is not, in any case, inconsistent with the purposes and provisions of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Canadian Bill of Rights; and

(d) the form and draftsmanship of the proposed regulation are in accordance with established standards.

It is therefore important that regulations respect the Constitution and the charter just as much as laws. I still have some concerns, because this government always passes bills after ignoring the views of experts who tell us repeatedly in committee that the bills have serious shortcomings in that they are unconstitutional or they are not consistent with the charter. The last thing I want to do is give this government a blank cheque when it comes to regulation by reference.

It is worth noting that incorporation by reference is not illegal. That is right; it is already happening. However, I think there have been 160 unauthorized delegations by reference in enabling legislation, and the legality of that procedure is still a subject of dispute between the Standing Joint Committee on Scrutiny of Regulations and the government or specific departments.

The government did not take any chances, just as it did not take any chances when it destroyed the gun registry data. It introduced clause 18.7, what I call a pardon provision, which retroactively deems all incorporations by reference valid.

Incorporation by reference usually has to be authorized by enabling legislation. In other words, when parliamentarians pass such legislation, they are agreeing to give this power to the minister or the Governor in Council. However, it is still the law that governs incorporation by reference.

With the stroke of a pen, Bill S-2 blindly gives this power away without evaluating the need to proceed with incorporation by reference under certain laws. It is a way of neutralizing the power of members of Parliament to guarantee to their constituents that things are done properly. This bill gives the government carte blanche to do almost anything it wants. The Conservative government does not have a stellar record when it comes to that sort of thing, though. It is extremely worrisome.

I will not have the time to raise all my concerns, but, in short, I would say that the greatest flaw in Bill S-2 is the notion of accessibility in clause 18.6.

It still bothers me that the committee members rejected the amendments by my colleague from La Pointe-de-l'Île, which could have clarified some concepts and nuances concerning the issue of retroactivity. It disgusts me that something that was illegal is suddenly legal because the government revisited the past. That is the wrong thing to do.

There is also the matter of the documents, which my colleague spoke about earlier. It is a rather vague term that should have been more specific. With regard to bilingualism, I congratulate the government on its international treaties, but we all know that some of those regulations will find their way here and will not be in the language of our big, beautiful country's other founding people. I am extremely worried about the inherent rights of Canada's francophones.

We know full well that some treaties are very long, and I do not think that the regulations will be translated into French. I get the impression that taxpayers will pay the price for this.

There are thus some troubling aspects, and I would have liked it if we could have taken a little more time to examine this bill. I imagine that it will be up to the next government—and I hope with all my heart that it will be an NDP government—to do the work that this government refused to do. We were seeking to improve the bill with the amendments that we proposed in good faith.

I was going to say that this will be my last speech in the House, but it seems that the government is making me give another one this afternoon. I will therefore save all my thanks to the extraordinary people of Gatineau who have given me their unconditional support since 2011 until later this afternoon when I give my next speech. In the meantime, I am happy to answer any questions.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

I would like to ask some preliminary questions.

Am I wrong to say that Bill S-2 is an exact copy of Bill S-12? It deals with exactly the same thing, not a comma has been changed.

You say that you are just putting on paper what already existed. I have read the Senate evidence and debates. Correct me if I am wrong, but I read that dynamic incorporation by reference has been used 170 times since 2006 and that, in most cases, this was done without express authorization from Parliament.

I imagine that is the motivation behind clause 18.7. It reads:

18.7 The validity of an incorporation by reference that conforms with section 18.1 and that was made before the day on which that section comes into force is confirmed.

Clause 18.7 is a default clause, in a way. According to the department's interpretation, things have been done correctly and legally. However, you will all agree that the Standing Joint Committee on Scrutiny of Regulations does not necessarily share that opinion. According to the committee, the enabling legislation must specify the express right to use dynamic incorporation by reference. Also according to the committee, I believe that is the way in which we must proceed rather than coming up with a bill like this, which is more of a hodge-podge that makes it possible to act in that way basically at any time. I will not say that it can be done in any way, but it can be done at any time, as long as the criteria in Bill S-2 are met.

[Craig Scott, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am very glad to be continuing the discussion on Bill S-2.

I would also like to thank the government for today's proceedings. If I have interpreted this correctly, we might have been hearing debate on Bill C-41, the South Korea trade agreement, which would have been at report stage, and it was known that a member of the House, the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands, as an independent, wanted to move some report stage amendments. It strikes me that the reason we are not debating Bill C-41 is to give this member the chance to move those amendments later. If that is the rationale for the government changing the orders of the day, I would like to thank it for that act of collegiality.

We have been hearing from both the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Trade and the last speaker, though they did not themselves use these words, that this piece of legislation is a form of house cleaning for the essential plumbing of the legislative and regulatory system, by virtue of making it somewhat clearer, or at least putting down rules, about how incorporation by reference occurs. Of course, incorporation by reference, for those tuning in to these proceedings for the first time, refers to a drafting technique whereby a legislative text or regulatory text includes external material. That is material that has been expressed elsewhere and is referred to in a general way, but all of its specificities are thereby understood to be incorporated despite not being enumerated specifically in the regulation or the legislative provision.

One might refer to an annex to an international treaty, which may be 10 pages or 100 pages. Rather than rewriting that annex, it is referred to and is understood that all of the text in that annex is thereby incorporated into the legislative provision or regulation that makes reference to it. That is incorporation by reference.

It is important to note that the sources that one can refer to and then incorporate by reference do not appear to be limited by this bill, and generally in practice they are not. They can include provisions from the very same text later in the text, provisions from another legislative text from the same jurisdiction, legislative text of another jurisdiction, which could include the provinces, for example, or a territorial government. It could even include a foreign jurisdiction. We could refer to some text in the United Kingdom's legal system that would be viewed as incorporated by reference. It could also include international agreements, technical standards produced by private associations, and technical standards produced by mixed bodies. In an increasingly transnational world, we have standards bodies that involve actors that are quite often both public and private, meeting well outside the shores of Canada, and that come up with standards that we in turn could incorporate into our legal system.

There are two kinds of incorporation by reference. Closed incorporation by reference means that when we incorporate something by reference we are only incorporating the text as it stood at the time of incorporation. If that text later changes, those changes are not thereby incorporated.

On the other hand, open, ambulatory, or dynamic incorporation by reference means that we first start by incorporating the text; however, if that text changes later at the hands of the other body, the external source of that text, those new changes enter into the law as changes for the law. To be clear, subsequent amendments to the incorporated text would be automatically incorporated if we are using open or ambulatory incorporation. Often that is signalled in our laws by language that references a text, such as, an annex to an international treaty as it may be amended from time to time. This is often the way to signal that.

There are clear advantages to this. Nobody in the House is saying that what the government is trying to do makes no sense. It certainly makes a lot of sense. It prevents duplication of text so that we do not have to reproduce large amounts of material throughout the entire range of laws. It promotes harmonization and consistency of standards. That is increasingly important, not just for federal-provincial relations where there is always an attempt to coordinate laws in the similar area, but also with respect to transnational harmonization.

All of that also leads to a third benefit, which is efficiency. It is simply a more efficient and effective way for government to legislate and regulate, and it is also efficient for certain sectors that rely on regulations in particular to know what conduct is permitted or required. In a lot of business sectors there are reams of regulatory specialists who need to have an efficient framework within which to work. The bill will probably help with respect to that.

Now I would like to turn to the potential disadvantages. First, with any form of incorporation by reference, there are always multiple sources to consult. We think we can read in the document what we are required to do, and suddenly we are sent somewhere else and we have to find that other source.

There may also be access problems, in the sense of copyright, such that sometimes, if care is not taken, the text referred to that is external to the regulation or the legislative provision is not easily accessible. It may be behind some kind of firewall, or it may have copyright provisions, which means that it cannot be taken and uploaded for everyone else to see so that everyone is on the same page.

The third disadvantage is that there are issues in our federation of this being coordinated with the availability of the externally referenced document in both official languages. There is enough evidence to suggest that this does not always occur.

I would now like to move on to the possible disadvantages with ambulatory or open incorporation by reference. The first one is there being no accessibility. Accessibility, as stated in Bill S-2, is part of the technique of regulating by incorporation by reference, but it is not made clear in Bill S-2 exactly how that would occur.

When we have open incorporation by reference, without constant monitoring of the external body that may be amending its own documents, which then automatically get amended by our law because the incorporation by reference is open, there could be a serious accessibility problem. People would not know that the standards have shifted. They cannot rely on knowing what the standard was when the regulation was adopted because incorporation by reference was not static; it was open.

Second, there is a large issue called subdelegation. Quite apart from accessibility, there is the issue around accessibility of changes as they occur from time to time at the hands of external actors, the rule against subdelegation—I would not even call it a constitutional or administrative law of principle, but a good governance democratic principle. The giving over of the power to external bodies to change the law adopted by Parliament is one thing, but the regulations that are then adopted pursuant to an act of Parliament, the giving over of that power to external bodies, raise fundamental principles of accountability.

It is important to know that the joint committee of the two Houses on scrutiny of regulation has for some time made clear that it views open incorporation by reference as creating a problem of subdelegation involving a very particular problem of accountability in that Parliament itself cannot make sure that when incorporation by reference takes place, which can change from time to time, there is scrutiny and accountability for those changes.

I will quote from our joint committee report, and I believe this quote is from 2007.

It has always been the view of the Joint Committee that the incorporation by reference of external material into regulations “as amended from time to time” amounts to a subdelegation of regulation-making power, in that it will be the body amending the incorporated material, and not the authority on whom the power to make the regulations has been conferred, who will determine the content of the regulations.

On this point, it is extremely important to note why there would be a concern with subdelegation. It is not simply a matter of pointing out that it is subdelegation. It is saying that incorporation by reference would allow one to refer to an external body's set of rules, which we could cope with if it is static, because at the time of the adoption of the regulation we would know what we were incorporating and those regulations would be scrutinized by the joint committee on scrutiny of regulations as they stood at the time of the incorporation. However, the moment we have open incorporation by reference, the subsequent changes never come back before the joint committee on scrutiny of regulations. They are automatically brought into the law. Also, there is nothing in this, that I can tell, that actually deals with this very particular problem of accountability.

Imagine all of the private sector actors—standards councils, for example, transnational bodies from the banking sector, consumer safety—that produce standards that can indeed change from time to time, and suddenly, by virtue of an open incorporation by reference, they become part of the law. They produce accessibility problems for industrial sector actors to know that the content has changed, but most importantly, they produce accountability problems in so far as Parliament itself never actually gets to deal with the changes unless somehow we were to create new mechanisms for that. I do not believe, unless I have misread Bill S-2, that the bill would do that.

The parliamentary oversight issue is really important when we know that the practice we follow, and which would be in some sense codified by the proposed legislation, is not invariably the practice of other jurisdictions to which we would look to see whether or not we could learn from them. Jurisdictions like Ontario or Manitoba here in Canada, and places like Australia and New Zealand, which tend to often be ahead of us when it comes to parliamentary governance reform, have laws that limit the use of open incorporation to specified instances determined on a case-by-case basis, and so there is an awareness that there needs to be a more constraining framework for open incorporation by reference in those jurisdictions. However, that awareness does not seem to be present with respect to the government's approach through Bill S-2. Indeed, Bill S-2 would collapse open and ambulatory incorporation by reference in the sense of making almost no distinctions between the two, in any place, as far as I can tell.

Finally, I think it is important to return to a point that I made in the question and comments session after the last speaker, which is to note that there was extensive Senate debate. There were concerns expressed, not dissimilar to the concerns I have been expressing, and in the report of the Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs on Bill S-2—although it was obviously determined by the majority, which I assume were Conservative senators, to not put forward any amendments—there was a signal sent, and it was the following:

Some witnesses who were supportive of Bill S-12 nonetheless expressed a desire for greater certainty about how the bill would be implemented. The committee encourages the government to develop guidelines with respect to the use of incorporation by reference.

Now that is a mild recommendation, but to me it is also minimal. I think the government is honour bound to come up with those regulations if it insists that, by the end of this process in the House of Commons, it is not going to build in legislative safeguards that take into account the problems I have been addressing.

At minimum, we need guidelines so we have an extra level of understanding about when the government would be using open incorporation by reference. Beyond that, we need guidelines that make very clear what the government understands by “accessibility” of external documents because that itself is not defined in Bill S-2.

We had a good question from my colleague from York South—Weston, who asked about questions of accessibility for the disabled. There is language accessibility, there are questions of copyright, and there is the fundamental question of whether the government should not have a duty to have a central repository, in this Internet age, of all externally referenced documents. There would be no problem at all to create a central government site where every externally referenced document would be hyperlinked, with a reference to where it also appears in our regulations or our legislation, and the hyperlink would be constantly checked by a team of civil servants to ensure that it is live and that the newly updated externally incorporated texts are the ones being linked to.

At minimum, I would suggest that the government consider something like that, which would at least be consistent with what the Conservatives are seeking to do with this bill, by having a lean bill that is not too prescriptive. I would prefer a bill that is more prescriptive, but at minimum I would ask them to please take into account what amounts to a recommendation from the Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs to develop such guidelines, and along with those guidelines develop a practice of a central Internet portal, such as I suggested.

I would like to now return to my own remarks from February 2013. As I have already indicated, this bill essentially was before us before the last prorogation. In February 2013, I had the privilege to speak to it. I would also refer anybody interested in following this particular debate to ensure they read the speeches at that time by the members for Gatineau and Hamilton Mountain, both of whom gave extraordinarily insightful speeches about some of the problems with this bill.

Here are some of the central points I made, and I am treading on some ground I have already covered, but at that time I may have put it even better and I would like to summarize.

The government essentially would have us believe that Bill S-2, which was Bill S-12, is essentially technical or housekeeping, albeit important. In part, the Conservatives do that by suggesting it simplify codifies existing practices of how regulations are drafted to incorporate by reference, and all this is doing is making that clearer in a statutory framework, so there is a rule-of-law goal accomplished.

Although at the time journalists began to talk about this as just a routine bill, I do not know if any journalists are paying any attention to the fact that the bill is now back in another form. However, the fact of the matter is that Bill S-2 is anything but innocuous.

In my capacity not only as a former professor of law but also as the official opposition critic for democratic and parliamentary reform, I believe that this bill could end up being an anti-democratic reform. It could be a step backward for accountable government. Essentially, it would give carte blanche to the executive branch to use incorporation by reference of an open sort with very few, if any, serious constraints.

Regulations can change over time when external bodies that have no accountability relationship to Parliament decide on their own to revise those documents. They have automatically become the law with no further action required from the Canadian state, let alone from Parliament; and the Standing Joint Committee for the Scrutiny of Regulations—a committee of both the Senate and the House of Commons—would never see these ambulatory changes. When changes come in externally, once the regulation that incorporates the external document has been incorporated and that external document becomes updated, the joint committee never sees it.

That is a huge accountability problem, especially when we know that one of the functions of the joint committee on the scrutiny of regulations is charter compliance scrutiny. It is not at all difficult to imagine how, in some sectors, an external body having no responsibility to think about our constitutional framework could come out with changes that, if automatically incorporated by reference, could actually cause problems for our conformity with our charter.

The point of the matter is that I am not saying this would happen in most cases. For the most part, the harmonization function of what is being codified here will prevail, but there are fundamental accountability issues, and there are imaginable cases when escaping from accountability of Parliament actually will result in a setback for democracy.

[Craig Scott, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would also like to ask my colleague if he is aware that in the Senate the bill, both in its form as Bill S-12 and in its current form as Bill S-2, has come to us each time without specific amendments. That would leave a false impression about the extent of the debate that went on in the Senate where the bill originated. There was extensive debate about some of the problems with the bill, and a lot of witnesses at the Senate committee said there were problems. That did not lead to amendments or even suggested amendments beyond the guideline suggestion that I referred to earlier.

I am looking for some assurance from the government side that when the bill does go to committee in the House, that the kinds of concerns that were expressed in the Senate, and that we will hear today, will be taken seriously because of the fundamental nature of the regulatory system for our democracy.

[Craig Scott, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for introducing us to the debate. We already looked at this issue some time ago when it was Bill S-12. As at that time, and as I will say in my own speech, one of my concerns is how the general regulatory framework and this bill would deal with open or ambulatory incorporation by reference.

I may not have been listening as carefully as I should have been to my hon. colleague, but I am wondering if he could address the question of open incorporation by reference and whether he feels that the collapse of closed and open incorporation by reference by the bill would be a problem and whether we should have very specific rules for open incorporation by reference.

Business of the House

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, this time last week, I said that I hoped to have a substantial list of accomplishments to report to the House. Indeed, I do.

In just the last five days, thanks to a lot of members of Parliament who have been here sitting late at night, working until past midnight, we have accomplished a lot. Bill C-60, the economic action plan 2013 act, no. 1, the important job-creating bill, which was the cornerstone of our government's spring agenda, passed at third reading. Bill S-8, the safe drinking water for first nations act, passed at third reading. Bill S-2, the family homes on reserves and matrimonial interests or rights act, passed at third reading. Bill C-62, the Yale First Nation final agreement act, was reported back from committee and was passed at report stage and passed at third reading. Bill C-49, the Canadian museum of history act, was reported back from committee. Bill C-54, the not criminally responsible reform act, was reported back from committee this morning with amendments from all three parties. Bill S-14, the fighting foreign corruption act, has been passed at committee, and I understand that the House should get a report soon. Bill S-15, the expansion and conservation of Canada’s national parks act, passed at second reading. Bill S-17, the tax conventions implementation act, 2013, passed at second reading. Bill S-10, the prohibiting cluster munitions act, passed at second reading. Bill S-6, the first nations elections act, has been debated at second reading. Bill C-61, the offshore health and safety act, has been debated at second reading. Bill S-16, the tackling contraband tobacco act, has been debated at second reading. Finally, Bill C-65, the respect for communities act, was also debated at second reading.

On the private members' business front, one bill passed at third reading and another at second reading. Of course, that reflects the unprecedented success of private members advancing their ideas and proposals through Parliament under this government, something that is a record under this Parliament. This includes 21 bills put forward by members of the Conservative caucus that have been passed by the House. Twelve of those have already received royal assent or are awaiting the next ceremony. Never before have we seen so many members of Parliament successfully advance so many causes of great importance to them. Never in Canadian history have individual MPs had so much input into changing Canada's laws through their own private members' bills in any session of Parliament as has happened under this government.

Hard-working members of Parliament are reporting the results of their spring labours in our committee rooms. Since last week, we have got substantive reports from the Standing Committee on Public Accounts, the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development, the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food, the Standing Committee on Health, the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, and the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates.

We are now into the home stretch of the spring sitting. Since I would like to give priority to any bills which come back from committee, I expect that the business for the coming days may need to be juggled as we endeavour to do that.

I will continue to make constructive proposals to my colleagues for the orderly management of House business. For example, last night, I was able to bring forward a reasonable proposal for today's business, a proposal that had the backing of four of the five political parties that elected MPs. Unfortunately, one party objected, despite the very generous provision made for it with respect to the number of speakers it specifically told us it wanted to have. Nonetheless, I would like to thank those who did work constructively toward it.

I would point out that the night before, I made a similar offer, again, based on our efforts to accommodate the needs of all the parties.

Today we will complete second reading of Bill S-16, the tackling contraband tobacco act. Then we will start second reading of Bill C-57, the safeguarding Canada's seas and skies act.

Tomorrow morning we will start report stage of Bill C-49, the Canadian museum of history act. Following question period, we will return to the second reading debate on Bill S-6, the first nations elections act.

On Monday, before question period, we will start report stage and hopefully third reading of Bill C-54, the not criminally responsible reform act. After question period Monday, we will return to Bill C-49, followed by Bill C-65, the respect for communities act.

On Tuesday, we will also continue any unfinished business from Friday and Monday. We could also start report stage, and ideally, third reading of Bill S-14, the fighting foreign corruption act that day.

Wednesday, after tidying up what is left over from Tuesday, we will take up any additional bills that might be reported from committee. I understand that we could get reports from the hard-working finance and environment committees on Bill S-17 and Bill S-15 respectively.

Thereafter, the House could finish the four outstanding second-reading debates on the order paper: Bill C-57; Bill C-61; Bill S-12, the incorporation by reference in regulations act; and Bill S-13, the port state measures agreement implementation act.

I am looking forward to several more productive days as we get things done for Canadians here in Ottawa.

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I do want to start by reviewing what our House has accomplished over the preceding five days since I last answered the Thursday question.

Bill C-51, the safer witnesses act, was passed at third reading. Bill C-52, the fair rail freight service act, was passed at third reading. Bill C-63 and Bill C-64, the appropriations laws, passed at all stages last night as part of the last supply day of the spring cycle.

Bill S-2, the family homes on reserves and matrimonial interests or rights act, has been debated some more at third reading. Bill C-60, the economic action plan 2013 act, no. 1, was passed at report stage. Bill S-8, the safe drinking water for first nations act, was passed at report stage, was debated at third reading, and debate will continue.

Bill S-14, the fighting foreign corruption act, was passed at second reading. Bill C-56, combating counterfeit products act, was debated at second reading. Bill S-15, the expansion and conservation of Canada’s national parks act, was debated at second reading. Bill S-17, the tax conventions implementation act, 2013, was debated at second reading.

On Bill C-62, the Yale First Nation final agreement act, we adopted a ways and means motion, introduced the bill, passed it at second reading and it has since passed at committee. I anticipate we will be getting a report from the committee shortly.

Bill S-16, the tackling contraband tobacco act, was given first reading yesterday after arriving from the Senate. Bill C-65, the respect for communities act, was introduced this morning.

Substantive reports from four standing committees were adopted by the House.

On the private members' business front, the House witnessed three bills getting third reading, one being passed at report stage, two being reported back from committee and one was just passed at second reading and sent to a committee.

Last night was the replenishment of private members' business, with 15 hon. members bringing forward their ideas, which I am sure we will vigorously debate.

The House will continue to deliver results for Canadians over the next week. Today, we will finish the third reading debate on Bill S-8, the safe drinking water for first nations act. Then we will turn our collective attention to Bill S-15, the expansion and conservation of Canada’s national parks act, at second reading, followed by Bill S-2, the family homes on reserves and matrimonial interests or rights act, at third reading.

Tomorrow we will have the third reading debate on Bill C-60, the economic action plan 2013 act, no. 1. The final vote on this very important job creation and economic growth bill will be on Monday after question period.

Before we rise for the weekend, we hope to start second reading debate on Bill C-61, the offshore health and safety act.

On Monday, we will complete the debates on Bill S-15, the expansion and conservation of Canada’s national parks act, and Bill S-2, the family homes on reserves and matrimonial interests or rights act.

Today and next week, I would like to see us tackle the bills left on the order paper, with priority going to any bills coming back from committee.

As for the sequencing of the debates, I am certainly open to hearing the constructive proposals of my opposition counterparts on passing Bill S-6, the First Nations Elections Act, at second reading; Bill S-10, the Prohibiting Cluster Munitions Act, at second reading; Bill S-12, the Incorporation by Reference in Regulations Act, at second reading; Bill S-13, the Port State Measures Agreement Implementation Act, at second reading; Bill S-16, at second reading; Bill S-17, at second reading; Bill C-57, the Safeguarding Canada's Seas and Skies Act, at second reading; Bill C-61, at second reading; and Bill C-65, at second reading.

Mr. Speaker, I am looking forward to having another list of accomplishments to share with you, and all honourable members, this time next Thursday.

Suffice it to say, we are being productive, hard-working and orderly in delivering on the commitments we have made to Canadians.

There having been discussions among the parties that it will receive unanimous consent, I would like to propose a motion. I move:

That, notwithstanding any Standing Order or usual practices of this House, the member for Peace River be now permitted to table the Report of the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development in relation to Bill C-62, An Act to give effect to the Yale First Nation Final Agreement and to make consequential amendments to other Acts.

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, now that we have been sitting for a week under our Conservative government's plans for a harder-working, productive and orderly House of Commons, I would remind all hon. members of what we have been able to achieve since just Victoria Day.

Bill C-48, the technical tax amendments act, 2012, was passed at report stage and third reading. Bill C-49, the Canadian museum of history act, was passed at second reading. Bill C-51, the safer witnesses act, was passed at report stage and we started third reading debate, which we will finish tonight. Bill C-52, the fair rail freight service act was passed at report stage and, just moments ago, at third reading. Bill C-54, the not criminally responsible reform act, was passed at second reading. Bill C-60, the economic action plan 2013 act, No. 1, was reported back from committee yesterday.

Bill S-2, the family homes on reserves and matrimonial interests or rights act, was passed at report stage and we started third reading debate. Bill S-6, the first nations elections act, was debated at second reading. Bill S-8, the safe drinking water for first nations act, which was reported back to the House this morning by the hard-working and fast running member for Peace River, has completed committee. Bill S-10, the prohibiting cluster munitions act, was debated at second reading. Bill S-12, the incorporation by reference in regulations act, was debated at second reading. Bill S-13, the port state measures agreement implementation act, was debated at second reading. Bill S-14, the fighting foreign corruption act, was debated at second reading.

We will build on this record of accomplishment over the coming week.

This afternoon, as I mentioned, we will finish the second reading debate on Bill C-51. After that, we will start the second reading debate on Bill C-56, Combating Counterfeit Products Act.

Tomorrow morning, we will start report stage on Bill C-60, now that the hard-working Standing Committee on Finance has brought the bill back to us. After I conclude this statement, Mr. Speaker, I will have additional submissions for your consideration on yesterday's point of order.

After question period tomorrow, we will get a start on the second reading debate on Bill S-15, Expansion and Conservation of Canada’s National Parks Act. I am optimistic that we would not need much more time, at a future sitting, to finish that debate.

On Monday, before question period, we will debate Bill S-17, Tax Conventions Implementation Act, 2013, at second reading. In the afternoon, we will hopefully finish report stage consideration of Bill C-60, followed by Bill S-2 at third reading.

On Tuesday, we will return to Bill S-2 if necessary. After that, I hope we could use the time to pass a few of the other bills that I mentioned earlier, as well as the forthcoming bill on the Yale First Nation Final Agreement.

Wednesday, June 5 shall be the eighth allotted day of the supply cycle. That means we will discuss an NDP motion up until about 6:30 p.m. This will be followed by a debate on the main estimates. Then we will pass to two appropriations acts.

Next Thursday, I would like to return back to Bill C-60, our budget implementation legislation, so we can quickly pass that important bill for the Canadian economy.

Technical Tax Amendments Act, 2012

[Paul Calandra, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage]

Mr. Speaker, I am lucky, again, to rise today to speak to such an important bill before the House. Last week, I had the opportunity to speak to Bill S-12, an act to amend the Statutory Instruments Act, which was, of course, another very important piece of legislation we had before the House. That bill, like this one, was about red tape. It was about modernizing our system.

When I talked about that last week, I talked about how the opposition was not in favour of our reducing red tape. It did not like to talk about red tape, because when there is red tape, it confuses people and it makes government even more confusing and out of the reach of Canadians. Whenever a government brings forward a motion or a piece of legislation that would make it easier for Canadians to work, that would make it easier for Canadians to access their government, we know that the opposition will not be in favour of it.

I want to reference something the member for Kingston and the Islands talked about, in response to the member for Davenport, on the $3 billion this government and the previous Liberal government spent on anti-terrorism, safety and security in the country following the tragic events of 9/11.

We know that the opposition members often do not read legislation that is tabled in the House. Sometimes they make their decisions with respect to legislation before it is even tabled. We are seeing that with the current debate on the museum of history bill. Before the legislation was even tabled, they decided that they were going to vote against it. The same goes for our budgets, our economic action plans. Each and every year, before the budget is even tabled in the House of Commons, they make the decision that they are not going to read it and will just vote against it. No matter how many good things are in those plans for Canadians, no matter how many investments we are making for the Canadian economy and the people of Canada, they always make their decision, before it is even tabled, to vote against.

Specifically, when we talk about that $3.1 billion, again, what opposition members are saying is that they do not have the time or the desire or perhaps even the knowledge to go back and look at the Public Accounts of Canada and see what was tabled in the House. If they would do that, they would be able to find an account for all of those moneys we put on the table, and the previous Liberal government put on the table, with respect to preserving and protecting Canadians. That is, ultimately, one of the most fundamental activities of government. It is to ensure the safety and security of its people. We are not going to do the job for the NDP members. I am sure that they can do it on their own.

Why are technical tax amendments important? This has been something we have been faced with for many years. We have not updated or amended our technical tax amendments since 2001, if I am not mistaken. I know that the hard-working Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance has been doing some exceptional work on this.

The member for Kingston and the Islands talked about how great a speech the member for Burlington gave. However, even more important than the speech he gave is the work he has been doing for his community and for all members of Parliament with respect to getting us out of this global economic downturn we have faced. He has shown tremendous leadership, and I want to thank him for that and congratulate him as well. The member from Kingston referenced what a great father he is, and he truly is. He should be very proud of his family. I know there are great things ahead for them.

This is something Parliament has had before it for a number of years. It was never done. I do not know why the previous Liberal government never brought this forward. I will give the Liberals the benefit of the doubt and assume that they care about small business. I will assume that they care about Canadian families. I guess it just was not a priority for them. They were busy doing other things, so they never got around to looking at the things that would actually protect and enhance our economy. They were busy. They had the sponsorship scandal and were looking for $40 million that they have yet to find. They never got around to it.

When we came into office, we knew that we had to consult with Canadians. We knew that it was important. We sat down with big businesses, small businesses and medium businesses. These are the people who actually generate wealth, create jobs and help make our economy strong so that Canadians can be proud of their economy and so we can create jobs and investments for communities. We sat down with them.

Quite honestly, we do not take enough time in this place to recognize the hard work of those members of Parliament who sacrifice so much, as the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance does. It goes without saying that Canadians all over and people the world over know that we have the best Minister of Finance and Minister of State for Finance globally. They have been recognized as such, but there are also the parliamentary secretary and the entire finance committee.

When the global economic downtown occurred back in 2008, we had to take bold, decisive action. I remember that time, because in the 2007 year-end interviews, the Prime Minister at the time said there were going to be difficult times ahead and that we had to make sure to position the Canadian economy for what could be difficult times in the global economy. I remember the debate at that time.

I remember the opposition parties clamouring. They were upset because we had decided at that time that we were going to pay down debt. They said we should not be paying down debt but spending.

They did not say that we should spending by investing in tax cuts for Canadians; they said we should find programs and just spend, but we took a different track. We said that we had to pay down debt, because we knew that something could be coming in the global economy.

I recall how the opposition parties said we were crazy. However, when the global economic downturn hit, we were prepared, because we had made investments.

What are the types of investments that we made? We said it is not a bad thing to put more money in the pockets of Canadians. It is not a bad thing to invest in tax cuts for families. It is not a bad thing to invest in tax cuts for businesses, the people who create and generate wealth in this country. Therefore, we reduced the GST from 7% to 6% to 5%. What did that do? It put more money in the pockets of Canadians, and what did Canadians do? They went out into their communities and shopped and spent money and supported all of these small businesses across the country that actually create wealth, opportunity and jobs.

Let us talk about people like Frank from Frank's & Son Barber Shop in my riding. Here are two guys who work extraordinarily hard. Last week I had the extraordinary pleasure to be able to talk about my mother and father, who owned a pizza store, and how hard they worked. I know you will recall that, Mr. Speaker, because I was up speaking literally moments after the NDP once again tried to adjourn debate on important pieces of legislation. It was nine o'clock and they were starting to get sleepy, so they made the decision that they wanted to close down Parliament because they were tired.

I went back to my riding that weekend and I just could not understand how it could be. I thought how the member for Oshawa represents a lot of union members. I know that the member for Oakville represents a lot of union members. I know that all of Brampton, where there are a lot of union members, is represented by hard-working Conservative members of Parliament. I know that in those areas, and even in my own riding, there are lots of union members. I also know that in those ridings, they do not think about going home early. They work hard, as all Canadians do, and they want to succeed.

I asked myself how it was possible that the NDP could get tired by nine o'clock every night and want to adjourn debate. I could not figure it out.

It then dawned on me that what we have in the NDP caucus are not the actual hard-working men and women who work the lines, such as the people at Ford, Chrysler or GM in the member for Oakville's riding. These are not the people who actually work on the assembly lines; these are the big union bosses over there, so they are actually not used to working past five o'clock. They are used to telling other people how they should think and what they should do, but they do not have a clue about hard work. Then it dawned on me that, yes, that is why they have to go home at 9:30 every night: they are tired because they have never worked past five o'clock. Then I started to get it.

Then I started to read some of the things that they were talking about, some of the things that they were—

[Christopher Devlin]

I love a question that asks me how I feel about something, because I have many feelings about referential incorporation that are spawned from section 88 of the Indian Act. I've never much liked that section, but it has been there for a long time in the Indian Act. In that situation, provinces can amend their motor vehicle legislation without giving any notice to the federal government and that legislation and regulations can apply on reserves under section 88 of the Indian Act.

Here I think you have a similar ability: the regulation, as opposed to the statutory provision, can scoop up existing provincial regimes. The provinces can adapt that from time to time. The only proviso in the referential incorporation provision is that, unlike in the situation under the Indian Act, the Governor in Council can make adaptations of those provincial laws, which is, I think, a step forward from where we see section 88 of the Indian Act.

Now I'm not familiar with Bill S-12, so I don't know if that kind of language has been included there. But if one is going to have referential incorporation in a bill, although I don't like these clauses generally, I think it's a better clause if it allows the Governor in Council to adapt the laws of the province to deal with the specific situation on the reserve.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Thank you, witnesses. It's a very interesting discussion. You brought up incorporation by reference, which is something that's in front of Parliament right now in Bill S-12. Under Bill S-12 there's provision for ambulatory reference. In other words, regulations changed by other bodies will apply to the regulations taken on.

What do you think of a situation where the provincial regulations can be changed without any interaction with the federal government, without any interaction with the first nations under section 35? What do you feel about the conjunction of these two bills coming together where these ambulatory opportunities are now within the regulations? How does that affect the rights of first nations?

I'd ask you both to comment on that.

Incorporation by Reference in Regulations Act

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I am excited about this bill and excited about this piece of legislation. I am also excited to be batting cleanup tonight after tremendous speeches from my colleague from Fort McMurray—Athabasca, my colleague from Peace River and of course the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage. I found their speeches compelling, invigorating, intense, effective and in-depth.

I was a former history teacher, and we have heard some great speeches, some remarkable addresses. I think of Lincoln's Gettysburg address, Roosevelt's “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself”, JFK's “ask not what your country can do for you” speech and Churchill's call to fight on the beaches and in the hills. Of course, I also think of our own Prime Minister and his historic apology to the first nations of Canada.

I am not saying that the speeches we heard were up to that standard, but I do think they were very memorable speeches that we can refer to in later years, because this bill is important to the future of this country. It is important to regulation.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage said a lady named Semhar called him and encouraged him to get in and speak, but she called me as well and said, “This is your last chance to speak on this bill. You have to get in there.” Fortunately, I was able to capture the last spot to speak on this riveting piece of legislation, so I want to thank Semhar for her encouragement to come here to speak.

I also had a call from a lawyer named Adam Church. He told me that he knew I was a teacher and might not be that familiar with this type of legislation, but he said this is going to be important. It is going to put Canada on the leading edge of regulatory processes in the world. Canada once again is going to be number one because of this legislation.

I am proud to come here and speak about this bill. I would like to thank our colleagues on the Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs for their thoughtful consideration of this bill and for reporting it to the House without amendment.

As the Senate committee heard during the consideration of Bill S-12, incorporation by reference has already become an important component of modern regulation. The witnesses the Senate committee heard from were supportive of the use of incorporation by reference, notably in its ambulatory form, as a way to achieve effective and responsive regulation in a fiscally responsible manner.

Our government always tries to be fiscally responsible in making sure Canada continues to be one of the best job producers in the G8. Bill S-12 is an important step toward this in many important ways. Enactment of this legislation will clarify when ambulatory incorporation by reference can be used. The bill responds to one of the Standing Joint Committee on Scrutiny of Regulations' most important concerns by confirming the basis for the use of this technique.

As well, Bill S-12 will impose for the first time in federal legislation an obligation on regulation-makers to ensure the material that the regulations incorporate by reference is accessible. We heard the colleague across the way ask for a definition of this accessibility. This is very important for the future of this nation. It is very important that we have effective regulation-making and it is very important that it be accessible.

This bill would provide regulated communities with the assurance that such material will be available to them with a reasonable—I repeat, reasonable—amount of effort on their part, cutting regulation and cutting red tape. It will at the same time provide regulators with the necessary flexibility to respond to the many types and sources of material that may be incorporated.

The approach to accessibility in Bill S-12 avoids any unnecessary duplication or costs by recognizing that much of the material that is incorporated by reference is already accessible, without the regulation-maker needing to take further steps in many cases.

Cutting red tape, reducing the regulations and reducing duplication makes things easier, quicker and more effective. For example, federal regulations often incorporate by reference provincial or territorial legislation in order to facilitate intergovernmental co-operation. Provincial and territorial legislation is already widely accessible through the Internet, and no further steps would be needed on the part of the federal regulators. To require further action would result in unnecessary costs.

Using modern technology and the Internet to help us incorporate what already exists at the provincial level is going to reduce the costs to the federal government and make things more efficient. This bill is about efficiency, about reducing red tape and about making things work more quickly and more effectively.

Similarly, standards produced by organizations operating under the auspices of the Canadian Standards Council are readily accessible from the expert bodies that write them. The government takes seriously the obligation to ensure that this material is accessible and has for that reason proposed to enshrine that obligation in this proposed legislation.

Bill S-12 also introduces provisions that make sure that a regulated person could not be subject to penalties or other sanctions in the event that the incorporated material were not accessible. It provides protection for Canadians.

As the Minister of Justice highlighted in his remarks before the Senate committee, this is a positive and important step forward. Both the obligation relating to accessibility and the corresponding protective provisions respond to concerns of the Standing Joint Committee on the Scrutiny of Regulations.

It is also important for us to recognize that the mandate of the Standing Joint Committee on the Scrutiny of Regulations will not be altered as a result of Bill S-12. As is the case now, the joint committee will continue to be able to review and scrutinize the manner in which incorporation by reference is used, to ensure that it falls within the scope and authority conferred by this act or a particular act that is under the jurisdiction of the Government of Canada.

There were concerns from the opposition side that somehow we would be losing our effective ability to effect regulations later on as the Government of Canada. This protects that. Scrutiny of Regulations still had jurisdiction over these regulations.

After years of experience with federal regulations using the technique of incorporation by reference, we know that regulators will frequently rely on both international and national standards to achieve the regulatory objectives. The Senate committee heard witnesses from the Standards Council of Canada. Ensuring that regulators can have immediate access to the best technology and the best thinking will offer the best protection for the health and safety of Canadians. Once again, we are making sure that Canadians are protected, red tape is cut, but the health and safety of Canadians is always paramount. These witnesses provided testimony that many hundreds of standards are already incorporated by the reference and that access to these standards goes a long way to ensuring that our international obligations are met. Use of this technique to incorporate international and national standards ensures that our obligations related to avoiding technical barriers to trade are satisfied, that unnecessary duplication is avoided and that regulatory alignment is promoted.

Indeed, that successful experience to date in using these materials in federal regulations would also inform the future guidance on the use of this technique.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

Mr. Speaker, Bill S-12 does exactly the opposite of what the member describes. In fact, the referencing of regulation happens as a normal practice within much legislation. It is a modern practice. It has been going on for years and years and it has become the regular practice.

What has not been codified within legislation is that it be accessible to those people who are regulated. Now there will be a requirement to do exactly what the hon. member is looking for, which is first and foremost, and that it be understandable so it not be written in some format that is foreign to those people who are being regulated.

I can assure members that in this bill we go to great lengths to ensure those issues that the hon. member brings to the attention of the House as they relate to small business and those people being regulated.

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

Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Peace River eventually got around Bill S-12. However, I would like to ask him a question.

I am thinking about small business as well in the context of this act. Some commentators have noted that will be difficult for people who are affected by regulations to stay on top of those regulations with the ease with which things can be incorporated by reference. There will be less scrutiny and, while things may be in legislation described as “accessible”, we have seen the Conservative government take labels off cans and say that they are now accessible on a website. We have already seen that under Bill C-38 pharmaceutical drugs will be maintained on a list as opposed to posted in the Canada Gazette for full regulation.

Is the member not just a little troubled that some of the people in business with whom he empathizes, and rightly so, could find themselves on the wrong side of a regulation about which they had much less notice because of Bill S-12?

[Murray Rankin, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I have one question on the substance of Bill S-12, which is a bill to amend the Statutory Instruments Act to deal with ambulatory references and the like.

One of the things that has caused me concern, and I would like his comment on, is whether the term “accessible” should be defined.

The bill imposes an obligation, as the member knows, on regulation-making authorities to ensure that certain documents that are incorporated by reference are accessible. However, the bill does not have a definition of “accessible”. Does my colleague think it needs to be defined so we could know what it means?

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I do not want to impugn motives on my colleagues, but anytime they hear about the oil and gas industry or farming or the forestry sector, they want to shut down debate on those issues.

That is why they tried to shut down the debate in this House earlier today. They want to go home. They do not want to talk about important things like jobs, opportunities, prosperity and hope in this country.

Incorporating by reference, the material in this bill would do exactly that. It would streamline things to ensure that there is efficiency, clarity and assurance for people who are involved in these sectors, in agriculture, the oil and gas sector and the forestry sector. These are companies, industries, small business people who depend on referencing regularly the legislation that is important to their industries.

There is a number of very important issues that are being brought forward in this bill that are entirely important with regard to these industries.

Mr. Speaker, you are an expert in this House, you have been in this place for some time and you know that this is a modern technique of incorporating by reference through regulation.

The Senate was criticized by my colleagues earlier, but I can assure the hon. members opposite that even the Senate did not shut down to go home early. It got its work done and sent us a bill, an important bill. The senators heard evidence at their committee hearings, and we will see if these members on the opposite side stick around long enough to hear witnesses on this side.

What we do hear from the witnesses the Senate heard is that it is important to move forward on this legislation. For the first time, Bill S-12 would impose a regulation requirement, a positive obligation on regulators to ensure that the reference is accessible to those people who are being regulated.

That answers the question that some of the members opposite were wondering about. They had not read the legislation, clearly. I want to assure the members opposite that there is a positive obligation on the regulators to ensure that the information is available to those who are being regulated. If it is not, then the person who is being regulated is not responsible. That is the first time in Canadian legislation that that has in fact happened.

There is a number of things that Bill S-12 would do. One of the things it would do is reduce unnecessary duplication and costs within the federal government and on some of our other levels of government, as well as, more importantly, on small business.

This is one of the things I heard about regularly as I served as a commissioner on the red tape reduction commission. We travelled from coast to coast. I hear the hon. members on the opposite side heckling again. Anytime they hear about the reduction of red tape, they are opposed to that. We know that. They have made that clear. That is why they have lost all the elections my colleague referenced earlier.

What we heard from small business owners, those people who create jobs, those who are the drivers of our economy in this nation, is “We need less duplication; we need more clarity; we need the regulations that we are required to follow to be user-friendly.” That is exactly what this bill would do.

My colleagues from the opposite side also referenced the scary notion that by incorporating our work with other jurisdictions, somehow that was going to be the end of the world.

I am a big federalist. I believe we have great provinces and territories from coast to coast. I am different from the leader of the Liberal Party, who comes to Alberta and basically says Albertans are some kind of nasty folks, and the Leader of the Opposition, who we hear continually criticizing the industries in my province.

I recognize that is not the view of my colleagues in the opposition parties. However, here on this side of the House, on the Conservative benches, we believe that every province and every territory is an important part of this country, and we trust them all. We believe we can incorporate by reference.

I was talking to John today. He is a hard-working Canadian. He is still working tonight. John Holtby was talking to me about the necessity to incorporate by reference beekeeping regulations.

He believes there needs to be more clarity when it comes to the freedom of individuals to have bee-keeping operations in communities across the country in a more homogenous way. This was something I heard directly from a constituent. He is a hard-working Canadian still working tonight and this is something he talked about.

While the opposition members are opposed to coordinating with our provinces, I am a strong federalist and I strongly trust provinces and territories across the country. I do not think they are somehow going to do something nasty to the federal government. Therefore, it is important we work together in a collaborative fashion to ensure we streamline things, provide more clarity to business owners, reduce duplication and ensure that when people are being regulated that, first and foremost, they can find those regulations, which is established in this bill, and that they be clear. That is what is established in this bill. It is something that is great news to all Canadians, specifically small business owners and people who work in other levels of government across our great nation.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Joe Comartin]

I will give the member for Peace River the recognition that he mentioned Bill S-12, but he has not spent more than about five seconds on that bill and a bunch of other things that have some indirect relevance. I will allow him to continue, but I would encourage him to begin to address at least some comments to the bill that is before the House for debate this evening.

[Sadia Groguhé, NDP, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to interrupt my colleague's speech, which is completely irrelevant. We are discussing Bill S-12, and he has yet to mention it in his speech. I would ask that you call him to order.

[Paul Calandra, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage]

Mr. Speaker, I cannot tell you how relieved I am to have the opportunity to speak to this bill. I was not sure when it first came up that I wanted to speak to it, but I started to receive a lot of calls and emails from concerned Canadians, Semhar Tekeste. She said to me that I had to get in and speak to this bill and that it was very, very important. She called me so many times today. She emailed me a number of times and said that I had to get into the House and talk about this bill. She said specifically that Bill S-12, an act to amend the Statutory Instruments Act and to make consequential amendments to the statutory instruments regulations is very important, and she wanted me to come in here and speak to it. The more I looked at it, the more I thought to myself that it is a very important bill.

The member for Fort McMurray—Athabasca earlier talked about how hard his constituents work. They work 12 hours a day, and then they sometimes have to drive a couple of hours to get home. I wonder how they would feel knowing that the opposition cannot wait to get out of here. We hear so much about the orange wave, the orange tide. Apparently, the tide does not come in after 6 o'clock. After 6 o'clock that is the end of the tide. They do not want to come into work. They are too tired.

We should make no mistake. Canadians do not pay us a little to be here. All of us are very fortunate. We make $150,000 to be in this place to debate the issues that are important to Canadians, yet the NDP members want to go home. I have heard them all day talk about how lazy the Senate is, and they want to abolish the Senate. I now understand why the NDP members are so desperate to abolish the Senate. They are actually embarrassed that the Senate works harder than they do, so they want to abolish the Senate. It is actually unbelievable. Here we are in a time of global economic uncertainty, and at 10 o'clock, they have to go home. I cannot fathom that. I guess, on their behalf, I will apologize to all those Canadians who invest so much in this place.

My parents came to this country. They worked hard. I talked about this last night. They owned a pizza store when I was young. They got up at 10 o'clock every morning, and they were at the store. They worked all day and all night until 3 o'clock the next morning. They worked very hard to support the family. They never once complained. They worked extraordinarily hard, long hours. They never once complained about how difficult their lot was in life. They did not try to pass a motion to go home at 10:30. When people called the store and wanted to order pizza, they did not say they had to vote because they maybe wanted to go home early. They did not do that. They did what all other Canadians do. They worked hard. They invested in their families. They invested in their business, and they were proud to do it. I wish sometimes that the NDP, and in fact the Liberals, would actually consider those hard-working Canadians who have sent us here before they decide to go home.

We also heard the opposition talk about the loss of Canadian sovereignty. It seems to me that I have heard this before. That is what the NDP said when it opposed the auto pact. It opposed the auto pact because it worried about sovereignty. Free trade came around, and it did not want free trade, because it felt we would lose our sovereignty. The fact of the matter is that the auto pact created hundreds of thousands of jobs. Free trade has created millions of jobs and incredible economic growth in our country. We have not lost sovereignty. In fact, we have increased our sovereignty, because now we are one of those countries in the world where everyone wants to invest. We have created over 900,000 jobs, in part because we are open to trade, yet they want to turn their backs on that.

When I heard the member from Fort McMurray talk about his hard-working constituents, I could not help but feel somewhat embarrassed for the NDP and Liberals, because they had to go home early. However, let me tell all Canadians, who I know are watching intently, especially on this particular debate on this bill, that the Conservatives on both sides of the House will stay here, debate and talk about the issues that are important to them, no matter how long it takes to make sure that we continue this economic recovery we have seen.

Let us talk a bit about this further. I will read this to the House. It states:

...regulations that use this technique are effective in facilitating intergovernmental co-operation and harmonization, a key objective of the Regulatory Cooperation Council established by our Prime Minister and President Obama.

How exciting is that? This would eliminate red tape. I understand that on that side of the House red tape is something they revel in because it confuses people. It slows down the economy. It makes it harder for business.

On this side of the House we are all about eliminating red tape. We are about unleashing the potential of the economy, of small businesses, of those sectors that create jobs, economic growth and value for Canadians, all of which help put more money in the pockets of Canadians so they can invest in themselves and their families. That is what we are trying to do on this side of the House each and every day. Even if the NDP members are desperate to shut down debate, like they do every single night in this place, we will still work on that.

It goes even further to state:

Referencing material that is internationally accepted rather than attempting to reproduce the same rules in the regulations also reduces technical differences that create barriers to trade—

That part is so exciting. I will read it again because it references something I know the NDP know nothing about, which is trade.

Referencing material that is internationally accepted rather than attempting to reproduce the same rules in the regulations also reduces technical differences that create barriers to trade—

How exciting is that for the millions of Canadians at home watching this tonight thinking that finally they have a government that is prepared to make those types of changes so that we can make things better for them?

I will flip over a couple of pages because this is where it gets really exciting. It mentions that with this important regulatory tool come corresponding obligations. It then states:

[The bill] not only recognizes the need to provide a solid legal basis for the use of this regulatory drafting technique, but it also expressly imposes in legislation an obligation on all regulators to ensure that the documents they incorporate are accessible—

It is almost remarkable that we have waited so long to pass this. Honestly, we have been seized with a global economic crisis in this country. We have been seized with putting more money in the pockets of Canadians. We have been seized with opening up new markets for our manufacturers and getting new trade deals out there. We are working on a trade deal with the European Union. We have been seized with creating better relations with our American friends.

We all know what the Liberals did to our relations with the United States when they were stomping on dolls of the American presidents and insulting them all the time. We came to an historic low in those bilateral relations.

We have been bringing our budget back into balance while at the same time investing in Canadians and infrastructure across this country so that as we come out of the global economic downturn ahead of anybody else, we have the resources and the infrastructure in place so that our Canadian businesses, families and communities can succeed.

I am yelling a bit because I was not sure that the microphones are working. I heard the member from Hamilton and the member for Newton—North Delta screaming so much I thought the microphones were down, so I thought I would elevate my voice.

I am proud of the fact that this concerned Canadian called me and sent me an email as late as 10 o'clock asking me to come and talk to the bill. I responded that for her and for the millions of Canadians who are relying on us, I am prepared to work late and do whatever I have to do to make sure that this economy and this country remain great. I am only sorry that the opposition members do not feel that same sense of passion.

[Sadia Groguhé, NDP, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would first like to commend my colleague on his excellent speech, which shed a great deal of light on Bill S-12.

Since the bill raises a huge number of questions and concerns, we want to support it so that it is sent to committee and we can propose amendments.

In November 2012, the hon. Mac Harb shared some of his observations. He said:

...Bill S-12, as presented, undermines democratic principles by eroding Parliament's oversight of legislation, and it will make criminals out of otherwise law-abiding citizens who will not have adequate access to the content of Canadian laws.

Could my colleague comment on that?

[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.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise to speak tonight in support of Bill S-12, an act to amend the Statutory Instruments Act and to make consequential amendments to the statutory instruments regulations. New Democrats are supporting this bill at this stage, so it can go to committee to be clarified and big questions that are being asked can be answered.

I sometimes think that, in this Ottawa bubble, we use language and terms and put stuff out there, thinking the public is going to be able to understand what is being debated in the House of Common tonight and what MPs from across this country are here discussing at 8:45 p.m. until midnight. Being an English teacher, I always want to see something in the title that will give me a clue or some kind of a lead. If I were not here but sitting in my living room, I would be wondering what on earth members of Parliament are discussing tonight. That, to me, is a huge issue.

We talk about participatory democracy. We televise the glorious debates that go on in this most august House, and we know there are people across this country, who might only be my mother, the member's grandmother and somebody else's daughter, who are sitting at home glued to the TV set watching this. There are Canadians who care and watch CPAC. They watch because they really are engaged in the subjects we are discussing. I think we do them a disservice at times with the language we use and present. I worry about that at times, but I am sure we will talk about that at length.

As members have said previously, we are really talking about changes to either static or ambulatory—are those not wonderful words; one could write poetry with them—regulations that are buried in legislation that can be changed as a result of other laws or regulations being changed without ever coming to the House. That should give us a little concern, and I hope it does.

There are some facts and figures that were quite shocking even to me after being here for two years. This is a quote from the Justice Canada Federal Regulations Manual, 1998, page 3, in case any of you need bedtime reading. I am sure it will be great. This is what it states:

There are, at the federal level alone, approximately 3,000 regulations comprising over 30,000 pages, compared with some 450 statutes comprising about 13,000 pages. Furthermore, departments and agencies submit to the Regulations Section on average about 1,000 draft regulations each year, whereas Parliament enacts about 80 bills during the same period. The executive thus plays a major role in setting rules of law that apply to Canadian citizens.

Therein lies the rub.

As much as we are sending this bill on to the committee stage, when do the stark numbers really strike home? Whereas Parliament deals with 80 bills in a year—though we might be able to do more if going until midnight might be the new norm going into the fall as well, especially with all the time allocation and closure motions—when 1,000 regulatory changes are made or draft regulations presented, one really begins to worry about the state of our democracy.

What happens when changes are made by regulation, it invests so much power in the hands of the executive, in the hands of ministers and those regulatory changes sidestep parliamentary oversight and parliamentary debate, debate here, going to committee, being fine-tuned, coming back here and debated again. As parliamentarians that really should give us pause to stop and think about what our role is as parliamentarians.

There are some things that do make sense to be in regulation. For example, we would not want to spend weeks, months and years in here discussing what the interest rates should be at the Bank of Canada. That is sort of like an ambulatory regulatory change. Quite honestly I would not want to spend months and years discussing that.

However, on the other hand, there are regulatory changes that are made that I would want to discuss in the House because they could affect how Canadians live and work, how they retire and how they spend their leisure time. Therefore, we cannot think that this is just a technical document, that it is a housekeeping bill, purely technical. When we think of how it will be applied in the future and how many regulations are introduced each year and then get changed, sometimes at ministerial whim, we really have to worry. As the previous speaker said, there were lots of questions he was asked and he said “I just don't know the answer”. Reading the legislation, those things are not very clear at all.

As I was going through the legislation, it made me stop and think that sometimes what we consider as just a technical change, a little housekeeping, actually ends up impacting people's daily lives. I can remember from another life, when I was a teacher, when a provincial government decided it was going to do some housekeeping, get rid of a lot of the red tape around the identification and designation of students with special needs. What happened with that? Overnight after the regulatory changes were made and the red tape was gone, children who had very specific and legitimate diagnosed learning needs on a Friday, by the following Monday, they no longer had those needs. It gave the government reason not to fund them.

Even though at the time in British Columbia, many people welcomed getting rid of the red tape and a lot of stuff that surrounded this, but people did not realize that removing a word here, or a phrase there, was going to have such an impact on families of students with special needs.

Therefore, we have to be very careful. I know we are talking about international and national agreements and all of these regulations that change in other places, but one of these days what if there is a government that makes some changes and that automatically forces embedded changes right here that impact us and our everyday lives. I think we would be very concerned.

The other thing we are very concerned about is that we are a bilingual nation. It is embedded in our Constitution and yet we know a lot of these regulations are not available to the public in a bilingual manner, so we want to ensure they are there.

Let me step back a moment for I have misspoke.

What I am looking for in this document is an explicit guarantee that when these regulations are embedded, static, ambulatory, I do not care what the name is, they are there in both official languages. We want to ensure we have that. We also want to strengthen this document in ways that ensure there would not be that kind of view.

It is always good to look at accountability and specificity. We live in this electronic age or age of technology, as it is also called. I am not as familiar with the full range of technology, but I do know that today my children, grandchildren and the young people I know, as well as many young-at-heart retirees, spend much of their time on the computer and want that kind of access. They want to access the regulations, to read them, understand them and know their history. However, at the age of 19, I was quite happy to know none of what was in the backroom.

When my children or grandchildren do research now, and it is amazing to watch the twins, who are in grade eight, they go much deeper with it because everything is available to them on their computer. They ask the kind of questions I would not have asked at their age. Therefore, we have to ensure we make available to the public not just the change that has been made, but what it was like before and what the impact of that change would be. I do have some reservations that none of that will be discussed, and that should be concerning for all of us.

I hear a lot about accountability and transparency. We need all of that. This document came from a place that is not so popular for many these days. I know it has gone through some scrutiny and some changes have been made. However, we are supporting it so it can go to a parliamentary committee where it can receive microscopic scrutiny and where we also hope our colleagues across the aisle will not behave as they have at other committees I have attended. We have taken amendments that ministers have suggested and we thought we have had agreement on and suddenly they are not there. We hope that when they go to committee and our official opposition amendments are brought to that committee, that they will be considered on their merit and not rejected because they come from the official opposition.

A couple of my colleagues look aghast, as if that never happens. I can assure them that I have sat at committee and have seen that happen over and over again, even where we have had committee members say that it is a good amendment or have had ministers say that they know we have some concerns and that they will be quite happy to put this line in. Then when we put the criteria they have suggested in word for word it is suddenly opposed. It leaves us second-guessing what the real agenda is. We do worry about that as well.

There are quite a few issues I could bring up with respect to accountability and the ability to work together.

I have a great deal of concern around regulations. I was absolutely shocked as a member of Parliament at how much substantive change could be made to the laws of this land through changes to regulations. We have seen a huge transformation in the area of immigration that has impacted people. A lot of that work and a lot of those changes were never debated at a parliamentary committee. Nor did they come to this august body, the House of Commons, to be debated. These changes appeared on a website through a press conference. A minister can make all of these changes

At the same time as I support this legislation, I also have a deeply held concern over the subversion of democracy as more and more power is vested into the hands of ministers and the executive branch. I am not trying to take any shots at my colleagues in government, because I believe a lot of this was started by the party that sits in that corner right now, especially when I look at immigration.

Just take a look at what happened the Friday before we went back to our ridings for home week. On Friday afternoon, we received massive changes to family reunification. I sit as a vice-chair of the immigration committee, but we did not receive the changes there. I come to Parliament on a regular basis, but the changes were not discussed here. The changes were made in an announcement that was absolutely floundering. I have talked with people in communities who are just reeling from the changes, and they are so fundamental that they have put into question our commitment toward community-building and our commitments toward families. Yet all of those changes happened without any debate in the House.

The income requirement has been increased by 30% before somebody can sponsor his or her parent to move to Canada. Yet many people in the House and across the country have enjoyed the benefits of family reunification over the years. We all talk about the value of family.

Then we look at this. One in five Canadians is born outside of Canada.

We have introduced a lottery system for family reunification. We have told Canadians right across this great country that no matter where they come from, only 5,000 applications will be taken each year. I never looked at it until I was talking with a group in my riding and somebody said that it was like the lottery, that individuals would have to wait many years even to get in line to come into the country. By the way, when people apply, it is not a guarantee, that is when they can join the line. What have we done there?

I could go on at length about other things that have happened in this parliamentary democracy that shut down debate. We have seen them happen. There have been closures and time allocations. I hear rhetoric that this is all about accountability, that this is just about cleaning up things. Forgive me for thinking that we have suddenly moved to a new phase of parliamentary debate in the House.

As I said, we support this legislation going to committee. We hope the regulations will have the kind of transparency and the kind of language that the average person will comprehend.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to join in the debate on Bill S-12, from that other place.

It is interesting, and it needs to be said, that the bill is here because the Senate, of course, has the power to generate bills itself. A lot of people are looking at the scandal that is going on right now and are thinking that we have to get rid of all of that so we can go back to the way we were when the Senate did not really get involved in things. However, the reality is that for any bill, this one or any other, to become law, it has to pass this place and it also has to pass through that place.

Given there are fewer seats in that place than there are in this place, the relative weight of a vote is worth more in the unelected, unaccountable Senate than it is in the elected, accountable House of Commons. Therefore, this is serious. The crisis is not just the scandal, it is the state of our democracy where we give equal if not greater authority under our Constitution to a body that has no moral, ethical or democratic legitimacy. That needs to be said every time we are dealing with the Senate of Canada.

It is not just the horrific headlines and scandals that we are seeing. It is the scandal that unelected people can vote on our laws, have to vote on our laws, and their weight is worth more than those of us on both sides of the House who are going to have to go back to our constituents and knock on doors to say, “I'm here to be accountable”. We will never hear a senator say, “I'm here to be accountable”. However, we have to live where we are now,

I recognize that my colleague for Winnipeg North took a different approach. It would have been nice to hear him say that he wished the Senate was abolished too so at least we would all be on the same starting page rather than just finding a nice way to avoid taking a position. Yes, the NDP is the only party that has taken a clear position to abolish the Senate. Of course, it is easier for us because we do not have the baggage of appointed senators leaning on our shoulders and whispering in our ears “don't hurt me”.

Our position remains clear. I think a growing number of Canadians are beginning to believe and understand that, as not a single province has a Senate left, we do not have to have a Senate. It is a choice of whether we want one or not. For 35 million people, give or take, there is a good argument that we do not need to duplicate the House of Commons.

When I was at Queen's Park in the legislative assembly, if there was a mistake made, just like when I was on city council, we brought in another bill to correct the mistake. It happens. The Senate is no guarantee that there are no mistakes or we would have a perfect country.

However, we are dealing with this bill now, which is actually very detailed and complex in terms of some of the references, especially for those of us who are not lawyers. We are all lawmakers, but we are not all lawyers, and we do not need to be.

One of the most important things that happens at the Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Regulations is that there are elected people as well as very professional well-trained staff there to give advice, and so one does not have to be a lawyer. Sometimes, every now and then we get lawyers, and because they are lawyers, they then believe that their opinion, of course, is as good as any other lawyer and they engage in that debate. Whereas us mere mortals who are not lawyers will want to hear all the legal arguments as we do not have a vested interest in the outcome other than the best law that we can have. Having said that, there is certainly nothing strange about having lawyers become lawmakers, but a good mix is best.

My other experience with regulations is in two areas.

First, as a former provincial minister, I dealt with regulations. In the briefings with the legal department and policy people, I dealt with the essence of what was there. One does not debate as a minister, unless one is a lawyer. I certainly did not engage in a debate about what language should be in the bill when it came to a technical term, especially for a legal process. However, I would always pay attention if there were other learned people who felt differently, because it is my judgment my constituents elected me to bring here, not my skills as someone who necessarily can sit down with a blank piece of paper and write a law.

The other experience I had is that I am one of those lucky MPs in this place who was not only able to sit on the Standing Joint Committee for the Scrutiny of Regulations but was a vice-chair. Yes, people do not hear me reference it a lot. There is not much I can pull from that experience in speeches. I think that is the first time in 10 years I have been able to use it.

It was a fascinating committee. Again, if someone is a lawyer who is excited by lawyer things, the more that person will be excited at these meetings. It is great to see the professionalism when people care that much about where a comma goes or whether something should be a subclause of this or that. It is great, because it shows a part of law-making that Canadians do not see when they turn on the TV. Yet it is crucial, particularly when there is an opportunity to travel to other countries that are not as strong as we are economically or democratically. Believe me, many of them would give their right arms to have a committee anything like this so that the kind of detail they want in their law-making and regulations is there. They envy us. I did not always feel that I was in an enviable position when I was sitting on the committee, but when we look at it in a bigger context, we are indeed very fortunate.

As my other colleagues have mentioned, much of its work is to ensure, from a legal point of view, that the English and French texts say the same thing. All of us here, unilingual or bilingual, know that there can be huge differences in meaning with just one or two words or a phrase. It does not take a rocket scientist to figure out how amplified that is when we are talking about legal documents such as regulations.

Of course, in recent times, we have had other languages brought into play because of the issue of incorporation by reference. There are languages other than French and English that will find a way into our laws. There needs to be translation. It is hard to believe that there would not be some confusion and problems going from another language to French and English such as we have going from French to English and back and forth. Therefore, there are some serious issues here to be dealt with.

There were matters that came before that committee that were decades old in their lack of resolution. Mr. Speaker, I see you nodding your head. I assume that you have been on the committee. You know that sometimes there will be an issue that in 10 years has not been resolved. However, by the end of the meeting, the committee will have dealt with something that is 22 years old. It is amazing. From a practical point of view, we wonder how on earth it could be so important that we are still dealing with it but not so important that it had to be resolved 22 years ago. That is part of the excitement for those who are in the law. I see the Speaker, who is a lawyer, smiling but shaking his head no, so I am not sure what trouble I am in. I will plough ahead nonetheless.

The work is not exactly headline-making, but it really is important. I will go so far as to say that since we have to live with that other place, it allows us the ability, through a joint committee, to bring out any synergies that are there. That deserves to be said.

There is one more thing I want to mention before I get to the specifics of the bill. There is another area where regulations, in my opinion, should be on the radar of most Canadians in terms of understanding how this place works and how laws are really made.

I watched for many years how former Ontario premier Mike Harris would take many things that were already in legislation.

As members know, legislation can only be amended by Parliament. Regulations, on the other hand, do not require Parliament. That is at the core of what we are dealing with here. It is these automatic changes that come from referencing other agreements outside of Canada, such as international agreements or national agreements from other countries, where there is a reference in our regulations. As they make changes, those changes come in and are automatically updated. At least that is my understanding of one of the key issues in Bill S-12.

What we went through in Ontario is worth mentioning, because it was very scary. Many times, but not every time, when that Conservative government was amending legislation, it would often take things out of the legislation and put them in the regulations.

For instance, if there is a law that says that the Government of Ontario, or any province, has the right to set speed limits on highways, those speed limits will be set by regulation so that the law itself does not list every single highway in the province. The government would not have to go back and make a legislative change, with first reading, second reading, third reading, and in this case, all the way over to the Senate. In Queen's Park we did not have that problem. We dealt with it, as elected people, ourselves.

The regulations would then go to cabinet. They could modify or set a speed limit on a highway. That is how legislation and regulations are used in a healthy, democratic way. The principles are set out, and then on some of the details that are going to be different all over, regulations deal with them. There is still a procedure. It still involves the cabinet and the government, but it is a lot quicker and the whole House is not tied up changing one area of Highway 401 to lower the speed limit by 10 kilometres per hour. That makes sense.

However, and I am using this hypothetically, the government would then state that all laws pertaining to the highway that are under the constitutional jurisdiction of the province shall be dealt with by regulation. That sounds like a small change, but it is huge. It goes from having the right to change speeds without debate and to inform cabinet afterwards to doing anything on those highways, as long as there is constitutional jurisdiction. It never has to come to the House. That is not healthy. That is not a strong democracy.

Again, we are into areas here that sound very dry, but they matter. It is our job, of course, as the elected people, to roll up our sleeves and do this work.

We in the official opposition are comfortable enough with some of the goals set out to allow this to go to committee. However, at committee, there needs to be a great deal more scrutiny of this bill. We are hoping that this is exactly what will happen.

If I might, I would just mention this quote. It can never be said enough. It comes from the Standing Joint Committee for the Scrutiny of Regulations. They dealt with this issue in 2007.

Of course, incorporation by reference also gives rise to concerns relating to accessibility to the law, in that although incorporated material becomes part of the regulations, the actual text of that material must be found elsewhere. Such concerns are heightened where material is incorporated “as amended from time to time”, in that members of the public may have difficulty ascertaining precisely what the current version is at a particular point in time. Where open incorporation by reference is to be permitted, provisions should also be put in place to require the regulation-maker to ensure that the current version of an incorporated document is readily available to the public, as are all previous versions that were previously incorporated.

I believe it was a colleague from my caucus who made this point. Given the fact there are going to be these changes to other pieces of legislation, how would one who looks at the regulations know that they are not in the midst of being changed? How much guarantee would they have that the language they are looking at is the law that would be applied to them? In Canada, ignorance of the law is no defence.

Again, this is not something I likely would have thought of, because I would not necessarily, as a rule, be the one to research the original documentation. If we were at committee, there would be staff doing it. Even if we were in our offices, we would ask our staff if we needed that level of detail. It is also not something I would raise as an issue, because I do not use it every day in this way.

Once it is spelled out and brought to the attention of any reasonable Canadian, we would understand that this committee not only had members of the government and opposition but had members from both places. I am assuming that it was unanimous and was supported by the entire committee. That is an assumption on my part. It had to matter, otherwise the politics of the day would have kicked in and there would not have been agreement.

I will tell members that there are a lot of very professional staff there. It is amazing to see the calibre of people who are in the room at these meetings. It is truly impressive. We are all very fortunate to have public servants with this capacity. It is obviously the staff who are usually the ones to recommend this kind of language. This matters. This matters from a practical point of view, which is what I can apply from my experience as a law-maker. What I am hearing loud and clear from people who understand this from a legal point of view and from a detailed policy point of view is that this matters.

I heard some reference to international business investment. Contrary to what the government likes to pretend, we care about those things. I believe that everyone in this House does, because it means jobs for our citizens, our constituents. These things need to be looked at.

We cannot really go into that level of detail here in the House. That is why we have a committee system.

Our position today as the official opposition is that we are prepared to give enough support to send it to committee. However, we will reserve judgment on that point, because we never know how it is going to go.

I would wrap up by saying that this is one of those times when things that seem not to be important, because they do not make headlines, really are. I am hopeful that we will see it sent to committee so that the kind of work that needs to be done on this important bill can be done and it can be brought back here for our final debate and determination as to whether we want to make it a law.

[Laurin Liu, NDP, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I know that my hon. colleague has a lot to say. It is unfortunate that he gets only 10 or 20 minutes to speak in the House. I have a question for him about Bill S-12.

This bill originated in the Senate, a chamber that has recently been the subject of a lot of controversy. My constituents are outraged that senators are not elected or accountable and that some often misuse public funds. This happened with a number of Conservative senators, but also senators from another party.

Could my colleague tell us where his party stands on the Senate? Does he think it should be reformed, or should we abolish this outdated institution?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise this evening to address this bill. I have never had the honour of sitting on the statutory instruments regulations committee. It sounds as if it might be a very interesting committee. I do find it most fascinating that the government has chosen to use this particular bill, given that we are allocated four or five hours, which is probably more hours of debate than for many other pieces of legislation. However, at the end of the day, it is going to be interesting. I suspect that we might see differing opinions. We in the Liberal Party have a great deal of concern with regard to this bill. We cannot see ourselves supporting it at this time, and we will have to wait and see what happens at committee stage and see if the government is going to be able to address the issues.

We were talking about a different bill, Bill C-475, during private members' business, and it dealt with personal information. A government member stood up and made a comment on how wonderful it would be to have Bill C-12 debated, given that all sides of the House seemed to be supportive of Bill C-12. The member made the suggestion that he would even be prepared to see that bill debated right away. Maybe if the Conservatives recognize the importance of that bill, they might also want to call that; the last time it was brought before the House being back in September 2011. We will have to wait and see.

Another concern that was raised was in the form of questions that I asked both Conservative speakers in regard to the whole issue of the French language. I come from the province of Manitoba, and the French language issue in terms of laws and regulations was a critically important ruling that came from the Supreme Court of Canada. The ruling reflected on many of Manitoba's laws and, because of not having appropriate translation, the court had virtually given Manitoba a time schedule to pass all sorts of other regulations and laws in order to keep them in effect. It gave us a bit of a sunset clause in terms of needing to pass this in order to comply. Otherwise, we would have had a series of laws, whether provincial legislation or regulation, that would have become void. Therefore, we take the issue very seriously in terms of some of the things, and that is the reason I posed the questions.

In looking at Bill S-12, there are a couple of things that are really important to note. Quite often, the intent might be clear. Individuals, whether members of Parliament or those assisting in trying to create legislation or regulation, will be fairly clear on what it is they are trying to accomplish, the actual intent. The real challenge is to try to take that intent that is being expressed and put it into words, and in our case also to ensure that the translation is in essence saying the same thing whether in English or in French. That is a very important point.

As an example, one of the first issues that came up was related to Air Canada. It was an important issue, through which I suspect many individuals who might be listening in on the debate might get a better sense of the importance of converting intent into appropriate words. I recall the Air Canada Public Participation Act that was brought in a number of years ago. There is absolutely no doubt that, if we look at the debates and some of the discussions that took place in the committee, we would find that the intent that was being spoken was that communities like Winnipeg, Mississauga and Montreal would be guaranteed their overhaul maintenance positions.

This literally translated into thousands of jobs in Winnipeg, hundreds of jobs that were in essence guaranteed in that law. That was the intent.

If we read the legislation that is there today, I think most Canadians, in reading it, would come to the same conclusion to which I came. I raised that issue shortly after being elected back in December 2011. When I raised it, it was to challenge the government. It was to tell the Prime Minister that we had a law that said these overhaul maintenance bases were supposed to be guaranteed. Air Canada was legally obligated to maintain those bases.

The Prime Minister and the government responded by saying that this was not necessarily their interpretation. Apparently, the government found a lawyer somewhere who said that this was not the case, that there was no legal obligation.

It did not matter what we attempted, whether it was through postcards or petitions. Many different stakeholders and individuals read the law and said that the law was pretty clear.

I raise that because at the end of the day is it very important. When we think of a regulation or a law, we often talk about what we are hoping to achieve by passing it, but what is written down on that piece of paper and translated is what counts.

As legislators, we have to take that responsibility very seriously. In recognizing what this legislation is doing, it is offloading a great deal of responsibility. I know the record will clearly demonstrate that this has not necessarily been a government that wants to take responsibility. By allowing this legislation to pass as it is, we need to recognize that there will be more laws being put into place with less scrutiny from the House of Commons.

That is one of the effects that the passage of this bill will have. We need to be very clear on that point.

Another profound impact the legislation will have is in regard to the whole idea of incorporation by reference and what will happen in regard to that secondary language, whether it happens to be English or French. We are in a bilingual nation and there is an expectation. I will provide a little more comment on that in a few minutes.

The legislative summary that was provided by the Library of Parliament had some interesting information that is worth expressing. One point deals with the amount of regulation versus laws in terms of numbers of pages. It is interesting to note, and this is a quote from the parliamentary library, “There are, at the federal level alone, approximately 3,000 regulations comprising over 30,000 pages”. Compare that to somewhere in the neighbourhood of 450 statutes, which comprise roughly 13,000 pages.

Furthermore, departments and agencies submit to the regulations section, on average, about 1,000 draft regulations each year, whereas Parliament enacts about 80 bills during the same period. The executive therefore plays a major role in setting the rules of law that apply to Canadian citizens.

What we will find is that the number of laws in comparison to regulations is decreasing as we rely more on regulations. When we go into or finish second reading and then it goes to committee stage, how often do we hear from government representatives or policy analysts who say “this is what the clause says and further explanation will be provided via regulation?” We hear a lot of that.

Why then should we be concerned? We have to be careful that we recognize the importance of laws versus regulations and the incorporation of references into regulations.

We start off with our Constitution and our Charter of Rights. These are things that no one would question. We then go on to laws that would be passed in the House of Commons, then to regulations. Finally, we would go to the incorporation of reference.

Look at each stage and how difficult it is to change the Constitution. We do not see too much public will or interest in changing the Constitution. In terms of legislation, the same principle applies. There is a process of changing legislation. There is first reading, second reading, committee, third reading, the Senate and finally royal assent. There is a great deal of scrutiny that takes place.

What about regulations? There is a legal examination and registration that have to take place. Ultimately, publication takes place in the Canada Gazette.

We can see the difference between them. Each level has a different sense of accountability or process that we have to follow. If we take just the one component, the legal examination, the examination for the passage of legislation will come through here. There are all sorts of responsibilities that all members, particularly critics, caucuses, vested interest groups and stakeholders of a wide variety, have in ensuring there is some form of due diligence and a sense of accountability.

What about the regulation? When it comes to legal examination, we know there is an obligation for the Clerk of the Privy Council. There have been four things that were cited again, dealing specifically with this bill, that came from the Library of Parliament. Those four things in passing or ensuring that there is some form of legal examination of that regulation.

The first is, “(a) it is authorized by the statute pursuant to which it is to be made”. Another way of saying it is that if we want to change or pass a regulation, we want to ensure it is in compliance with the legislation or a current law that has been passed by the House of Commons.

The second is, “(b) it does not constitute an unusual or unexpected use of the authority pursuant to which it is to be made”. That would be something that would obviously make a whole lot of sense. After all, it cannot override a law, like a law cannot override our Constitution.

The third is, “(c) it does not trespass unduly on existing rights and freedoms and is not, in any case, inconsistent with the purposes and provisions of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Canadian Bill of Rights”. We are asking that the Clerk of the Privy Council, in consultation with others, ensure that it does not contradict some of those basic rights. Before, if it was a law, it would be something where members, and in particular the Minister of Justice, would play a much stronger role in ensuring the compliance in that regard.

The fourth is, “(d) the form and draftsmanship of the proposed regulations are in accordance with established standards”. This is something where one would expect our legislative counsel and others that assist us to ensure the wording was correct. That is why at the beginning I commented on the importance of wording, that in fact one can be very clear orally what the intent is, but we have to ensure that this intent is put into proper words because it is the wording that is of critical importance.

I would like to quote from the Library of Parliament because I believe it is stated quite well in terms of what specifically, when we think of regulations, is actually at stake in dealing with Bill S-12. I quote directly from the report that has been provided to us from the Library of Parliament. It states:

When Parliament confers a power to make regulations, the regulation-maker usually exercises this power by drafting the text of the regulation to be enacted. The regulation-maker may also decide that the contents of an existing document are what should be used in the regulation it intends to enact. One way to make the contents of such a document part of the text of the regulation would be to reproduce it word for word in the regulation. Alternatively, the regulation-maker can simply refer to the title of the document in the regulation. The contents of the document will then be said to be “incorporated by reference”. The legal effect of incorporation by reference is to write the words of the incorporated document into the regulation just as if it had actually been reproduced word for word. The incorporation by reference of an existing document is no more than a drafting technique, and a regulation-maker need not be granted any specific power in order to resort to this technique. This is referred to as “closed” or “static” incorporation by reference.

We need to be very careful with that. When we talk about international standards, what we are really saying is that incorporation by referencing says that we are going to take a third party standard, whether international, provincial or it does not even have to be a government agency. It could be any sort of a third party and it could be a one paragraph document or it could be a 500-page document.

I see my time has run out. Hopefully there will be a question and I will be able to conclude my comment on that aspect of it.

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is going to be the Standing Joint Committee on Scrutiny of Regulations that will continue to monitor when these changes come forward. It is important to know as well, as he mentioned, the ambulatory versus the static or the static versus dynamic. There are certain statutes or laws where certainly having an ambulatory reference would not be appropriate. That is clearly laid out here.

The Standing Joint Committee on Scrutiny of Regulations will continue to monitor these sorts of situations with able staff and members of Parliament. It is a unique committee that operates on consensus with the opposition. The member can take great comfort in the fact that his colleagues, along with the government side, will continue to ensure Canadians are protected through regulations, and we would use the incorporation by reference found in Bill S-12 for the benefit of all Canadians.

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for his speech. He currently serves on the scrutiny of regulations committee, and he is doing a great job there. His presentation tonight was very precise as well.

There has been a lot of discussion on the subject of Bill S-12, particularly on the importance of certainty to business. Obviously, this is a legislative tool that the government and parliamentarians currently use, and this would be codified. However, there are other benefits—for example, helping to harmonize international agreements—and there could be standards that allow Canadian enterprise to grow. Could the member share his thoughts about some of the positive aspects of this bill?

Many members tonight have said that the bill is quite technical. Therefore, if the member could point out some of the benefits that come along with this piece of legislation, I would appreciate it.

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the official opposition House leader, who I think has proved that a member of Parliament should be able to rise and give a 20-minute speech on anything at any time. He certainly did that well. I know his constituents and mine are seized with this issue and are glad that we are debating it here today. I am thankful that there is some time before the nightly playoff hockey will start so people can watch both this debate and that, later on.

I am pleased to speak about the incorporation by reference in regulations act, Bill S-12. The bill deals with the regulatory drafting technique. Essentially, it is about when federal regulators can or cannot use the technique of incorporation by reference. Bill S-12 has been studied by the Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs and has been reported without amendment to the House for consideration.

The technique of incorporation by reference is currently used in a wide range of federal regulations. Indeed, it is difficult to think of a regulated area in which incorporation by reference is not used to some degree. Bill S-12 is about securing the government's access to a drafting technique that has already become essential to the way government regulates. It is also about leading the way internationally in the modernization of regulations. More particularly, Bill S-12 responds to concerns expressed by the Joint Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Regulations about when incorporation by reference can be used. Incorporation by reference has already become an essential tool that is widely relied upon to achieve the objectives of the government.

The Senate committee considering the bill has heard that it is also an effective way to achieve many of the current goals of the cabinet directive on regulatory management. For example, regulations that use this technique are effective in facilitating intergovernmental co-operation and harmonization, a key objective of the regulatory co-operation council established by the Prime Minister and President Obama. By incorporating the legislation of other jurisdictions with which harmonization is desired or by incorporating standards developed internationally, regulations can minimize duplication, an important objective of the red tape reduction commission, which issued its report earlier this year. The result of Bill S-12 would be that regulators have the option of using this drafting technique in regulations aimed at achieving these objectives.

Incorporation by reference is also an important tool for the government to help Canada comply with its international obligations. Referencing material that is internationally accepted rather than attempting to reproduce the same rules in the regulations also reduces technical differences that create barriers to trade, something that Canada is required to do under the World Trade Organization's technical barriers to trade agreement.

Incorporation by reference is also an effective way to take advantage of the use of the expertise of standards-writing bodies in Canada. Canada has a national standards system that is recognized all over the world. Incorporation of standards, whether developed in Canada or internationally, allows for the best science and the most accepted approach in areas that affect people on a day-to-day basis to be used in regulations. Indeed, reliance on this expertise is essential to ensuring access to technical knowledge across the country and around the world.

Testimony by witnesses from the Standards Council of Canada before the Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs made it clear how extensively Canada already relies on international and national standards. Ensuring that regulators continue to have the ability to use ambulatory incorporation by reference in their regulations means that Canadians can be assured that they are protected by the most up-to-date technology. Incorporation by reference allows for the expertise of the Canadian national standards system and the international standards system to form a meaningful part of the regulatory tool box.

Another important aspect of Bill S-12 is that it allows for the incorporation by reference of rates and indices such as the consumer price index or the Bank of Canada rates, important elements in many regulations. For these reasons and more, ambulatory incorporation by reference is an important instrument available to regulators when they are designing their regulatory initiatives.

However, Bill S-12 also strikes an important balance in respect of what may be incorporated by reference by limiting the types of documents that can be incorporated by the regulation-maker. Also, only the versions of such a document as it exists on a particular day can be incorporated when the document is produced by the regulation-maker only. This is an important safeguard against circumvention of the regulatory process.

Parliament's ability to control the delegation of regulation-making powers continues, as does the oversight of the Standing Joint Committee for the Scrutiny of Regulations. We expect the standing joint committee will continue its work in respect of the scrutiny of regulations at the time they were first made, as well as in the future. We expect that the standing joint committee will indeed play an important role in ensuring the use of this technique continues to be exercised in the way that Parliament has authorized.

One of the most important aspects of this bill relates to accessibility. The Minister of Justice recognized this in his opening remarks to the Senate standing committee during its consideration of this bill. Bill S-12 would not only recognize the need to provide a solid legal basis for the use of this regulatory drafting technique, but it would also expressly impose in legislation an obligation on all regulators to ensure that the documents they incorporate are accessible.

While this has always been something that the common law required, this bill clearly enshrines this obligation in legislation. There is no doubt that accessibility should be part of this bill. It is essential that documents that are incorporated by reference be accessible to those who are required to comply with them. This is an important and significant step forward in this legislation. The general approach to accessibility found in Bill S-12 will provide flexibility to regulatory bodies to take whatever steps might be necessary to make sure that the diverse types of material from various sources are in fact accessible.

In general, material that is incorporated by reference is already accessible. As a result, in some cases no further action on the part of the regulation-making authority will be necessary. For example, provincial legislation is already generally accessible. Federal regulations that incorporate provincial legislation will undoubtedly allow the regulator to meet the requirement to ensure that the material is accessible.

Sometimes accessing the document through the standard organization itself will be appropriate. It will be clear that the proposed legislation will ensure the regulated community will have access to the incorporated material with a reasonable effort on their part. It is also important to note that standards organizations, such as the Canadian Standards Association, understand the need to provide access to incorporated standards.

By recognizing the changing landscape of the Internet, this bill creates a meaningful obligation on regulators to ensure accessibility while still allowing for innovation, flexibility and creativity. Bill S-12 is intended to solidify the government's access to a regulatory drafting technique that is essential to modern and responsive regulation. It also recognizes the corresponding obligation that regulators must meet when using this tool.

This bill strikes an important balance that reflects the reality of modern regulation while ensuring the appropriate protections are enshrined in law. No person can suffer a penalty or sanction if the relevant material was not accessible to them.

This proposal will provide express legislative authority for the use of this technique in the future and confirm the validity of existing regulations incorporating documents in a manner that is consistent with that authority.

We have many years of successful experience with the use of ambulatory and static incorporation by reference in legislation at the federal level. This knowledge will be useful in providing guidance in the future. There is also every indication that the use of this technique will be essential to implementing regulatory modernization initiatives here in Canada, in conjunction with our regulatory partners in the United States and around the world.

To conclude, enactment of this legislation is the logical and necessary next step to securing access in a responsible manner to incorporation by reference in regulation. I encourage members to support this legislative proposal and recognize the important step forward that it contains.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to be here this evening with everyone to discuss Bill S-12 on existing rules for many products and on very specific and even very technical issues.

I will make most of my comments in English and I will try to understand not only the substance of this Senate bill, but also the future process for Canadians who will be affected by this statute.

In general, an important distinction to make is that the official opposition, through the good work of our member for Gatineau, will support the bill through to second reading and study at committee.

Some have called the bill a technical housekeeping bill. It attempts to bring together a number of different ideas and allows for certain powers that are meant to help the Canadian economy, regulatory authorities and government to have some sort of consistent standards.

We heard from my friend from Saanich earlier that there may be some concerns as to the supremacy of Parliament to continue to make standards that fit with our traditions and our cultural institutions.

We have also raised some significant questions that bear consideration at committee as to what “accessibility” will actually mean once this bill becomes law, as it seems it might. We never would want to say a piece of legislation is not of great urgency, but this is one of the pieces of legislation that the government saw fit to begin the midnight sittings.

I know all my hon. colleagues across the way love midnight sittings and are keen for them. They are chest-thumping right now as I speak and it is the more the merrier. Maybe we could see the clock at 11:50 p.m., if there were some sort of consideration to this.

The important thing in looking at the way the bill has come together is that the source has to be mentioned. There may be some openness to my earlier suggestion. We may or may not test the room a little later.

However, the source of this bill is important, as it is comes from the Senate. There is a lot going on in the Senate right now. It is not focused like a laser. The NDP and Canadians might argue that it is having some institutional challenges. Therefore, while the bill itself might seem somewhat innocuous and neutral in tone, its source is given new suspicion because Canada's so-called chamber of sober second thought might not be so sober these days and might not be giving much second thought to things because of the preoccupation of accounting practices and the recent involvement of the Prime Minister's Office in trying to manage certain problems for the government.

The government uses private members' legislation quite frequently to move what are obviously parts of the government agenda. Rather than using the many tools available to it, it goes through a back door, through the private members' bill route.

The government is also increasingly uses the Senate to introduce bills that fit into the government's particular mandate, and the scrutiny, if one can call it that, that goes on in the Senate is obviously much less. The amount of oversight from the public and the amount of openness from the red chamber is greatly diminished.

While this is a technical bill, its implications actually have a great effect on the everyday lives of people and the businesses and people who we seek to represent. It sets out the rules and how rules will then be incorporated from regulations and standards.

With respect to my friend from Okanagan—Coquihalla, over a number of elections there has been much turnover in this place. We sometimes lament that because we lose that institutional knowledge from time to time, the wisdom and experience. However, it also brings in new energy and excitement for particular committees, of which there is little to be found. I am glad we found a new member from British Columbia who brings the rigour and excitement to the regulations and standards committee, a committee wherein sometimes it is a straw-drawing exercise as to who ends up there, yet it is fundamentally important.

The committee is not often fought over, not the way one would usually fight over appointments to committee, but the scrutiny of regulations committee is a vital committee to a lot of businesses that rely on this. There might not be a wide audience for this debate tonight because it is a niche market one might say. However, those who are interested are extremely interested in what Parliament will do with this legislation and that we get it right.

What is important and at the heart of the matter is a bill originating from the unaccountable, unelected and now under investigation Senate causes us to pay a bit more attention. We want to ensure that the way this legislation was put together was done right and that somebody with some seriousness was involved in its creation. This legislation has some iterations, so we will give it the serious consideration it deserves because of the impacts about which I talked.

We mentioned in the earlier discussion this evening what regulations one might extrapolate from this, such as safety equipment, sports equipment, medical equipment. If regulations drawn up in some dusty civil servant's office are done poorly and then complied with, then those regulations come to life and have some effects and in some cases very serious effects.

I had the opportunity to move a piece of private members' business in my first term here. I was early up in the lottery and moved a bill to remove a type of chemical toxin out of a product that was a softener for plastics. Lo and behold, the bill had wide appeal because it was a known carcinogen, it was an endocrine disrupter and it affected children particularly. The bill received unanimous support of the House, passed through the House, but died in the Senate now that I recall the full story.

Going through the process of seeing the legislation through, it was the regulations that industry suddenly became very excited about and it started making patently outrageous claims, as was proven in the end, because it was worried about harmonization.

The chemical we were talking about was meant to soften plastic, as I said, and it was used in the production of blood collection bags and the tubes that connected them to the patient. There was a hue and cry from the Canadian industry that said if my bill were to pass and this chemical were removed, there were no alternatives. The comment from Industry was that people would die on the operating tables in Canada because of the bill. It was a pretty strong claim and it left a number of members of Parliament wondering if they would be committing murder by voting for my bill.

Then we found out, through regulations and standards, that the Americans had already moved toward eliminating this known carcinogen and that the Europeans had been for a number of years well in advance of Canada in taking known carcinogens out of the industrial system. In the end, one could only describe it as some sort of apathy and laziness on the part of Canadian industry, which had simply not been forced or required to move to the international standard in the production of these blood bags and the tubes that connected them to patients.

It was a strange moment because it became so technical. We started with a good principle that was supported by the House, but the whole debate boiled down to and hung in the balance over some regulation and standard that we as parliamentarians had little to no knowledge of it. Most of us do not come to this place with the experience and enthusiasm of my friend from Okanagan—Coquihalla, certainly not so specific a knowledge as to know whether this chemical was required.

Needless to say, we brought in some witnesses from Europe and the United States and they corrected our Canadian industry. Our industy quickly replaced the known carcinogen and replaced it with something much more innocuous and nobody died. A few less people might have had their endocrines disrupted and maybe a bit less cancer was caused.

If this is a housekeeping bill, which it appears to be in some ways, then what happens at committee becomes quite important. As members of Parliament, we do not have the wherewithal or the particular expertise to know whether this form of regulation should be moved and whether it is static or dynamic or whether it is good for this circumstance or that. We are going to rely on expert witnesses.

We just recently had the Library of Parliament conduct a study for the official opposition. We asked the library a very simple and specific question. Of all the legislation that had been moved through the House since the Conservatives came to power and until now, not in a majority but the previous minority Parliament, of all the amendments that had been moved by any member of the opposition, what per cent had been rejected?

I thought it would be high, but I did not realize that it would be this high: 99.3% of all amendments were rejected. Some members on the other side, on the blue team, might claim that 99.3% of the amendments were terrible. I see a few votes. I hesitated to ask the question.

We need to understand where amendments come from and the process for a bill. Oftentimes, committee members rely on the testimony of the witnesses in front of us, because 99% of the time, they know more than we do. What we do as MPs is try to weigh the testimony in front of us and understand what is the most credible and what is backed up by the most evidence. We then move that into an amendment and work with the Library of Parliament to construct an amendment that would improve the bill.

If that is how the legislative process is meant to work, then clearly, if virtually 100% of all the amendments proposed and worked on by the New Democrats and the Liberals are being rejected out of hand, the process, for political reasons, is not working very well. It is no great disservice to us in the opposition alone. However, it is a disservice to the members of the Canadian public who sent us here, because we are choosing some sort of political expediency rather than accepting the idea that maybe the legislation as crafted the first time is not perfect. For a bill as technical as this one, I would hope that because it does not stir as many of those ideological and partisan motivations, the government members on the committee, who form a majority, will be open to amendments, regardless of who moves them.

If we have said that the thing is important for industry and important for the consumers who rely on the products, then certainly getting the legislation right is also important. It is important that we hand over powers to move these static and dynamic regulations up through standards, that we not duplicate the process and that we do that well. However, we should not do some sort of roughshod approach to regulations in general because sometimes, and I would suggest that this comes more from my colleagues across the way than it does from our side, in the political dynamic, all rules and regulations are treated as always bad, always inefficient and always cumbersome. Of course, that is not true. Of course, a society without rules and regulations to guide the manufacturing of products and the cleanliness of the water we seek to drink and the safety of our roads would be chaotic.

It may often be politically appealing to suggest that the problem with our economy right now is red tape. I ran a small business before getting into politics, and there were some things I encountered that made no sense. There was heavy duplication or having to answer questions that had nothing to do with the business I was running. However, I understood the general purpose and intent, which was to ensure that it was not caveat emptor only that guided and protected the consumer. It was not simply a case of picking up that package of hamburger or that new car off the lot. If the regulations are not going to protect people, and government is not going to play that role, then it is simply one's own wherewithal and the interest of the producer to always hold to higher standards. Most producers and manufacturers do, and some do not.

I represent a riding that has a large agricultural base. I can sit with the farmers and ranchers in my area, particularly on the ranching side, and they will say the same thing: they need good, solid, clear regulations. Business people often talk about clarity. They want to talk about certainty. They want to know what the rules are so that they can anticipate and make the investments they need to make over the long term so that their businesses are healthy and they can hire more people. What they do not like is uncertainty or rules that change for political reasons or some blowing-in-the-wind, weather-vane approach to the rules that guide us. Business hates that, particularly the larger they get and when they are more capital-intensive businesses.

I am now thinking of what has gone on with the Environmental Assessment Act and the Fisheries Act, which are regulations to guide industry and people to make sure that we try to balance that natural tension between the environment and the economy to ensure that while we are creating prosperity and wealth, we are not downgrading and degrading our natural ecosystem and environment, because over time, we know where that leads. We have enough examples in the world to understand that. However, I do not think, when it comes to climate change, we are taking it at all seriously in this place and perhaps in other Parliaments as well.

The government took a memo from industry, particularly from the oil and gas lobby recently, prior to last summer. The memo included 12 recommendations, requests for changes to the Environmental Assessment Act and the Fisheries Act, principally. The government moved all 12 through, but not through open debate here in the House. It moved them through omnibus legislation.

I talked to some of the industry reps about this. They had no idea they were going to get all 12 accepted. They were more in a negotiating position. They were offering up their first volley and would get something less back and would negotiate down. They were a bit shocked. The downside for industry, and I would suggest the downside for the government, is that it has eroded the faith of the public as to whether those laws are in place to protect our fisheries and our environment and whether they are strong enough. There are new doubts and aspersions cast upon the oil and gas industry writ large, the good actors and the bad. The companies that keep a good safety record and the ones that do not are all painted with the same brush. That is unfortunate for industry. That creates more uncertainty.

In the attempt to smooth over those rough edges of regulations and standards, the government ended up poisoning the conversation for many Canadians who have natural and normal considerations and concerns when talking about a large-scale development, be it the oil sands or a pipeline out of a particular place or a large mine. That does not seem right to me, and it is not balanced. It has actually drawn back the conversation a number of years, when we have spent decades building up strong and healthy protections for the environment, and almost a century for our fisheries, and they are now gone. Canadians then have to turn to other means and other understandings and conversations, because their voices are going to be heard. Whether Conservatives try to shut us down or not, it is going to happen.

In terms of this legislation and what we do when we get it to committee, it is going to be absolutely critical that the government play nice in allowing witnesses from sometimes both sides of an issue. There may be consumer protection groups, civil liberties groups and accessibility groups, as my friend from Toronto raised earlier, that may have some questions. When we talk about accessible, let us define it.

Official languages groups, I think, will absolutely be interested in this, because generally speaking, and my friend from British Columbia will verify this, international standards are written in the so-called language of business: English. While we are guided by laws in this land that should protect both official languages, there is a bit of a rub. If a consumer or an industry in a francophone community seeks to get a regulation with some clarity, are they going to pay for the translation to understand that? Is the Quebec government going to have concerns? I imagine that it will. It may be well and good to say that we have rules and laws on the books already to protect official languages, but those laws are not being applied.

There is no end to the examples from this government. Just look at the Quebec City marine rescue sub-centre. Today, the government was asked what it intends to do since the Commissioner of Official Languages said that there could be a serious problem for people who end up in trouble on the water. He said that what is in place is inadequate. The government is saying there is no problem.

However, there is a problem when a francophone on a boat has to communicate with an anglophone at a marine rescue sub-centre who knows only two or three words of French. This is unacceptable and against the law, but so it is and so it shall remain unless the government changes its policies. It is imperative that it do so.

It is not good enough to say that we have many laws to protect our two official languages. That may or may not be true. We will see what happens in committee.

I could provide a number of examples of committees where the NDP supported a bill for which the testimony and all the proposed amendments were rejected by the government. The NDP then had to vote against the bill because it was not very good. The government says that the NDP votes against everything, but that is not true. We simply want better.

The consumer confidence impact of the bill is also quite important. Canadian products are known the world over for quality and innovation. We have been on the leading edge of some of the greatest inventions and innovations in history. Yet we have seen a steady moving away from that basic science, which is concerning, both to those in industry and those in science. It is not in every case that scientists sit down in the laboratory and know the product they are going to achieve in the marketplace. That is not the way science often works. There is a litany of examples of things that we now rely upon, such as the computer, the BlackBerry or the automobile that did not start off as inventions. They started off as basic science and understanding. That needs to still be there.

As international trade is so important to Canada as a trading nation, we need to get these international standards aligned properly and make sure that the regulations and standards we design are able to fit yet do not diminish us as a nation. This is important. Everyone should agree that in the pursuit of that trade, we do not diminish ourselves and say that we will accept lower standards for health and safety or for the quality of the products we have. That would be contrary to the aspects of good and fair trade.

In this bill, we have a number of things that are important. Yet it will probably be at the committee stage when we will see the willingness of the government to do what good governments do, which is work with the opposition to make things better. There is no chance, it is just impossible to imagine, that the first incarnation of this bill was written perfectly without a comma or period out of place and without a word that needs to be taken away or added.

The New Democrats will be there to study the bill vigorously at committee and ensure that it is the best piece of legislation possible.

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

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the member's previous support of my changes to the Importation of Intoxicating Liquors Act.

One of the challenges we have is there is a not very well understood point that the House, Parliament, has sovereignty over what treaties it becomes part of to what standards are chosen.

As I said to the member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley, we have the choice, as legislators, to choose static or dynamic, depending upon what is in our best interest.

I would ask the member to keep an open mind and to visit the scrutiny of regulations committee to listen in. That committee does a very noble service by ensuring that when those statutes are translated into regulations, parliamentarians continue to scrutinize to ensure that not only are the regulations bona fide as per the statute, but that they are not unreasonably burdensome.

I would encourage the member to look at Bill S-12 as being more tools in the toolbox that would allow legislators like ourselves to decide what is in our national interest.

Bill S-12 is in our national interest based on those points.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Okanagan—Coquihalla, whom I was very pleased to support when he brought forward legislation to free the transport of wine from one province to another.

Unfortunately, I have no enthusiasm whatsoever, but great trepidation and concern that what appears to be innocent—incorporation by reference—will do serious damage to the scrutiny of regulations in this place.

There is a reason we do not say a law is passed and then incorporate by reference large swathes of changes that do not allow the average citizen to stay on top of what is happening to laws that affect them. On the contrary, this kind of change will undermine the ability of Canadian business to know what regulations apply to them and when they have been changed.

Yes, it is true that there are systems of government that are far more efficient than democracy, but the rule of law matters in democracies, and as benign as this bill sounds, it is a dangerous move.

I cannot support Bill S-12.

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

Mr. Speaker, there is an obligation by government to make sure that regulations, especially federal regulations, are available in both French and English. That is well established by the courts, and this government has honoured that in all that it does.

The second part I would like to focus on is that this is a changing world. We live in a globally competitive economy. I would like to know from this member whether or not he supports the idea of Canadian industry reaching out and trying to open up new areas, new markets, so that Canadian industry and Canadian jobs can be advanced.

I really hope the member for Winnipeg North can bear that in mind, and I am hoping this House will support Bill S-12 as it is presented.

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

Mr. Speaker, I really welcome a question from a fellow member from B.C. today.

Specifically I will start with the first question: to which industry should this apply? Again, as the hon. member mentioned in his preamble, the devil is in the details. That is one of the reasons Bill S-12 proposes to allow us to use the tool in either static or dynamic form. The great part about it, and what has me excited as a legislator, is that we get to decide the appropriate path to progress forward.

The second question asked about consultation with the provinces. From my understanding, it is actually the Joint Standing Committee on the Scrutiny of Regulations that has expressed concern with the use of incorporation by reference. It wanted the government to clarify how it codified its own regulations.

I do know, through the divisions of powers and also through court and case law that if, for example, a particular activity is being done in a particular province, it is typically addressed through provincial law, meaning that the province may decide to incorporate its own incorporation by reference, but if it passes from one province to another, then it is usually governed at the federal level.

One of the great things about our federation is that there is a constant discussion about this. Again, the court and case law on these kinds of things is quite clear.

I look forward to other questions like those of the member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise in the House today to speak to the incorporation by reference in regulations act.

I feel I must pause for a moment and start from the very beginning. When I first arrived in Ottawa as a newly elected member of Parliament, scrutiny of regulations, or regs, as many call it, was the first committee that I served on. I was excited about it as I had expressed an interest prior on this particular committee and the very important work that it does. I soon discovered that some of my more experienced colleagues, upon hearing the news that I had joined the regs committee, were far more frequent to express condolences to me as opposed to congratulations.

Regs is not a committee that often makes headlines, and here I will digress for a brief moment. Shakespeare once famously wrote, “Thou crusty batch of nature”. As the member of Parliament for Papineau well knows, today we often express this sentiment much differently. The point I raise, as conveyed by Shakespeare, is it is not only what one says but rather how one says it that matters.

I submit that this same principle holds true for us as parliamentarians and more so when it comes to drafting technical legislation, although what we draft would probably not be seen as to rival Shakespeare. Though our intent may be clear, it is the language that we use that is of paramount importance. Unlike Shakespeare, government regulations should be able to evolve and adapt over time, along with technology and society, ensuring that the original intent be translated into language and standards that are clear and current. That is why I am here today supporting Bill S-12, the incorporation by reference in regulations act.

Members may ask what incorporation by reference is, aside from a potential new question in a future House of Commons' edition of Trivial Pursuit. Incorporation by reference, as outlined in Bill S-12, deals with a regulatory drafting technique. If the bill had a slogan attached to it, I would submit it would be called the “let us not reinvent the wheel act” when it comes to technical legislation and regulation. I would like to expand on that thought.

In Canada, we currently have many technical and highly regulated areas. Some examples of this include the regulation of medical devices, the control and collection of organs for donation and those regulations that govern shipbuilding standards. In many cases, these regulations may well be set by international or nationally recognized associations. The question is this. How do we encapsulate these regulations into legislation and, more rightfully, is there a more effective and efficient way to do that? Bill S-12 does exactly that. That is why I am here to support Bill S-12.

How does Bill S-12 work? In plain English the bill codifies the ability of government to use a commonly used drafting technique of incorporation by reference while clearly prescribing when and how the technique is to be used. Put another way, it enables regulations to incorporate external material without having to duplicate that material. by simply referencing it in the text of the regulation. This cuts down the onerous amount of material that would have to be included and duplicated in a number of regulations.

Further, by adding “as amended from time to time” to the reference of the external material, the regulation can stay current with any changes made to those standards without the regulation or legislation itself having to be amended or altered. This allows for regulations to be fluid, current and responsive. This in turn cuts down on unnecessary duplication of legislation and prevents regulations from becoming stale-dated.

Incorporation by reference is a widely used, common sense drafting technique, but this bill would legitimize it and place clear direction on its proper use.

I will provide another example of how this could work.

If a regulation provides that all hockey helmets must be manufactured in accordance with a particular Canadian Standards Association standard, the effect of that reference is to make that standard part of the regulation without actually needing to reproduce the text of the CSA standard in the regulation itself. The rules found in the Canadian Standards Association standard form part of the law, even though they are not repeated and reproduced in the regulation.

Frequently, technical standards like the Canadian Standards Association's standard used in this example are incorporated “as amended from time to time”. This means that when the Canadian Standards Association makes amendments to the standard to keep up to date with changes in technology or production methods or improvements in manufacturing and science, those changes are automatically included in the regulation; in other words, the changes made to the standard are incorporated into the regulation and become law without amending the text of the regulation. This is referred to as “ambulatory incorporation by reference”. Some people might refer to it as “dynamic incorporation by reference”.

In some cases and in certain circumstances, a legislator may desire a fluid parallel between legislation and regulation. In these circumstances, the regulations can still be frozen, based upon the regulations as they exist on a certain date. This is referred to as “static incorporation by reference”.

This means that only one particular version of the document is incorporated. In that case, regardless of what happens to the document after the regulations are made, it is only that version that is described in the regulation that is incorporated.

Incorporation by reference has become an essential tool and is increasingly relied upon by governments to more efficiently develop their regulations.

This approach also helps to standardize regulation in a universally understood language. That is of benefit to all.

Last year I was visited by representatives of the National Marine Manufacturers Association. One of the challenges expressed by the Canadian marine manufacturing industry is the difficulty they have in meeting different regulations in different markets that they need to access.

As members have heard before, I have said anything we can do to help Canadian industry access these markets, whether that means increased intergovernmental co-operation or collaboration, is a good thing and something I believe we should look at and support.

By incorporating the legislation of other jurisdictions with whom harmonization is desirable or by incorporating standards developed and respected internationally, regulations can minimize duplication and avoid repetition of the same material. It can avoid the need to reinvent the regulatory wheel, so to speak.

Incorporation by reference can minimize and even avoid undesirable barriers to trade, an issue that, as I pointed out earlier, has been identified by the Canadian National Marine Manufacturers Association.

Enactment of this legislation is a necessary, pertinent change for many of the reasons I have already outlined. These changes would also address the concerns raised by the Standing Joint Committee for the Scrutiny of Regulations that I referenced earlier.

I should also add that the joint committee will continue to have the mandate to scrutinize how incorporation by reference is being used in accordance with this bill.

I submit that the enactment of this legislation is a logical, necessary next step to incorporation by reference in regulations.

Before I close, I would like to share one further point.

I am reasonably confident that most members of the House support the principles of innovation. Marketplaces are changing at record speed. Technology and new economies are emerging rapidly. I am certain that many of us could all share examples of exciting new developments that occur in their ridings, yet increasingly when I meet with a new employer who has an exciting new product or service being offered, market access is often one of the biggest barriers to trade that is mentioned. That is in large part because regulation does not keep pace with innovation.

There are a lot of good things in Bill S-12. The Standing Joint Committee on the Scrutiny of Regulations has expressed concerns, and the government has listened to those concerns. There are more tools allowing for legislators to be able to choose, whether it be a dynamic form of incorporation by reference or a static one. Bill S-12 would allow us as legislators to have those tools for our regulatory process, not only to help open new markets but also to be able to respond to some of the international agreements that we have.

At one of the last meetings I attended with the scrutiny of regulations committee, an international accord was brought up. It is certainly a challenge for the committee and also for the government to keep up with the changes that are involved in that accord.

When the government presents something that is just common sense and is within our Canadian interest, something that would allow greater clarity and a greater understanding of the rules to allow us to be able to harmonize with other markets and encourage our industry to reach out and expand, while the term “incorporation by reference” may not make most people smile, it is an important thing.

I ask that every member in the House support Bill S-12 and move it on to the next stage. It is a common sense bill. It is a practical bill. I ask the House to support it.

[Continuation of proceedings from Part A]

The House resumed from February 13 consideration of the motion that Bill S-12, an act to amend the Statutory Instruments Act and to make consequential amendments to the Statutory Instruments Regulations, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Business of the House

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, as you know, our government has moved forward this week to conduct business in the House of Commons in a productive, orderly and hard-working fashion, and we have tried to work in good faith.

We began the week debating a motion to add an additional 20 hours to the House schedule each week. Before I got through the first minute of my speech on that motion, the hon. member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley interrupted with a dubious point of order to prevent the government from moving forward to work overtime. His was a bogus argument and the Speaker rightly saw the NDP delay effort as entirely devoid of merit and rejected it outright.

During its first speech opposing the motion to work hard, the NDP then moved an amendment to gut it. That amendment was defeated. The NDP then voted against the motion and against working overtime, but that motion still passed, thanks to the Conservatives in the House.

During the first NDP speech on Bill C-49 last night, in the efforts to work longer, the NDP moved an amendment to gut that bill and cause gridlock in the House. I am not kidding. These are all one step after another of successive measures to delay. During its next speech, before the first day of extended hours was completed, the NDP whip moved to shut down the House, to go home early. That motion was also defeated. This is the NDP's “do as I say, not as I do” attitude at its height.

Take the hon. member for Gatineau. At 4 p.m., she stood in the House and said, “I am more than happy to stay here until midnight tonight...”. That is a direct quote. It sounded good. In fact, I even naively took her at her word that she and her party were actually going to work with us, work hard and get things done. Unfortunately, her actions did not back up her words, because just a few short hours later, that very same member, the member for Gatineau, seconded a motion to shut down the House early.

I am not making this up. I am not kidding. She waited until the sun went down until she thought Canadians were not watching anymore and then she tried to prevent members from doing their work. This goes to show the value of the word of NDP members. In her case, she took less than seven hours to break her word. That is unfortunate. It is a kind of “do as I say, not as I do” attitude that breeds cynicism in politics and, unfortunately, it is all too common in the NDP.

We saw the same thing from the hon. member for Davenport, when he said, “We are happy to work until midnight...”, and two short hours later he voted to try to shut down the House early. It is the same for the hon. member for Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing and the hon. member for Drummond. They all professed an interest in working late and then had their party vote to shut down early. What is clear by their actions is that the NDP will try anything to avoid hard work.

It is apparent that the only way that Conservatives, who are willing to work in the House, will be able to get things done is through a focused agenda, having a productive, orderly and hard-working House of Commons. This afternoon, we will debate Bill C-51, the safer witnesses act, at report stage and third reading. After private members' hour, we will go to Bill S-12, the incorporation by reference in regulations act, at second reading.

Tomorrow before question period, we will start second reading of Bill S-14, the fighting foreign corruption act, and after question period, we will start second reading of Bill S-13, the port state measures agreement implementation act.

Monday before question period, we will consider Bill S-2, the family homes on reserves and matrimonial interests or rights act. This bill would provide protection for aboriginal women and children by giving them the same rights that women who do not live on reserve have had for decades. After question period, we will debate Bill C-54, the not criminally responsible reform act, at second reading, a bill that makes a reasonable and needed reform to the Criminal Code. We are proposing to ensure that public safety should be the paramount consideration in the decision-making process involving high-risk accused found not criminally responsible on account of mental disorder. It is time to get that bill to a vote. We will also consider Bill C-48, the technical tax amendments act, 2012—and yes, that is last year—at third reading.

On Tuesday, we will continue the debates on Bill C-48 and Bill C-49, the Canadian museum of history act.

On Wednesday, we will resume this morning's debate on Bill C-52, the fair rail freight service act, at third reading.

On Thursday, we will continue this afternoon's debate on Bill C-51. Should the NDP adopt a new and co-operative, productive spirit and let all of these bills pass, we could consider other measures, such as Bill S-17, the tax conventions implementation act, 2013, Bill C-56, the combating counterfeit products act, Bill S-15, the expansion and conservation of Canada’s national parks act, and Bill C-57, the safeguarding Canada's seas and skies act.

Optimism springs eternal within my heart. I hope to see that from the opposition.

Extension of Sitting Hours

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will pick up where I left off. Obviously my hon. friend did not hear this and has not read the motion. I will respond to his macho riposte at the end of his comments by pointing out that the motion would do three things: first, it would provide for us to sit until midnight; second, it would provide a manageable way in which to hold votes in a fashion that works for members of the House; and third, it would provide for concurrence debates to happen and motions to be voted on in a fashion that would not disrupt the work of all the committees of the House and force them to come back here for votes and shut down the work of committees.

Those are the three things the motion would do. In all other respects the Standing Orders remain in place, including the Standing Orders for how long the House sits. Had my friend actually read the motion, he would recognize that the only way in which that Standing Order could then be changed would be by unanimous consent of the House.

The member needs no commitment from me as to how long we will sit. Any member of the House can determine that question, if he or she wishes to adjourn other than the rules contemplate, but the rules are quite clear in what they do contemplate.

As I was saying, the reason for the motion is that Canadians expect their members of Parliament to work hard and get things done on their behalf.

Canadians expect their members of Parliament to work hard and get things done on their behalf.

We agree and that is exactly what has happened here in the House of Commons.

However, do not take my word for it; look at the facts. In this Parliament the government has introduced 76 pieces of legislation. Of those 76, 44 of them are law in one form or another. That makes for a total of 58% of the bills introduced into Parliament. Another 15 of these bills have been passed by either the House or the Senate, bringing the total to 77% of the bills that have been passed by one of the two Houses of Parliament. That is the record of a hard-working, orderly and productive Parliament.

More than just passing bills, the work we are doing here is delivering real results for Canadians. However, there is still yet more work to be done before we return to our constituencies for the summer.

During this time our government's top priority has been jobs, economic growth and long-term prosperity. Through two years and three budgets, we have passed initiatives that have helped to create more than 900,000 net new jobs since the global economic recession. We have achieved this record while also ensuring that Canada's debt burden is the lowest in the G7. We are taking real action to make sure the budget will be balanced by 2015. We have also followed through on numerous longstanding commitments to keep our streets and communities safe, to improve democratic representation in the House of Commons, to provide marketing freedom for western Canadian grain farmers and to eliminate once and for all the wasteful and inefficient long gun registry.

Let me make clear what the motion would and would not do. There has been speculation recently, including from my friend opposite, about the government's objectives and motivations with respect to motion no. 17. As the joke goes: Mr. Freud, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. So it is with today's motion. There is only one intention motivating the government in proposing the motion: to work hard and deliver real results for Canadians.

The motion would extend the hours the House sits from Monday through Thursday. Instead of finishing the day around 6:30 or 7 p.m., the House would sit instead until midnight.

This would amount to an additional 20 hours each week. Extended sitting hours is something that happens most years in June. Our government just wants to roll up our sleeves and work a little harder, earlier this year. The motion would allow certain votes to be deferred automatically until the end of question period, to allow for all honourable members' schedules to be a little more orderly.

As I said, all other rules would remain. For example, concurrence motions could be moved, debated and voted upon. Today's motion would simply allow committees to continue doing their work instead of returning to the House for motions to return to government business and the like. This process we are putting forward would ensure those committees could do their good work and be productive, while at the same time the House could proceed with its business. Concurrence motions could ultimately be dealt with, debated and voted upon.

We are interested in working hard and being productive and doing so in an orderly fashion, and that is the extent of what the motion would do. I hope that the opposition parties would be willing to support this reasonable plan and let it come forward to a vote. I am sure members opposite would not be interested in going back to their constituents to say they voted against working a little overtime before the House rises for the summer, but the first indication from my friend opposite is that perhaps he is reluctant to do that. Members on this side of the House are willing to work extra hours to deliver real results for Canadians.

Some of those accomplishments we intend to pass are: reforming the temporary foreign workers program to put the interests of Canadians first; implementing tax credits for Canadians who donate to charity; enhancing the tax credit for parents who adopt; and extending the tax credit for Canadians who take care of loved ones in their home.

We also want to support veterans and their families by improving the determination of veterans' benefits.

Of course, these are some of the important measures from this year's budget and are included in Bill C-60, economic action plan 2013 act, no. 1. We are also working toward results for aboriginals by moving closer to equality for Canadians living on reserves through better standards for drinking water and finally giving women on reserves the same rights and protections other Canadian women have had for decades. Bill S-2, family homes on reserves and matrimonial interests or rights act, and Bill S-8, the safe drinking water for first nations act would deliver on those very important objectives.

We will also work to keep our streets and communities safe by making real improvements to the witness protection program through Bill C-51, the safer witnesses act. I think that delivering these results for Canadians is worth working a few extra hours each week.

We will work to bring the Technical Tax Amendments Act, 2012, into law. Bill C-48 would provide certainty to the tax code. It has been over a decade since a bill like this has passed, so it is about time this bill passed. In fact, after question period today, I hope to start third reading of this bill, so perhaps we can get it passed today.

We will also work to bring Bill C-52, the fair rail freight service act, into law. The bill would support economic growth by ensuring that all shippers, including farmers, are treated fairly. Over the next few weeks we will also work, hopefully with the co-operation of the opposition parties, to make progress on other important initiatives.

Bill C-54 will ensure that public safety is the paramount consideration in the decision-making process involving high-risk accused found not criminally responsible on account of mental disorder. This is an issue that unfortunately has affected every region of this country. The very least we can do is let the bill come to a vote and send it to committee where witnesses can testify about the importance of these changes.

Bill C-49 would create the Canadian museum of history, a museum for Canadians that would tell our stories and present our country's treasures to the world.

Bill S-14, the Fighting Foreign Corruption Act, will do just that by further deterring and preventing Canadian companies from bribing foreign public officials. These amendments will help ensure that Canadian companies continue to act in good faith in the pursuit of freer markets and expanded global trade.

Bill S-13, the port state measures agreement implementation act, would implement that 2009 treaty by amending the Coastal Fisheries Protection Act to add prohibitions on importing illegally acquired fish.

Tonight we will be voting on Bill S-9, the Nuclear Terrorism Act, which will allow Canada to honour its commitments under international agreements to tackle nuclear terrorism. Another important treaty—the Convention on Cluster Munitions—can be given effect if we adopt Bill S-10, the Prohibiting Cluster Munitions Act.

We will seek to update and modernize Canada’s network of income tax treaties through Bill S-17, the Tax Conventions Implementation Act, 2013, by giving the force of law to recently signed agreements between Canada and Namibia, Serbia, Poland, Hong Kong, Luxembourg and Switzerland.

Among other economic bills is Bill C-56, the combating counterfeit products act. The bill would protect Canadians from becoming victims of trademark counterfeiting and goods made using inferior or dangerous materials that lead to injury or even death. Proceeds from the sale of counterfeit goods may be used to support organized crime groups. Clearly, this bill is another important one to enact.

Important agreements with the provinces of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador would be satisfied through Bill S-15, the expansion and conservation of Canada’s national parks act, which would, among other things, create the Sable Island national park reserve, and Bill C-61, the offshore health and safety act, which would provide clear rules for occupational health and safety of offshore oil and gas installations.

Earlier I referred to the important work of committees. The Standing Joint Committee on the Scrutiny of Regulations inspired Bill S-12, the incorporation by reference in regulations act. We should see that committee's ideas through by passing this bill. Of course, a quick reading of today's order paper would show that there are yet still more bills before the House of Commons for consideration and passage. All of these measures are important and will improve the lives of Canadians. Each merits consideration and hard work on our part.

In my weekly business statement prior to the constituency week, I extended an offer to the House leaders opposite to work with me to schedule and pass some of the other pieces of legislation currently before the House. I hope that they will respond to my request and put forward at our next weekly meeting productive suggestions for getting things done. Passing today's motion would be a major step toward accomplishing that. As I said in my opening comments, Canadians expect each one of us to come to Ottawa to work hard, vote on bills and get things done.

In closing, I commend this motion to the House and encourage all hon. members to vote for this motion, add a few hours to our day, continue the work of our productive, orderly and hard-working Parliament, and deliver real results for Canadians.

Business of the House

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, this afternoon we will continue the debate on today’s opposition motion from the NDP. Pursuant to the rules of the House, time is allocated and there will be a vote after the two-day debate.

Tomorrow we will resume the third reading debate on Bill S-9, the Nuclear Terrorism Act. As I mentioned on Monday, I am optimistic that we will pass that important bill this week.

Should we have extra time on Friday, we will take up Bill C-48, the Technical Tax Amendments Act, 2012, at report stage and third reading.

When we come back from constituency week, I am keen to see the House make a number of accomplishments for Canadians. Allow me to make it clear to the House what the government's priorities are.

Our government will continue to focus on jobs, growth and long-term prosperity. In doing that, we will be working on reforming the temporary foreign worker program to put the interests of Canadians first; implementing tax credits for Canadians who donate to charity and parents who adopt; extending tax credits for Canadians who take care of loved ones in their homes; supporting veterans and their families by improving the balance for determining veterans' benefits; moving closer to equality for Canadians living on reserves through better standards for drinking water, which my friend apparently objects to; giving women on reserves the rights and protections that other Canadian women have had for decades, something to which he also objects; and keeping our streets and communities safer by making real improvements to the witness protection program. We will of course do more.

Before we rise for the summer, we will tackle the bills currently listed on the order paper, as well as any new bills which might get introduced. After Victoria Day, we will give priority consideration to bills which have already been considered by House committees.

For instance, we will look at Bill C-48, which I just mentioned, Bill C-51, the Safer Witnesses Act, Bill C-52, the Fair Rail Freight Service Act, and Bill S-2, the Family Homes on Reserves and Matrimonial Interests or Rights Act, which I understand could be reported back soon.

I look forward also to getting back from committee and passing Bill C-60, , the economic action plan 2013 act, no. 1; Bill S-8, the safe drinking water for first nations act; and Bill C-21, the political loans accountability act.

We have, of course, recently passed Bill C-15, the strengthening military justice in the defence of Canada act and Bill S-7, the combating terrorism act. Hopefully, tomorrow we will pass Bill S-9, the nuclear terrorism act.

Finally, we will also work toward second reading of several bills including: Bill C-12, the safeguarding Canadians' personal information act; Bill C-49, the Canadian museum of history act; Bill C-54, the not criminally responsible reform act; Bill C-56, the combating counterfeit products act; Bill C-57, the safeguarding Canada's seas and skies act; Bill C-61, the offshore health and safety act; Bill S-6, the first nations elections act; Bill S-10, the prohibiting cluster munitions act; Bill S-12, the incorporation by reference in regulations act; Bill S-13, the port state measures agreement implementation act; Bill S-14, the fighting foreign corruption act; Bill S-15, the expansion and conservation of Canada’s national parks act, which establishes Sable Island National Park; and Bill S-17, the tax conventions implementation act, 2013.

I believe and I think most Canadians who send us here expect us to do work and they want to see us vote on these things and get things done. These are constructive measures to help all Canadians and they certainly expect us to do our job and actually get to votes on these matters.

I hope we will be able to make up enough time to take up all of these important bills when we come back, so Canadians can benefit from many parliamentary accomplishments by the members of Parliament they have sent here this spring.

Before taking my seat, let me formally designate, pursuant to Standing Order 81(4)(a), Tuesday, May 21, as the day appointed for the consideration in a committee of the whole of all votes under Natural Resources in the main estimates for the final year ending March 31, 2014. This would be the second of two such evenings following on tonight's proceedings.

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the opposition House leader for his stream-of-consciousness therapy.

Our government, however, is very focused. Our top priority is jobs, growth and long-term prosperity. With that in mind, this afternoon we will continue second reading debate on the cornerstone item of our legislative agenda, which is Bill C-60, the economic action plan 2013 act, no. 1. We will continue this debate tomorrow.

Next Monday, May 6, will be the fourth day of second reading debate on this important job creation bill, and Tuesday May 7 will be the fifth and final day.

Once debate is concluded, the House will have an opportunity to vote on the substantive job creation measures in this bill.

On Wednesday, the House will debate Bill S-8, the Safe Drinking Water for First Nations Act. This will be the fourth time this bill is debated at second reading so it is my hope and expectation that this bill will come to a vote.

With the vote, there will be another clear choice before the House. Members will be voting to allow for national standards for on-reserve drinking water. This is a question of basic equality. I know the opposition voted against equality for women on reserves when it voted against Bill S-2, matrimonial property on reserves, but I hope they have stopped grasping at excuses to oppose equal treatment for first nations and will now support Bill S-8.

While I am speaking about aboriginal affairs, allow me to take the time to notify the House that I am designating, pursuant to Standing Order 81(4)(a), Thursday, May 9, for consideration in committee of the whole all votes under Indian Affairs and Northern Development in the main estimates for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2014.

On Thursday, we will continue to advance the economic priority of our legislative agenda by debating Bill C-48, the technical tax amendments act, 2012, in the morning. Following question period on Thursday, May 9, we will continue Bill S-9, the nuclear terrorism act at third reading. I understand there is broad support for this bill, so I hope to see it pass swiftly. Then we can move on to other legislation, including: Bill C-49, the Canadian museum of history act; Bill C-51, the safer witnesses act; Bill C-52, the fair rail freight service act; Bill S-10, the prohibiting cluster munitions act; Bill S-12, the incorporation by reference in regulations act; Bill S-13, the coastal fisheries protection act; and bill S-14, the fighting foreign bribery act.

Finally, Friday, May 10 will be the seventh allotted day, which I understand will be for the NDP.

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the opposition House leader for his very kind, thoughtful and sensitive comments and concern for our welfare over here.

This afternoon, we will continue the third reading debate on Bill S-9, the nuclear terrorism act. This will be the third time that the bill has been debated at third reading. In the previous two days that it was debated, we actually heard from the comments of the New Democrats that they were quite supportive of the bill and that they called for it to be passed without delay. We are asking them to heed their own advice and allow this matter to come to a vote. The government shares the view that it does need to proceed quickly. If we do care about giving people a safe and peaceful Easter now and in years to come, we certainly want to have this kind of legislation in place to protect Canadians and ensure their peace from nuclear terrorism. I hope the NDP will back up those words and allow a vote to occur.

Monday, April 15, when we return from the time in our constituencies, will be the first opposition day of the new supply period where I understand we will debate a motion from the NDP.

Tuesday, April 16, will be the second opposition day, and I understand we will debate a motion from the Liberals.

On the Wednesday of that week, the House will return to second reading debate of Bill S-2, the family homes on reserves and matrimonial interests or rights act. The bill would finally provide the legal protections for the women on reserve that they have lacked for far too long. This discrimination should not exist. That is why aboriginal people and even the Manitoba NDP have been calling for the passage of Bill S-2. I would hope that the federal NDP would heed that call and allow a vote to take place, giving aboriginal women rights regarding matrimonial property.

If debate on S-2 concludes, the House will then debate at report stage Bill C-15, the strengthening military justice in the defence of Canada act. I believe that this is also very close to the finish line.

Following that, we would consider Bill S-12, the Incorporation by Reference in Regulations Act at second reading. Thursday, April 18, will be another opposition day for the NDP.

Before I conclude, let me wish all the MPs and the parliamentary staff a happy Easter.

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, our focus as a government is on an agenda that puts at the forefront job creation, economic growth and long-term prosperity, with a very clear focus on making our streets and communities safer. With regard to that clear agenda, we have several items to propose for the time ahead.

Today we will continue the third reading debate on Bill S-9, the nuclear terrorism act. That is a cornerstone in making our communities safer. After that, we will return to second reading debate on Bill S-12, the incorporation by reference in regulations act.

Tomorrow we will finish the second reading debate on Bill C-48, the technical tax amendments act, 2012, again resulting in a more stable and secure economy.

After we return from our constituency week on Monday, March 18, the House will consider Bill C-55, the response to the Supreme Court of Canada decision in R. v. Tse act, at report stage and third reading now that it has been reported back from committee. This is an important justice measure. I must remind the House that this legislation responds to a Supreme Court decision that takes effect over the Easter adjournment, so it is very important that we be able to pass it here and get it to the Senate for it to deal with before that time.

Once the House deals with Bill C-55, it could then consider Bills S-9 and S-12, if they are still held up in the House; Bill C-15, the Strengthening Military Justice in the Defence of Canada Act, at report stage and third reading, since that bill has now been reported back from committee; and Bill S-7, the Combating Terrorism Act, at third reading.

All these bills are necessary and important for Canadians' safety.

Wednesday, March 20, shall be the seventh and final allotted day. As a result, the House will then consider the usual supply motions and appropriation bills that evening. We will give priority to debating Bills C-15 and S-12 on Thursday and Friday, March 21 and 22.

I hope that makes clear the agenda that the opposition House leader has apparently been unable to perceive of the government, our clear agenda of delivering on job creation, economic growth, long-term prosperity and safe and secure communities for all Canadians.

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, this afternoon we will continue debating third reading of Bill C-42, the enhancing Royal Canadian Mounted Police accountability act, a bill that would give the RCMP the tools it needs to strengthen accountability and enhance public trust. I am puzzled why the NDP is putting up member after member to delay and block bringing accountability to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. The New Democrats should let the bill come to a final vote so that these much-needed reforms can be put in place. In fact, the RCMP commissioner, Robert Paulson, was in front of the committee yesterday, and he called for swift passage of the bill.

If the New Democrats heed the commissioner's advice and allow the debate to conclude, we will be able to start third reading of Bill S-7, the combatting terrorism act, and help keep Canadians safe that way.

Tomorrow, we will start the second reading debate on Bill C-54, the Not Criminally Responsible Reform Act. This bill proposes to put public safety as the first and paramount consideration in the process of dealing with accused persons found to be not criminally responsible. It accomplishes this change without affecting the treatment these individuals receive.

The debate on Bill C-54 will continue next Thursday and—if necessary—on Friday. Monday, we will consider Bill C-47, the Northern Jobs and Growth Act, at report stage and third reading. We will continue that debate on Wednesday.

Tuesday, March 5, shall be the sixth allotted day, which will go to the New Democrats.

Finally, I hope that the opposition will support our hard-working approach to business so that we could also consider second reading of Bill C-48, the technical tax amendments act, 2012; the second reading of Bill S-12, the incorporation by reference in regulations act; and report stage and third reading of Bill S-9, the nuclear terrorism act.

In addition, in response to what I will take to be an invitation from the oppostion House leader, I would like unanimous consent to propose the following motion. I hope the opposition will not block it.

I move that, notwithstanding any standing order or usual practice of the House, Bill C-7, an act respecting the selection of senators and amending the Constitution Act, 1867 in respect of Senate term limits, be deemed to have been read the second time and referred to a committee of the whole, deemed considered in committee of the whole, deemed reported without amendment, deemed concurred in at report stage and deemed read the third time and passed.

Unanimous consent for this would show that they really do care about Senate reform.

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I welcome the implicit offer of assistance from the House Leader of the Official Opposition.

I look forward to discussions with him later on the possibility of moving forward both Senate reform and Bill C-12 on a unanimous consent basis straight to committee. I would be happy to do that with him.

This afternoon we will continue debating the Liberal opposition day motion. Tomorrow we will hopefully finish second reading of Bill C-48, the Technical Tax Amendments Act, 2012, a measure supported by all three parties. After that we will turn to third reading of Bill C-42, the Enhancing Royal Canadian Mounted Police Accountability Act; third reading of Bill S-7, the Combating Terrorism Act; and second reading of Bill S-12, the Incorporation by Reference in Regulations Act.

When we return from our constituency week on Monday, February 25, we will start second reading of Bill C-55, the Response to the Supreme Court of Canada Decision in R. v. Tse Act. This bill needs to be passed by mid-April before the Supreme Court ruling takes effect, which would render the important powers available to police ineffective.

After Bill C-55, we will consider Friday's unfinished business.

Tuesday, February 26, shall be the fifth allotted day, which will go to the Official Opposition, and it will therefore choose the subject of debate.

On Wednesday and Thursday, we will continue debating the bills I have already listed.

Additionally, Bill C-47, Northern Jobs and Growth Act, was reported back from committee yesterday, and I anticipate Bill S-9, Nuclear Terrorism Act, will be reported back soon. So we could also call these bills at report stage and third reading, if we have extra time next week.

Finally, on Friday, March 1, the House will start the second reading debate on Bill C-54, Not Criminally Responsible Reform Act. The Prime Minister announced this bill last week as part of our efforts to ensure we have a justice system that puts the rights of victims first.

Incorporation by Reference in Regulations Act

[Craig Scott, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I was not aware that when we voted on Bill C-38 that there was yet another problematic feature.

There is something in Bill S-12 that adds to that problem. There is a prohibition on incorporating by reference regulation materials from the minister who is making the regulations, or any department or agency that he oversees. There is absolutely no prohibition on one minister turning to materials or documents from elsewhere in the government, another department or agency he or she has nothing to do with, and incorporating that by reference, even if those materials have not gone through the regulation process. That is quite a back door and it appears in this statute.

To add to what the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands has said, we really have to begin to understand how we are becoming hollowed out as a democracy when the executive is given that kind of authority.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to join the debate on Bill S-12. I thank the hon. member for Toronto—Danforth and I say, in a non-partisan way because he does not belong to my party, that we are clearly fortunate in the House to have someone of his calibre, with experience teaching in law schools, who can bring to the House an assessment of something that may appear dry but which really cuts to the heart of dangerous changes to Westminster parliamentary democracy. In this place there is increasing power in the hands of the Prime Minister's Office and decreasing respect for Parliament as an institution and for our regulation-making authorities. The bill represents a threat because it becomes increasingly difficult to know if regulations are being made.

I also have this one concern. We accepted changes to pharmaceutical drug regulations in Bill C-38, which stated that pharmaceutical drugs were no longer added by regulation but could just be added by Health Canada through a list process, not through the Canada Gazette and not through routine regulations. We have to protect some of the more boring aspects of making laws in this place to protect the rights of Canadians.

[Craig Scott, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Hamilton Mountain for such an amazing introduction. I will be able to build on that, I hope, and actually dispense of parts of my own speech.

The Conservatives would have us believe that this is a merely technical or housekeeping bill. They accomplish this in part by messaging that it simplify codifies an existing drafting practice for regulations, the use of incorporation by reference. We even have journalists now treating this as a routine bill. I do not know if there are any journalists watching this debate for that very reason.

In fact, Bill S-12 is anything but innocuous. Speaking in my capacity not only as the member for Toronto—Danforth but also as official opposition critic for democratic reform, it seems to me that the bill is actually an anti-democratic reform. It is a big step backward for open government and indeed for accountable government.

Let me be clear that my focus and remarks are on the endorsement in the bill of a so-called drafting technique known as incorporation by reference, in particular open incorporation by reference, whereby the words “as it is amended” from time to time would be inserted to signal that a document that is incorporated by reference or other materials, when it is changed by external bodies, would automatically enter back into the regulation and continue as binding law without any further intervention by Parliament. This would be in contrast to static or closed incorporation by reference, whereby Parliament and the Standing Joint Committee for the Scrutiny of Regulations would actually know what document is being incorporated by reference, would be able to review whether it is appropriate that the document comes in and would know when it passes on the regulations of what it is dealing with.

For some years, the Standing Joint Committee for the Scrutiny of Regulations has expressed concern about the use of open incorporation by reference for reasons that I will discuss a bit later. In 2000, the joint committee called for a legislative amendment to the Statutory Instruments Act to require, as part of its provisions that authorize regulations, that any use of open or ambulatory incorporation by reference be explicitly authorized by each statute as that statute is adopted by Parliament. Without such explicit authority being in each statute, the report says that regulations would not be allowed to use this technique of open incorporation by reference, and would only be allowed to use the technique of closed incorporation by reference at a known date.

Bill S-12 would give carte blanche to the executive branch to use incorporation by reference of an open sort with no constraints of any consequence. This means regulations could change over time when external bodies decide to revise their documents, which have been incorporated by reference, and Parliament would have no further oversight role. These external changes would become law automatically with no further action required from the Canadian state or from Parliament, other than, in Bill S-12, a very vague, unelaborated, undefined duty to ensure the document with its amendments would be “accessible”.

Therefore, any number of changes by non-governmental organizations, industry bodies, international bodies or even foreign governments, to their own documents that have been incorporated by reference, could slip into our system with no scrutiny. For example, there is something known as Parliament's power of disallowance of regulations. A regulatory provision can be disallowed on a motion of the House, but that process is not triggered until the Standing Joint Committee for the Scrutiny of Regulations actually makes a recommendation to the House and to the Senate to disallow the regulation. They would not even have a chance to make such a recommendation with respect to amendments to documents, which have occurred on the initiative of an external body and which are entered into our law automatically. This would never come back to the joint committee.

The very description of what would be at stake with Bill S-12 should reveal to the average listener the threats that would be presented by ambulatory or open incorporation by reference to democratic accountability, as well as to the rule of law. This is due to the fact that after the bill passes, if it passes, the executive branch may not only incorporate known documents produced by external bodies, such as this code, that resolution, those guidelines, these rules, but may also effectively yield to that external body the power to change its document in a way that automatically would become legally binding in Canada.

We live in a regulatory era where there are 3,000 regulations making up over 30,000 pages versus about 350 statutes making up 13,000 pages. Without careful scrutiny by Parliament of executive power, our democracy hollows out. We have been witnessing what some scholars call new political governance whereby concentrated executive power comes to dominate the parliamentary branch. In Canada, the Prime Minister, the PMO and a small clutch of ministers have effectively engineered a takeover of our Westminster system in recent years.

To add to that phenomenon, greater and greater power in the executive to incorporate by reference materials produced by bodies with no accountability to Parliament, let alone the Canadian public, in the name of economic efficiency or easing the burdens of regulators or flexibility, is something we must be seriously worried about. It makes the problem of executive domination of Parliament even worse.

Before I talk a bit more about why democracy and the rule of law are affected by Bill S-12, let me comment on one other problematic feature of the current process whereby Bill S-12 has come to us. I am not referring to the fact that it started in the Senate; let us leave that to one side. Rather, I am talking about how the government wanders into the House and has the chutzpah, frankly, to claim that Bill S-12 comes from the Senate unamended, as if it were truly a routine bill about regulatory drafting techniques that the Senate unanimously adopted.

In fact, the legislation caused great debate in the Senate. Senators returned to the debates in the mid-2000s, which ended up producing that 2007 joint committee report that I referred to. They objected to how Bill S-12 does not take seriously problems of transparency and accountability, and more broadly, the fundamental principle of the executive branch's subordination to Parliament.

Reasonable amendments were moved, but what happened? The current character of the Senate revealed itself in all of its glory, when Conservative senators voted to defeat every single amendment. This body was created in 1867 for two reasons: to be a reasoned voice in the federal Parliament and a chamber of sober second thought. It has simply become an extension of whipped party politics. The rational arguments of some senators on Bill S-12 were simply bulldozed by Conservative senators acting according to PMO instruction.

The government did respond to that 2007 report that I mentioned. It focused on one very technical argument that the joint committee had made, which was that allowing the executive to send on to another body the power to change something that had been incorporated by reference and have that become automatically a part of our law is something called illicit or illegitimate sub-delegation.

The government focused on this and it made a whole bunch of comparisons to something known as inter-delegation, parliament delegating powers to the provinces to legislate. It created this equivalence between that situation and the situation we face, talking about how it was not a problem, that the provinces could be allowed to continue to amend their legislation or their rules and have a federal statute incorporate that by reference even as those rules change. However, the government failed to notice two fundamentally different features about that situation. First, the provinces are governed democratically, and second, they are within Canada. The fact of deferring to external rules by international actors who have no democratic process as part of how they produce their rules is totally glossed over by the way the government responded to the committee's report.

The government also ignored a serious rule of law concern. What happens when a document is amended by an external body in a way that maybe we cannot expect, in a way that is maybe radical, in a way that actually is problematic? Our Standing Joint Committee for the Scrutiny of Regulations has no opportunity to check whether or not those new changes fall within the ambit of the act. That is a rule of law problem right there.

How about a mega rule of law problem? The charter of rights is totally ousted by the ambulatory incorporation by reference process. Section 4.1 of the Department of Justice Act requires that Parliament double-check, after the executive has double-checked, that a regulation does not offend the charter. That does not get done with new amendments to incorporated by reference regulations.

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Mr. Speaker, that is exactly the most important question in this debate. The member is absolutely right; that is precisely what could happen.

We say, and I certainly said in my speech, that ignorance is no excuse under the law. An individual may not be aware that a regulation has changed, but if one is in violation, in some instances they could be held even criminally responsible for having violated that regulation. I do not think that is defensible. We know that is a possibility here today. We know that as we are reviewing Bill S-12, that could happen to an innocent Canadian, who through no fault of their own is in violation of a regulation. If we know that, as legislators we have an obligation to make sure that Canadians could not be trapped in that situation.

Let us work together. Let us make sure that we tighten that loophole. Let us make sure that we provide real accessibility to regulations. I think Canadians expect that of us and they have a right to expect that of us. We need to deliver on their behalf.

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to begin by letting the House know that I will be splitting my time this afternoon with the member for Toronto—Danforth.

I rise today to speak on Bill S-12, An Act to amend the Statutory Instruments Act and to make consequential amendments to the Statutory Instruments Regulations.

As I said earlier, at this point people who are watching this debate on television are probably shaking their heads and wondering why we are not debating the important issues, like job creation, EI, health care, climate change or the growing income inequality in Canada. Those are the issues grabbing headlines these days, and I might add rightfully so.

There is also a sub-theme to much of the recent media coverage, which focuses on this Prime Minister's repeated thwarting of the democratic process and the threat this represents to the institution of Parliament. Bill S-12 adds fuel to that fire. As dry as the title might seem, this bill will legitimize the ability of governments to do things by regulation without the express authorization of Parliament. Without being overly dramatic, this bill will undermine democratic values and risk turning law-abiding citizens into criminals.

Let me go back to try to explain the genesis of this bill. At issue is the proper process for creating rules of law through regulations. Regulations are a delegated form of law-making that is derived from and authorized by Parliament's ultimate legislative authority. As a result, it is particularly important that regulations are written and communicated in such a way that members of the public clearly know their rights and obligations. To that end, regulations must go through a legal examination, be registered, get published in the Gazette and are then referred to the Standing Joint Committee for the Scrutiny of Regulations for parliamentary oversight.

At times, other documents are referenced into regulations simply by naming them. The legal effect is the same as repeating the material word for word in the regulation. When the material that is being incorporated is static, such incorporations by reference do not pose a problem because the regulation has gone through the proper approval procedures. It becomes tricky when that incorporated material changes. For example, the document could contain a provision that allows it to be amended from time to time. In essence, then, future changes automatically become part of the regulation without any oversight.

Such incorporations by reference are called ambulatory or open incorporations by reference because their content is not static. It is this type of regulation making that poses the legal conundrum. Is it appropriate to allow rules to be imposed without those rules having gone through the proper regulatory process?

Given the proliferation of regulations in recent years, this is more than a theoretical question. There are, at the federal level alone, approximately 3,000 regulations comprising over 30,000 pages. That compares with some 450 statutes comprising about 13,000 pages. On top of that, departments and agencies submit to the regulations section, on average, about 1,000 draft regulations each and every year; whereas Parliament enacts about 80 bills during the same period. Regulations, therefore, play a major role in setting the rules of law that apply to Canadian citizens.

Canadians must be able to have confidence that the regulations that govern them have been duly authorized by Parliament. For that reason, the Standing Joint Committee for the Scrutiny of Regulations adopted a unanimous report in 2007 that called on the government to stop using unauthorized open incorporation by reference without the permission of Parliament.

The position of the joint committee was, and is, that absent an express grant of authority or a clear indication to the contrary in the enabling statute, the incorporation by reference of external material is proper only where a fixed text is incorporated, as opposed to a text that is amended from time to time. In fact, the use of incorporation by reference as amended from time to time has been deemed improper and illegal because it is a regulation without the express authorization of Parliament. The government knows that.

In the other place, Conservative Linda Frum noted in her speech on this bill that “Incorporation by reference is a widely used drafting technique currently, but this bill would legitimize it...”. Those are important words: “this bill would legitimize it”. With those five words she is confirming that the government knows it has been acting illegally every time it used the technique without explicit parliamentary authorization. Let us not kid ourselves; it did not just happen once or twice.

The Conservatives have used ambulatory incorporation by reference 170 times since 2006. Bill S-12 is essentially designed to give the government legal cover after the fact for its prior and ongoing illegal activities. Put differently and more specifically, proposed section 18.7 would retroactively validate a large number of provisions that were made without lawful authority.

This goes to the very heart of Parliament's authority to delegate its power and choose who can make rules on its behalf. It is mind-boggling that any MP would not be troubled by that prospect. However, party discipline, as enforced by the executive branch in this House, will almost certainly ensure the bill will pass unamended.

Apart from the concerns of allocation of power posed by the open incorporation by reference, I will now turn to the question of accessibility. If ignorance of the law is no excuse, then the law must be available. The problem with incorporations by reference is that the text of the incorporated material is not found in the regulation itself.

Where do Canadians turn to find out about their rights and obligations? The material that is being referenced may be obscure or hard to find. If it involves standards developed by private organizations, there may even be a charge for accessing the material. Nowhere does the bill suggest that departments have to make the material available, nor do they even have to provide information as to where that material might be. When the incorporated material can be amended from time to time, how can citizens know that a change has come into effect? Will past versions of the text always be available? Finally, what happens when the material being incorporated is a law, standard, or agreement from another jurisdiction that may not be bilingual? Would this be a way for the government to circumvent our Official Languages Act?

Proposed subsection 18.3(1) of the bill states, “The regulation-making authority shall ensure that a document, index, rate or number that is incorporated by reference is accessible”. However, what exactly does “accessible” mean? Will it be equally accessible for aboriginal or rural Canadians? Will people have to travel in order to obtain the text, or will the text only be available on the Internet? Would that satisfy the definition of “accessibility”?

Given all of these questions, it would seem likely that it would be left to the courts to define “accessible” in terms of incorporated materials. However, should the onus not be on us as legislators to provide that clarity? I simply do not believe that citizens should have to go to the time and expense of judicial proceedings to determine their rights and obligations. Surely we can, and must, provide that clarity in this House.

At this point, I do not think we need to throw out the baby with the bathwater. I do indeed have serious concerns about Bill S-12, and I have expressed many of them in the brief time afforded to me here today. However, as co-chair of the Standing Joint Committee for the Scrutiny of Regulations, I know that many of the issues I have raised today are concerns shared by members from all sides of the House and we could bring these perspectives to bear by studying the bill at greater length in committee.

The principle of the subdelegation of power will be of concern to all of my elected colleagues. As parliamentarians, it fundamentally impacts our role and authority. Similarly, issues of accessibility are critical to the interests of our constituents whom we are here to represent. Given the sheer volume of regulations that are submitted each year, it is essential that we maintain the integrity of the regulatory process.

If we can find common cause on each of these three broad-brush issues, I am confident we can amend Bill S-12 to make it palatable to all parliamentarians. If not, I will have to vote against the bill when it comes back to this House for its third and final reading. Until then, however, I will remain hopeful and optimistic.

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for his excellent speech on Bill S-12. I know he has been seized with this matter for as long as I have, perhaps even longer, as we both serve on the scrutiny of regulations committee together.

For the people watching, this might seem like really dry stuff. I am not criticizing the member's speech. Mine will be given shortly, and it will not be any more exciting. As I look around this place, the galleries are not exactly packed.

However, there is something really important at stake here in Bill S-12. It is fundamentally about asking Canadians to comply with laws and regulations, and in doing so making sure they actually know what we are asking them to comply with.

The way it would be possible to make regulations under Bill S-12, Canadians would no longer have certainty in being able to know what the laws, and particularly the regulations, are. That, to me, is a fundamental concern.

How can Canadians potentially be held criminally responsible for not obeying a regulation when they had no way of knowing either that a regulation had been changed or where they could access that regulation, when it will be possible under the bill to incorporate by reference?

I would ask the member to spend a bit more time speaking about that, perhaps in plain English. Why should the bill be of concern not only to my colleagues here, who are flooding into the House now, but also to all Canadians who are watching this riveting debate here this afternoon?

[Rosane Doré Lefebvre, NDP, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my Liberal colleague for his speech on Bill S-12. It is of the utmost importance that we speak to this bill today in the House, because it would be easy to suppose its only purpose is to implement regulations. When we dig a little deeper we understand the purpose of the bill and realize that it goes much further and contains small measures that deserve our attention.

In his speech, my colleague spoke of the French fact in the context of Bill S-12 and protecting the French language. This really bothers me, because we may find ourselves in a situation where official languages are not respected; what if a constituent of mine asks for regulations and gets them in English? That makes me angry. There are many staunch defenders of the French language back home, in Alfred-Pellan. Each and every Canadian has a right to protect his or her language.

In conclusion, the rights of some individuals will be trampled as they will not be able to receive regulations in their language of choice. What does my colleague think of that?

[Massimo Pacetti, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to outline the Liberal Party of Canada's position on Bill S-12 to amend the Statutory Instruments Act and to make consequential amendments to the Statutory Instruments Regulations. The short title makes the bill's purpose clearer: the Incorporation by Reference in Regulations Act. Before commenting on the bill, I would like to explain to the House what incorporation by reference is.

In today's environment of globalization, regulation is becoming increasingly complex. For example, we must accept international standards for reasons of trade, safety and security. This reality is reflected in Canada's regulations. In order to simplify the writing of regulations, the regulatory authorities are relying more and more on incorporation by reference. Incorporation by reference can be either closed—also known as static—or open—also known as ambulatory, dynamic or rolling.

Closed incorporation by reference is merely a style of drafting. Rather than including a complex, multi-paragraph definition from another document in a regulatory text, the regulatory authority simplifies the reading and writing by referring to the other document as it appeared on a given date. That incorporation is called closed, because the version of the cited document is the one that existed on the date specified in the regulation. If the cited document is later changed, the new version will not automatically be incorporated into the regulation.

Open incorporation by reference, on the other hand, is a kind of sub-delegation of the power to make regulations, since the current version and future versions of the other documents are being incorporated. If the incorporated document is amended after the regulation is adopted, it will automatically be part of the regulation. Therefore the regulatory authority no longer has control over the regulation, since another body can change the document incorporated by reference, completely independently.

According to the analysts at the Standing Joint Committee on Scrutiny of Regulations, open incorporation by reference is not legal, except when Parliament expressly authorizes the regulatory authority to use it. That would mean, for example, that Parliament would need to pass legislation to permit it, or give such authorization when the power to make regulations is delegated. Open incorporation by reference amounts to a sub-delegation of the regulation-making power, which is contrary to our Constitution and our statutes.

The government, particularly the Department of Justice, is of the contrary opinion, and has used open incorporation by reference in many regulatory texts. For example, since 2007, the Conservative government has used open incorporation by reference at least 300 times. One reason the Conservatives introduced Bill S-12 in the Senate was to put an end to the debate and legitimize their way of doing things. The bill would authorize the regulatory authorities to sub-delegate the regulatory power without needing to obtain Parliament's authorization.

Clearly, this is a very complex bill. Since it affects all federal regulation, it is also very important. The Conservatives quietly introduced this bill in the Senate, but apparently they did not take their work seriously. The bill is full of flaws, some of which will have a serious impact on Canadians and the linguistic duality of our country. The Conservatives are too short-sighted to recognize these flaws and it will be up to the courts to make decisions.

Which way will the Supreme Court lean and when? I have no idea. Until that time, we will live in uncertainty, which will be bad for businesses, for francophone rights, and for all citizens' access to the law.

According to the analysts at the Standing Joint Committee on Scrutiny of Regulations, the Canadian Constitution does not allow sub-delegation of the regulation-making power. When Parliament delegates a regulation-making power to a department, for example, the department should not delegate that power again to another entity using incorporation by open reference.

This type of incorporation amounts precisely to sub-delegating the regulation-making power, since all subsequent amendments made by the foreign entity will automatically become part of the Canadian regulations.

This bill will legitimize this sub-delegation of the regulation-making power. It is understandable that globalization has made it necessary to coordinate our regulations with our partners'. This also benefits the regulation-making authorities since the present situation is confusing for them. It is also understandable that sub-delegating the regulation-making power will reduce the workload for regulation-making authorities, and this will enable them to free up resources for other tasks. For example, if they do not have to be constantly updating regulations to coordinate them with the incorporated documents, regulation-making authorities will gain an enormous amount of time. So the Liberal Party and I understand that the bill is satisfactory to them.

For Canadians and democracy, however, this bill creates more problems than it offers solutions. The Parliament of Canada will lose a portion of its control over regulations, since foreign entities will sometimes be deciding the content of our regulations. In other words, Canada will lose a portion of its sovereignty when the documents incorporated by reference come from entities outside Canada. The sovereignty we lose will be gained by others, like our principal trading partner, the United States. We quite often have to coordinate our regulations with that partner, but this bill means that it will sometimes be our neighbour that will decide the content of our regulations directly, without any participation by the Canadian government.

We believe that Parliament, which represents all Canadians, cannot agree to sub-delegation of the regulation-making power such as is permitted by Bill S-12, unless it has expressly authorized it when the regulation-making power was delegated in enabling legislation.

One of the worst problems this bill will create is the reduced accessibility of regulations. Clause 18.3 in the bill does state that the accessibility of the document incorporated by reference must be ensured by the regulation-making authority or the minister who is accountable for it to Parliament, but that is problematic since the bill says nothing about what the criteria are for accessibility or how the document is to be made accessible.

In other words, this confirms that the regulation must be accessible, but accessibility is not defined. Clause 18.4 of the bill states:

18.4...a document, index, rate or number that is incorporated by reference in a regulation is not required to be transmitted for registration or published in the Canada Gazette...

If the documents incorporated are not registered, how will they be accessible to the public? Will it be enough to provide the name of the document incorporated? Does the government have to provide copies of the document incorporated to people who want it?

If accessibility means publishing certain information, such as the name of the document and its authors, it is quite likely that there could be situations where the document incorporated is protected by copyright.

In that case, it would be up to the individual or the corporation to pay large amounts to obtain the document. Once again, the government would be shifting the cost onto the people. The law is supposed to be accessible to everyone. However, this bill could restrict accessibility. In short, there are more questions than answers about accessibility with Bill S-12. Judges will have to deal with these issues.

As I said earlier, clause 18.4, which confirms that documents incorporated do not have to be registered or published in the Canada Gazette, will reduce transparency and, in particular, make it impossible to examine regulations. The Standing Joint Committee on Scrutiny of Regulations does not have the resources needed to examine all federal regulations. Just imagine for a moment what will happen if this bill is passed.

With the multiplication of the number of incorporations by reference, regulations will be constantly changing. It will be impossible to examine everything. The government's transparency will be greatly affected, which is obviously not what we want.

According to an analyst to whom we posed the question, the committee would probably need 10 times more resources than it has now in order to carry out its work properly after the passage of Bill S-12. Are the Conservatives likely to give the committee proper funding? Knowing them as I do, I predict that they are not, and this does not bode well for the transparency and effectiveness of our regulations.

The lack of clarity in the bill is unfortunately not restricted to the general accessibility of documents or to the transparency of the government. Canada’s linguistic duality could well be jeopardized. Because the incorporated material does not have to be registered or published in the Canada Gazette, there is no guarantee that it will be available in Canada’s two official languages.

In the 1992 Manitoba language rights reference, the Supreme Court held that a document referred to in a federal regulation was subject to section 133 of the Constitution Act, 1867, and that it should be incorporated in both official languages, except if there is a bona fide reason for its incorporation without translation. This exception for legitimate reasons applies to material prepared by an international body or another foreign entity.

As we are all aware, English is now the dominant language on the international stage. French is still used in certain large organizations, but in general, English dominates. More often than not, then, the material that will be incorporated will be in English. Therefore, this means that the federal regulations will be available in English but not in French.

Will a document that is available only in English be considered accessible according to clause 18.3 of the bill? Perhaps it will, perhaps it will not. We will have to wait until the courts rule on the issue according to their interpretation of clause 18.3. Uncertainty and confusion will therefore reign for a number of years to come if the bill is passed as it currently stands.

Regardless of the courts’ interpretation, the problem will still exist. There are precedents in Canadian history where documents incorporated by reference were only in English. For instance, if the courts decide that the regulation-making authority has a duty to provide a French translation of incorporated material that is available only in English, how are we going to judge individuals accused of having somehow broken the law?

Let me explain. Since open incorporation by reference amounts to automatically incorporating all the updates made to a given document in Canadian regulations, we can expect that it might take some time to make the translation available.

Section 18.6 states:

A person is not liable to be found guilty of an offence or subjected to an administrative sanction for any contravention in respect of which a document, index, rate or number—that is incorporated by reference in a regulation—is relevant unless, at the time of the alleged contravention, it was accessible as required by section 18.3 or it was otherwise accessible to that person.

In a case where the original is in English, will we have a legal system where anglophones and francophones are judged differently? Since the French translation—if there is one—is not immediately available, could a unilingual francophone be acquitted because of the translation time? What about a case where a francophone understands English?

I want to look at the last part of section 18.6: “...or it was otherwise accessible to that person”. That means that no matter how a judge interprets section 18.3 on accessibility, a person could be charged if they had access to the law in some way. Since no one is considered ignorant of the law, will we have cases where francophones who understand English are criminally charged because the document was available in English but not in French? If that is the case, French will again be marginalized and francophones will be forced to work in English because documents will be available in English long before they are translated into French, if they are translated at all.

But that is not catastrophic. Truth be told, this bill is full of holes, and it will be up to judges to fix them. It will take years before everything is fixed. Until then, I have no idea what will happen, and neither do the Conservatives. Nothing in this bill answers these questions, and the government cannot claim that there are no problems with the bill. Despite everything, it is quite possible that francophones will once again lose out because of the Conservatives' carelessness.

We know this government, so we know that no amendments will be approved. However, I hope that the Conservatives will be open to amendments during the committee process. I urge all of my colleagues, regardless of their party, to vote against this bill, which will weaken our powers as parliamentarians, hurt linguistic duality and limit the public's access to our laws.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, that is indeed one of the serious issues arising from the study of Bill S-12.

Delegation and dynamic incorporation by reference, for example, mean that any future regulation taken by a regulator is automatically incorporated here, which does not always allow us to know what is coming.

Let us suppose that we have decided, by regulation, to bring Canadian international trade regulations in line with those of Australia—a country that comes to mind and that I would like to visit. There are rules on the books in Australia, though surely not regarding bilingualism. In such a case, one can be sure the regulations will only be in English.

One can only imagine a business owner from the Lower St. Lawrence trying, in vain, to understand those regulations, in all their complexity.

Could that individual argue that he need not follow the regulations given that they were not accessible within the meaning of the act as amended by Bill S-12? I do not know, and the answer certainly does not lie in the Senate deliberation transcripts.

[Rosane Doré Lefebvre, NDP, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would first like to thank my colleague for Gatineau.

In preparation for today's sitting of the House I tried to read some of Bill S-12 but, to be perfectly honest, I needed some clarification because it is not always easy to understand these types of bills.

The member for Gatineau's speech has me worried, particularly with regard to the French fact in these regulations. I am very afraid. I have heard many things from the citizens of Alfred-Pellan, Laval, from the entire greater Montreal area.

Recent studies show that the French fact is being threatened and that the use of French is on the decline. This has my constituents very upset. Heads will most certainly roll if someone back home asks for regulations and gets them in English. Many people would not be happy about that.

Does my colleague believe this part of the bill will be adequately studied in committee? Is there something we can do about the French fact in Bill S-12?

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, as I was saying when I was questioning my colleague, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice, to some people, it may seem as though the House is dealing with a housekeeping bill. I read this in a newspaper article today. However, in my opinion, Bill S-12 is anything but a housekeeping bill. It is crucial to our role as legislators. It is not necessarily bad, but it has a lot of ramifications.

When I arrived here at the beginning of this Parliament, I co-chaired the Standing Joint Committee on Scrutiny of Regulations. When the party leader at the time, Jack Layton, called me to tell me that I was going to co-chair the committee, I wondered what it was all about. I thought that I was quite knowledgeable in this field, but during my all too brief stint on this committee, I had the opportunity to work with the great legislative and legal minds in this Parliament, and I learned a lot about the important role played by this joint committee, which brings together senators and MPs. This committee ensures that our regulations are in line with the legislation and the delegation order and that they are written in specific way.

As an aside, right now, members of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights are discussing a motion that I moved regarding Justice Canada's obligation, under the Department of Justice Act, to assure this House that any bills that are introduced in the House or the Senate are consistent with the charter and respect the division of power under the Constitution.

The same exercise applies when it comes to regulations. I urge my colleagues in this House, who will have to deal with Bill S-12 and decide whether it should be sent to the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, to examine the bill and the changes it makes. Obviously, it adds text to what we call regulatory statutes. People are not necessarily aware of the Statutory Instruments Act, which states in section 3 that:

(1) Subject to any regulations made pursuant to paragraph 20(a), where a regulation-making authority proposes to make a regulation, it shall cause to be forwarded to the Clerk of the Privy Council three copies of the proposed regulation in both official languages. (2) On receipt by the Clerk of the Privy Council of copies of a proposed regulation pursuant to subsection (1), the Clerk of the Privy Council, in consultation with the Deputy Minister of Justice, shall examine the proposed regulation to ensure that (a) it is authorized by the statute pursuant to which it is to be made;

It is important to understand that in order to have the right to regulate, the agency or deputy minister must have the authority to make or draft regulations.

(b) it does not constitute an unusual or unexpected use of the authority pursuant to which it is to be made; (c) it does not trespass unduly on existing rights and freedoms and is not, in any case, inconsistent with the purposes and provisions of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Canadian Bill of Rights; and (d) the form and draftsmanship of the proposed regulation are in accordance with established standards.

What the heck does the Standing Joint Committee on Scrutiny of Regulations do? My colleague from Hamilton Mountain co-chairs the committee with Senator Runciman from the other place. Every week, they receive stacks of regulations. If you think that we study a lot of bills in these chambers, it is nothing compared to the regulations. It can be mind-boggling.

I am telling the House about all this because that which is extremely important for our constituents is often found within the regulations. It is often through the regulations that we are able to say, based on enabling legislation, that a person has the right to do something or not.

We have regulations by the tonne. Thank heaven, because often the lawyers, the great legal minds we have in this precinct—and I am referring not to the House, but to the support provided at the Standing Joint Committee for the Scrutiny of Regulations—have already done a good analysis. For example, they communicate with the Minister of the Environment or the deputy minister to tell him that there is a problem with the regulations, and that he must rectify it. Sometimes the English version does not correspond to the French version. It is unbelievable.

I recall going before a liaison committee to have a budget adopted. I heard colleagues from the House, legislators, say that the Standing Joint Committee for the Scrutiny of Regulations was a waste of time, when it is the bastion for the Canadian public that makes sure that regulations hold up, that they are legal and are not unconstitutional or contrary to the charters. That is a big responsibility.

I would like to give my colleagues some background so they do not think that Bill S-12 is mere housekeeping. What does it do? It extends the powers of the authorities that are empowered to make regulations. It allows them to practice what I call the "et cetera" or "dot dot dot" technique.

I am not saying this to diminish the impact of Bill S-12. I understand why it is sometimes important to use incorporation by reference, given that it can be a lengthy, costly and sometimes utterly irritating process that often has a lot of red tape and pitfalls that may seem to be administrative. We know why. This is an effort, possibly with good reason, to cut delays so we can be effective in a modern society, as my colleague the parliamentary secretary put it. Technology has changed and we have computers. I certainly do not intend to stand in the way of progress. But progress must not come at the expense of the rights of the people we represent. That is extremely important.

I encourage my colleagues in the House to read. It will be a funny thing to hear a New Democrat talk about the Senate, but it is the government that decided to go by way of the Senate for a bill this important. In my opinion, no bill, and especially not bills that have as far-reaching an impact on the people we represent, should start out in the Senate, because senators are not representatives of the people, they are individuals who have been appointed by the government in power, whichever one it may be.

Given this background, when bills of this nature and with this far-reaching effect are to be introduced, bills that can have significant consequences for the people we represent, they should be introduced here.

Having said that, I do believe the Senate does its work seriously. The parliamentary secretary insisted on the point that the bill was adopted without amendment. Personally, that is not something I would boast about, because some senators had raised solid and serious objections.

I encourage members of this House to read what happened in the Senate and what was discussed. Various witnesses were heard, including experts in regulation. People working on the standardization of regulations are in favour of speeding up the process. As I said earlier, that is not a problem. Still, it must not diminish the legislators' powers, the powers we still enjoy in this fine democracy, thank God, to ensure that things are done properly.

That is one of the major problems. This bill speaks of accessibility. In other words, someone may find they have contravened a regulation. The body that made the regulation must demonstrate that its regulation was accessible. What is meant by "accessible" is not very clear. How will it be accessible? We are used to searching the Internet, using computers, and we can type and find things.

The other day I was telling someone that I have been a lawyer for almost 30 years. It is astounding to see how things have improved and accelerated. Now we can get answers in 3.25 seconds to questions it used to take two weeks to answer.

I wonder how I was able to answer all the questions and provide services when I was first practising law. Now I am able to do it in a fraction of the time it used to take. Newcomers to the profession do not know what it is like to go into a law library, take out books and search for regulations. Now they only need to type in "regulation concerning such and such" and it appears on the screen.

But not everyone has these skills. Not everyone is Internet savvy. Some older people may have more difficulty.

The regulations that are incorporated by reference may not be very accessible. How does one find a document? What is the starting point? What clues are there regarding incorporation by reference?

Some other questions have occurred to me. If we are searching for international treaties or standards, for example, which ones should we use to find out what stage they are at in those countries?

Let us imagine a person from my part of the country, Quebec, who lives in the most distant part of the province, who does not speak a word of English, and receives a regulation written only in English.

It could also be in New Brunswick, my colleague's province, where there are proud francophones who insist that things be written in both official languages.

All of this was discussed in the Senate. Details were provided about the type of reference documents being discussed, and what would be included.

I encourage members to read the senators' speeches, the questions they asked, and the answers provided by the minister, for example. It is more than simply updating the process. We must also deal with the content and the direction we want to go. Nevertheless, our fundamental right as legislators is to be able to view and analyze regulations.

We have been told that it will not diminish the role of the Standing Joint Committee on Scrutiny of Regulations. I have my doubts about that, because the committee will be able to examine the initial regulation, but for any reference and what becomes of it, the committee will not be able to follow through.

I do not think that our legal drafters will use the regulation that has been referred if, at some time, they want to see where it is at a given moment. They will study it with respect to adoption and drafting of the regulation itself.

And yet it is clear in the Statutory Instruments Act: a regulation must have been published. This is going to short-circuit a large part of the regulations we are accustomed to.

I will repeat: the NDP is not against progress. We are prepared to support the government and send the bill to committee.

However, I would like to see some openness on the government side. I make the same appeal every time: when we have objections, we are not trying to throw a monkey wrench into the works; we are trying to protect ourselves from those wrenches hitting us on the head later, if this kind of regulation is implemented.

There will be situations when people have not had access, and other times when it is not in the right language. That takes us back to step one.

The NDP often tries to keep the government out of trouble. I do not think the Conservatives intentionally look for trouble. Perhaps they would benefit from listening to what the official opposition is telling them.

We will take our considerable reservations and worries to committee. We will hope to get answers that were given but not necessarily listened to in the Senate. The House and the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights hope to get these answers. If not, there may be a lot of difficulty getting support for this bill in the next stages.

If there are amendments to be proposed, I hope that all my colleagues on the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights will have open minds and will not assume that everything coming from the opposition is necessarily bad. At the heart of the matter, we all want to help Canadians understand.

Thousands of statistics on regulations are adopted every year. It is important to understand them and to provide for the use of incorporation by reference. I will leave it up to my NDP colleagues, some very knowledgeable law professors, to explain the difference between static incorporation by reference and ambulatory incorporation by reference. Since I do not want to put anyone to sleep here in the House, I will leave it up to the professors, who know how to make it all very interesting.

Nevertheless, with all these methods, it is hard to see things clearly. It is not like reading a document that clearly states what the regulations are. There is a logical outcome, but we cannot necessarily see it. We do not know where, since answers from the Senate are not always clear, but I hope we can get some clearer ones.

I have heard MPs say that the Standing Joint Committee on Scrutiny of Regulations is useless. Although I am no longer a member, from having been one in the past, I can assure this House that it is one of our most important committees, because it serves as a watchdog and it is non-partisan.

Perhaps my speech did nothing more than convince the members that that committee is non-partisan, and heaven knows that there is precious little about this place that is non-partisan. For goodness' sake, we need to make sure it stays that way. It is fundamental, because it is our guarantee to Canadian defendants and litigants that the regulatory work is being done in their interest, legally and in accordance with the Canadian Constitution and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

And with that, I am now ready to answer questions.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice for his speech on Bill S-12, which some have been referring to as the housekeeping bill. But this bill has more to offer than you might think. It is a new form of regulation making, but not entirely new.

The Senate tackled the issue of incorporation by reference, and we should be tackling that issue here in the House, too. The parliamentary secretary mentioned that Canada sometimes refers to regulations made in other countries.

How does the Official Languages Act fit in this context? Does the hon. member have any concerns about compliance? Is the government open to the idea of protecting regulatory accessibility in both of Canada's official languages?

[Robert Goguen, Conservative, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

moved that Bill S-12, An Act to amend the Statutory Instruments Act and to make consequential amendments to the Statutory Instruments Regulations, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Today I would like to speak to you about Bill S-12, Incorporation by Reference in Regulations Act.

Bill S-12 has been studied by the Senate and has been adopted without amendment. This bill deals with a regulatory drafting technique. Essentially, the bill is about when federal regulators can, or cannot, use the technique of “incorporation by reference”.

The technique of incorporation by reference is currently used in a wide range of federal regulations. Indeed it is difficult to think of a regulated area in which incorporation by reference is not used to some degree. Bill S-12 is about securing the government’s access to a drafting technique that has already become essential to the way government regulates. It is also about leading the way internationally in the modernization of regulations.

But more specifically, Bill S-12 responds to concerns expressed by the Standing Joint Committee for the Scrutiny of Regulations about when incorporation by reference can be used. This bill would create the legal certainty that is needed to respond to those concerns.

Incorporation by reference has already become an essential tool that is widely relied upon to achieve the objectives of the government. It is an effective way to achieve many of the current goals of the Cabinet Directive on Regulatory Management, an important directive from the government that is designed to improve the efficiency and performance of regulations.

For example, regulations that use this technique are effective in facilitating intergovernmental co-operation and harmonization, a key objective of the Regulatory Cooperation Council established by our Prime Minister and President Obama.

By incorporating the legislation of other jurisdictions with which harmonization is desired, or by incorporating standards developed internationally, regulations can minimize duplication, an important objective of the Red Tape Reduction Commission, which issued its report earlier this year.

Incorporation by reference is also an important tool available for the government to facilitate Canada’s compliance with its international obligations. Referencing material that is internationally accepted rather than attempting to reproduce the same rules in the regulations also reduces technical differences that create barriers to trade and is in fact something Canada is required to do under the World Trade Organization’s Technical Barriers to Trade Agreement.

Incorporation by reference is also an effective way to take advantage of the particular expertise of standards writing bodies in Canada. Canada has a national standards system that is recognized all over the world. Incorporation of standards, whether developed in Canada or internationally, allows for the best science and the most accepted approach in areas that affect people on a day-to-day basis to be used in regulations. Indeed, reliance on this expertise is essential to ensuring access to technical knowledge across the country and around the world.

Testimony by witnesses from the Standards Council of Canada before the Standing Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs made it clear how extensively Canada already relies on international and national standards. Ensuring that regulators continue to have the ability to use ambulatory incorporation by reference in their regulations means that Canadians can be assured that they are protected by the most up-to-date technology.

Incorporation by reference allows for the expertise of the Canadian National Standards System and international standards system to form a meaningful part of the regulatory tool box.

Another important aspect of Bill S-12 is that it allows for the incorporation by reference of rates and indices, such as the consumer price index or the Bank of Canada rates, which are important elements in many regulations. For these reasons and more, ambulatory incorporation by reference is an important instrument available to regulators when they are designing their regulatory initiatives.

Bill S-12 strikes an important balance by limiting the types of documents that can be incorporated by reference when these documents are produced by the regulation maker. Indeed, the incorporation of these documents can only be done statically. This is an important safeguard against circumvention of the regulatory process.

Parliament's ability to control the delegation of regulation-making powers continues, as does the oversight of the Standing Joint Committee for the Scrutiny of Regulations. We expect that the standing joint committee will continue its work in respect of the scrutiny of regulations at the time that they were first made, as well as in the future. We expect that the standing joint committee will indeed play an important role in ensuring that the use of this technique continues to be exercised in the way Parliament has authorized.

Another important aspect of this bill relates to accessibility. Bill S-12 not only recognizes the need to provide a solid legal basis for the use of this regulatory drafting technique, but it also expressly imposes in legislation an obligation on all regulators to ensure that the documents they incorporate are accessible to the public.

While this has always been something that the common law required, this bill clearly enshrines this obligation in legislation. There is no doubt that accessibility should be part of this bill. It is essential that documents that are incorporated by reference be accessible to those who are required to comply with them.

This is an important and significant step forward in this legislation. The general approach to accessibility found in Bill S-12 will provide flexibility to regulatory bodies to take whatever steps might be necessary to make sure that the different types of material from various sources are, in fact, accessible.

In general, material that is incorporated by reference is already accessible. As a result, in some cases, no further action on the part of the regulation-making authority will be necessary. For example, provincial legislation is already generally accessible. Federal regulations that incorporate provincial legislation will undoubtedly allow the regulator to meet the requirement to ensure that that material is accessible.

Sometimes, accessing the document through the standards organization itself will be appropriate. It will be clear that the proposed legislation will ensure the regulated community will have access to the incorporated material, with a reasonable effort on their part.

It is also important to note that standards organizations, such as the Canadian Standards Association, understand the need to provide access to incorporated standards. By recognizing the changing landscape of the Internet, this bill creates a meaningful obligation on regulators to ensure accessibility while still allowing for innovation, flexibility and creativity.

Bill S-12 is intended to solidify the government's access to a regulatory drafting technique that is essential to modern and responsive regulation. It also recognizes the corresponding obligations that regulators must meet when using this tool. The bill strikes an important balance that reflects the reality of modern regulation while ensuring that appropriate protections are enshrined in law. No person can suffer a penalty or sanction if the relevant material was not accessible to them.

The proposal would provide express legislative authority for the use of this technique in the future and confirm the validity of existing regulations incorporating documents in a manner that is consistent with that authority. There is every indication that the use of this technique will be essential to implementing regulatory modernization initiatives here in Canada in conjunction with our regulatory partners in the United States and around the world.

To conclude, enactment of the legislation is the logical and necessary next step to securing access in a responsible manner through incorporation by reference in regulations. I invite all members to support this legislative proposal and recognize the important step forward that it contains.

Business of the House

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Yes, I have a plan, Mr. Speaker.

This afternoon, we will continue today's NDP opposition day.

Tomorrow, we should finish the second reading debate on Bill C-52, Fair Rail Freight Service Act. Then, we will resume the second reading debate on Bill C-48, Technical Tax Amendments Act, 2012.

Before question period on Monday and Tuesday, the House will debate third reading of Bill C-42, Enhancing Royal Canadian Mounted Police Accountability Act. After question period those days, we will turn to second reading of Bill C-51, Safer Witnesses Act.

On Wednesday, we will debate second reading of Bill S-12, the incorporation by reference in regulations act. I do not expect that this bill, which responds to views of the Standing Joint Committee for the Scrutiny of Regulations, would need a lot of House time. I hope we can deal with it quickly. We could then turn to report stage and possible third reading of Bill S-7, the combating terrorism act.

Next Thursday shall be the fourth allotted day, which I understand will see the Liberals choosing our topic of debate.

On Friday, we will resume any unfinished debates on the bills we just mentioned, or we could also consider dealing with any of the many bills dealing with aboriginal issues. That being raised as a concern, we have Bill S-2 dealing with matrimonial property; we have another bill dealing with safe water for first nations; and we have another bill dealing with fair elections for first nations. On all of these bills we would welcome the support of the official opposition. We have not had that to date, but if we do, we can deal with them very quickly on that day. I would be delighted to do that. I will await with interest the response from the NDP.

Incorporation by Reference in Regulations Act

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

moved that Bill S-12, An Act to amend the Statutory Instruments Act and to make consequential amendments to the Statutory Instruments Regulations, be read the first time.

(Motion agreed to and bill read the first time)

Message from the Senate

[The Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

I have the honour to inform the House that a message has been received from the Senate informing the House that the Senate has passed the following bill to which the concurrence of the House is desired: Bill S-12, An Act to amend the Statutory Instruments Act and to make consequential amendments to the Statutory Instruments Regulations.