Bill S-2 (Historical)

Incorporation by Reference in Regulations Act

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

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

Incorporation by Reference in Regulations Act

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I did not catch all of that excellent speech. The hon. member for Toronto—Danforth has a renowned reputation in the House for speaking effectively on legislation. Therefore, I would ask him to give us the Coles Notes version of the bill itself. Could he take a couple of minutes and with the deep foundation of knowledge that he brings to the House, just provide the Coles Notes or the 30-second elevator response as to how the New Democrats feel about Bill S-2?

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill S-2, 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.

[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.

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

Mr. Speaker, obviously that is why we have two Chambers. Bicameralism allows us to go through each bill to see what the other House has made as far as suggestions or amendments, and to see if they are appropriate. It helps to move a much more learned debate.

I look forward to seeing this legislation go to committee, and I also look forward to that member bringing forward specific concerns. I would point out that with over 800 existing incorporation by reference, which may or may not follow some of the guidelines laid out in Bill S-2, there may be issues with that just because of the wide variety of issues. With this legislation, we are trying to codify and empower the House and the Senate with guidelines on how incorporation by reference should be used as a drafting technique to benefit Canadians.

I look forward to that member bringing forward some specific concerns at committee so we can have a thorough debate of Bill S-2's incorporation by reference.

[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.

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

Mr. Speaker, Bill S-2 does lay out a regime of when open or ambulatory incorporation by reference is appropriate, and when closed or static incorporation by reference is to be the case. This would allow all of us here to have a better understanding of when this drafting technique is used.

I have to go back to that. This legislation would empower Parliament, by giving order to the way these things are done. Currently there is no provision for that, and it can create confusion. Let us be fair. One of the things we need to do when we are regulating is to create a sense of order. Bill S-2 would do that, and it would give parliamentarians additional tools to make abundantly clear which standards are ambulatory and which ones are closed.

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

Mr. Speaker, I must say on behalf of everyone in the chamber that you are doing a fine job this morning.

The parliamentary secretary for international trade reported correctly that the Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs reported this bill back without amendment. However, there is something it did add in its very short report. It said:

Some witnesses who were supportive of Bill S-12—

This was the previous version.

—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.

These guidelines are not specifically required by Bill S-2. I would like to ask the hon. member if he is aware or whether he would otherwise support the government in developing such guidelines and publishing those.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board]

Mr. Speaker, today I would like to speak to members about an important aspect of Bill S-2, the incorporation by reference in regulations act.

I would first like to thank the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Trade for describing me as passionate about regulatory burdens on our small businesses. I take great relish in discussing these issues because ultimately our government is pursuing growth. It is looking to increase jobs, growth and long-term prosperity for Canada. Part of that does fall on issues such as the regulatory burden.

In particular, I would like to address how incorporation by reference in regulations can assist regulators in designing regulatory schemes that ensure access to the expertise of the leading standards development bodies in Canada and all across the world.

As we know, Bill S-2 would amend the Statutory Instruments Act to make it clear in law when the drafting technique of incorporation by reference can be used in federal regulation. Incorporation by reference allows material to be referenced and then incorporated into the regulation without reproducing the same material.

We have heard today that there are two different sorts of incorporation by reference. One is called open or ambulatory and the other is called closed or static. When incorporation by reference is ambulatory, the reference material forms part of the regulation as it is amended from time to time. When this material is incorporated on a static basis, then only the version as it exists on that particular day is incorporated, unless the regulation is amended.

I would like to take a step back because we have heard some opposition members raise concerns about when open or ambulatory or when closed or static would be used. Bill S-2 applies a whole-of-government approach to when open or closed would be used. Therefore, it would bring more clarity to those of us here in this place as to when the government would use one or the other and sets out the conditions of that.

This drafting technique offers many different advantages. For example, it reduces needless duplication or repetition of material such as provincial legislation when the federal and provincial legislative regimes need to be harmonized. Incorporation by reference can be an effective way to collaborate with other jurisdictions.

The particular advantage I would like to draw the attention of the House to today is that the drafting technique is an effective tool to allow government to access the vast expertise developed in Canada and around the world in a multitude of areas that affect our economy and our daily lives.

When Parliament confers the power to make regulations, parliamentarians expect that the regulator will have the capacity to respond to diverse, complex and evolving challenges in areas where regulations have been developed. Consider the complexity of the areas in which regulations must now be developed. A few examples are electric vehicles, cloud computing, leading-edge medical devices and nanotechnology. Federal regulators must be able to respond in an effective and efficient way to meet the demands of regulating these complex innovations and sectors.

Access to the technique of incorporation by reference is one way to respond quickly and effectively to constantly evolving areas. By enacting this legislation Parliament would provide regulators with an express legal foundation, allowing them to incorporate by reference national and international standards that are developed by expert bodies. While these standards are only one of the types of documents that would be authorized for incorporation by reference by this legal proposal, they merit some special attention.

There are many standards that are already incorporated by reference in the federal regulations, including standards written by the International Organization for Standardization and other well-recognized international standards organizations. A recent review of existing references in federal regulations revealed almost 400 references to these standards established by these expert bodies.

I am proud to say that Canada is one of the countries that is at the forefront of standards development. There are hundreds of standards developed in Canada as part of the national standards system in Canada and then incorporated into federal and provincial regulations, such as standards developed by organizations such as the Canadian General Standards Board, and that which is most likely the most recognized name, the Canadian Standards Association Group.

Standards developed by these organizations have already become key to the way that sectors are regulated in Canada. There are over 275 different standards produced by the Canadian Standards Association alone that are referenced in federal regulations. Added together, there are already more than 800 references in federal regulations to various types of standards, both internationally developed and developed as part of our national standards system. These are important components that help assist Canadian businesses and Canadians in how they conduct their daily business.

This legislation seeks to confirm that regulators can continue to rely on the standards in implementing their regulatory initiatives in an effective manner by allowing ambulatory incorporation by reference of such documents.

The incorporation of standards by reference allows the government to draw on the national and international expertise. It allows government to effectively rely on the work being done by external expert bodies, to which the government has often contributed based on its own expertise. In many cases effective, responsive regulation demands that when changes are made to these standards, regulators must respond immediately. Ambulatory incorporation by reference is the most effective way to achieve this.

When a standard is incorporated in the regulation on an ambulatory basis, it means that when a standard body updates a standard to respond to a new technology, new approaches or new innovations in the area, the changes are automatically made to the standard and are automatically incorporated into the regulation. The regulatory text does not have to be amended.

We have one of the best regulatory systems. It is very stable. It involves regulatory impact assessment statements justifying in common language why a regulation needs to be put in place. It includes open comment by the public in almost all but emergency situations. Then a second part of it is that the government will come back and say what it heard and its reasons for moving forward with the regulation. I am very proud to stand here as a parliamentarian and talk about our regulatory regime. However, it does take time for these processes to take place.

Why is it essential to incorporate by reference standards as they are amended from time to time? I would just give these three good reasons: expertise, responsiveness, and of course efficiency. First, the ability to adopt standards as part of federal regulations when it is appropriate allows the government to access technical expertise right across Canada and right around the world. Second, the ambulatory incorporation of these standards ensures that when changes are made by these expert bodies, federal regulators are immediately responsive through the ambulatory process. That is a significant advantage that I do not think we can overlook. Third, reliance on standards development organizations of this nature allows for the efficient use of government resources. It would neither be expected nor efficient for the government to attempt to develop and house the wide range of expertise found in these committees that develop standards here in Canada and right across the world.

To conclude, enactment of this legislation is a necessary next step to securing access to valuable technical expertise developed here in Canada and around the world. I invite members to support this legislative proposal, because at the end of the day, we need to make sure we have an efficient, very effective way of ensuring whatever laws we pass in this place are done in such a way that the people we are working for, everyday Canadians, whether in their business or their homes, can know that the Canadian government is providing what Parliament has intended. Part of that is making sure we have a responsive regulatory regime.

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleagues for that consent.

As I was saying, Mr. Speaker, I will be dividing my time with the Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board, who is far more passionate than I about the plumbing of state and the updating of our legislative and drafting requirements.

As a lawyer, prior to coming to this House, I know that these sorts of bills are important for governance and for drafting. This would have some measures that would allow our legislative and regulatory regime to be modern, and the broadest way is the technique of incorporation by reference.

Bill S-2, and the specific provision on incorporation by reference, has been studied by the Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs and reported, without amendment, to this House.

The technique of incorporation by reference is already used in a vast array of federal regulations. It is difficult to actually think of an area, a regulated area federally, where incorporation by reference is not used to some degree.

Bill S-2, the bill before the House today, is about securing the government's access to a drafting technique that has already become essential to the way governance operates in Canada. It is also in line with international trends in the modernization of regulations, and as I said, it responds to Senate and House committees, including the Standing Joint Committee on the Scrutiny of Regulations. That is certainly a committee I want to try to avoid during my time here in Ottawa.

Incorporation by reference is an effective way to tap the resources of expertise in standards in writing bodies across Canada. Canada has a national standards system that is recognized around the world, and the incorporation of standards, whether developed here in Canada or internationally, allows the best science and the most widely accepted approaches to be used so that people can have a modern and comprehensive approach to the day-to-day use of regulations in Canada.

In fact, reliance on this sort of expertise, whether domestic or international, is essential to ensuring access to the technical knowledge needed for such regulations.

Witnesses from the Standards Council of Canada before the Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs were clear in their testimony that Canada already relies extensively on international and national standards. The bill, in many ways, would ensure that regulators continue to have the ability to use incorporation by reference, or the ability to incorporate documents as they are amended from time to time, in our regulations so that Canadians can be assured that they are protected by the most up-to-date technology without the need to amend regulations or to constantly be referring to newer versions.

For these reasons, incorporation by reference is an important tool for regulators when they are designing our regulatory regimes.

The bill before the House today 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 maker of regulations. Also, only the versions of such documents as they exist on a particular day can be incorporated when they are produced by the regulation maker. This is an important safeguard against circumvention of the regulatory process when incorporating documents that are internal to the government.

In addition to providing an express legal basis for the use of the technique of incorporation by reference, one of the most important aspects of Bill S-2 relates to accessibility. The bill would expressly impose, in legislation, an obligation on all regulators to ensure that the documents they incorporate are accessible. While this has always been something in the common law, and access to justice and common law principles always have applied to our regulatory regime in Canada, the bill would clearly enshrine that obligation in legislation.

There is no doubt that accessibility should be part of the bill. It is essential that documents that are incorporated by reference be accessible to those who are required, by regulation, to comply with those documents. That is an important and necessary step, and that is why it is included in Bill S-2.

The general approach to accessibility found in this bill would provide flexibility to regulatory bodies to take whatever steps might be necessary to ensure that these diverse types of materials, from a wide variety of sources, both domestic and international, could in fact be accessible.

Material that is incorporated by reference is generally accessible, and as a result, in some cases, no further action on the part of a regulatory authority would be necessary. An example of this is provincial legislation across Canada that is already widely and generally accessible. Federal regulations that incorporated provincial legislation would undoubtedly allow the regulator to meet the requirement to ensure that the material was accessible.

Sometimes accessing the document through the standards organization itself might be necessary. The proposed legislation would ensure that the regulated community would have access to whatever material was incorporated, with reasonable effort on their part. In this modern age, so many things are easily accessible by those that are regulated, so this reasonable-effort standard should be very easily met.

The bill, therefore, would create a meaningful obligation on the part of regulators to ensure accessibility while still allowing for innovation, modernity, flexibility, and creativity.

Bill S-2 is intended to solidify the government's access to a regulatory drafting technique, essential and responsive, in our regulations. It also recognizes corresponding obligations regulators must meet when using this tool. This bill strikes an important balance that reflects the reality of modern regulation while ensuring that appropriate protections and accessibility measures are enshrined in law.

This proposal is consistent with the position the government has long taken on the question of whether the technique of incorporation by reference can or cannot be used in regulations. It would provide express legislative authority for the use of this technique in the future and would confirm the validity of existing regulations incorporating documents in a manner that was consistent with that authority.

Parliament's ability to control the delegation of regulatory-making power would continue, as would the oversight of the Standing Joint Committee for the Scrutiny of Regulations. We expect that this standing joint committee would indeed continue to play an important role in ensuring that the use of the technique continued and was exercised in the way Parliament intended.

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

We have before us today one of these bills that are essentially the plumbing in our laws and regulations in Canada. The enactment of Bill S-2 would be a logical and necessary next step to ensuring that there is access in a responsible manner to incorporation by reference documentation in a way that is accessible but that allows our regulations to be modern and to incorporate some of the best references from around the world.

I invite members to support this important legislative proposal in Bill S-2 and recognize the important steps it would take to ensure that our laws and regulations are modern, accessible, and the best they can be.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

moved that Bill S-2, 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, first, let me take the opportunity to extend my own appreciation and thanks to our Sergeant-at-Arms Kevin Vickers, the House of Commons Security Services, and their security and law enforcement partners for their extraordinary work yesterday.

Much has been said, all of it deserved, and I cannot think that anybody here thinks we can say it too much. All members of the House, and the institution itself, were incredibly well-served by them yesterday. We have every right to be proud of them.

All members of the House, and the institution itself, were incredibly well served by them yesterday. We have every right to be proud of them.

I also want to acknowledge yesterday's efforts of your other officials, and the indulgence of my counterparts and their staff, as we managed our way through the logistics surrounding the next meetings of this House.

Plans do change from time to time. However, here is the plan as I have it for the next week.

Today, we will continue debating the bills I have indicated on our projected order of business, first, Bill C-35, justice for animals in service act (Quanto's Law), at second reading. It is kind of appropriate since we were among many of those very police dogs, and other service animals yesterday, taking care of us. Perhaps it would be a good tribute to them to see this bill advance.

We have Bill S-5, Nááts’ihch’oh National Park Reserve act, which we will continue debating, as well as Bill S-2, incorporation by reference in regulations act, at second reading.

Tomorrow we will start report stage of Bill C-41, Canada-Korea economic growth and prosperity act. If there is unanimous support, perhaps we can also take up third reading tomorrow as well.

In any event, on Monday and Tuesday of next week, we will continue with any uncompleted debates on today's and tomorrow's bills, as well as Bill C-21, red tape reduction act, at second reading.

Starting on Wednesday and for the remainder of next week, we will debate the economic action plan 2014 act, No. 2, which my hon. friend, the Minister of Finance introduced this morning.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have another opportunity to respond to the Thursday question from the hon. member for Burnaby—New Westminster.

I know how proud he claims to be about showing up to work. In fact, though, the New Democrats seem to have a spotty record on that. Last evening, that very member rose to speak to our government's bill to protect our communities and exploited persons—that is Bill C-36—and after one whole minute he moved to adjourn the House. He said we should all go home. Maybe that is the parliamentary equivalent of taking one's ball and wanting to go home when one is unhappy with how things are going in another meeting.

In any event, we did all dutifully troop into the House to vote on that at 6 p.m. However, what was very revealing was that only 61 of those 98 New Democrats stood in their places to vote. A few of them were missing their shifts, oddly. We did not find that on the Conservative side. In fact, we just had two votes in the House, and the number of New Democrats who were not standing in their places was very similar to that.

Therefore, when I ask myself who is not showing up for work, I can say it is not the Conservatives not showing up; it is, in fact, the New Democrats.

However, following the popular acclaim of last week's Thursday statement, I would like to recap what we have actually accomplished in the House since last week in terms of the legislative agenda.

Bill C-37, the riding name change act, 2014, which was compiled and assembled through the input of all parties, was introduced and adopted at all stages.

Bill C-31, the economic action plan, act no. 1, was adopted at both report stage and, just moments ago, at third reading.

Bill C-24, the strengthening Canadian citizenship act, was concurred in at report stage.

Bill C-20, the Canada-Honduras economic growth and prosperity act, was passed at third reading. Of course, the NDP tried to slow down its passage, but Conservatives were able to get around those efforts, as I am sure the 50 New Democrats on vigil in the House last night fondly appreciate, and we were able to extend our hours because there were, again, not even 50 New Democrats here in the House to stand in their places to block that debate as they wanted to. So we did finish the Canada-Honduras bill that night, and were able to vote on it.

The government's spending proposals for the year were adopted by the House, and two bills to give these plans effect, Bill C-38 and BillC-39, were each passed at all stages.

Bill C-22, the energy safety and security act, was reported back from committee, and several other reports from committees were also tabled. As I understand, we will see Bill C-17, the protecting Canadians from unsafe drugs act, reported back from the health committee in short order.

Finally, this morning we virtually unanimously passed a motion to reappoint Mary Dawson as our Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner.

Sadly, though, the New Democrats did not heed my call last week to let Bill C-32, the victims bill of rights act, pass at second reading. We were treated, sadly, to only more words and no deeds from the NDP.

Turning to the business ahead, I am currently anticipating the following debates. This afternoon and tonight, we will finish the debate on Bill C-36, the Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act, at second reading. That will be followed by third reading of Bill C-24 and second reading of Bill C-35, Justice for Animals in Service Act (Quanto's Law).

Tomorrow morning, we will debate Bill C-24, if necessary, and Bill C-18, Agricultural Growth Act, at second reading. After question period, we will get back to Bill C-32, and give the NDP one more chance to send the victims bill of rights to committee.

The highlight of Monday is going to be the report stage of Bill C-6, the Prohibiting Cluster Munitions Act. Tuesday’s feature debate will be Bill C-2, the Respect for Communities Act, at second reading. Wednesday will see us finish third reading, I hope, of Bill C-6. During the additional time available those days—in addition to Thursday and Friday of next week—I will schedule any unfinished debates on Bill C-18, Bill C-32 and Bill C-35.

I will also try to schedule debates on Bill C-22 and Bill C-17, as well as other bills, such as Bill C-3, the Safeguarding Canada’s Seas and Skies Act, at third reading; Bill C-8, the Combating Counterfeit Products Act, at third reading; Bill C-12, the Drug-free Prisons Act, at second reading; Bill C-21, Red Tape Reduction Act, at second reading; Bill C-26, Tougher Penalties for Child Predators Act, at second reading; Bill S-2, Incorporation by Reference in Regulations Act, at second reading; Bill S-3, the Port State Measures Agreement Implementation Act, at second reading; and Bill S-4, the Digital Privacy Act—which I understand we will receive shortly from the other place—at second reading.

Extension of Sitting Hours

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, what an odd debate. I listened with interest to the speech by the hon. member for Burlington. He is the chair of the committee and I am the vice-chair.

I found some of his statements peculiar. The fundamental problem with the motion presently before the House is not the fact of staying until midnight. The NDP team has a reputation for hard work. Anyone who wants to entertain themselves by visiting my Facebook page would see that the people of Gatineau are actually advising me to slow down because they are worried about my health. Perhaps they are right, considering the flu I have at the moment. We in the NDP work very hard. A number of bills, for example, are before the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, so that they can be debated in the House or in committee. It is not the work we are afraid of.

The cat is out of the bag. There are issues that our Conservative friends want to talk about, and they want to speak about them at length. Had I been asked, I would have said—before they even rose to speak—that I expected to see a great many Conservatives rise to speak in the House about Bill C-32. Why? Because it is an opportunity for the Conservatives to give Canadians the impression that they have been dealing with this issue—and this issue alone—for weeks, months and even years. They are the ones who stand up for victims. We are all deadbeats and have washed our hands of the problem. That is not true, though. Now, when workers’ rights were at stake, the Conservatives wanted to cut debate short.

The member said that nine bills had been passed and that he is embarrassed to return to Burlington. What I would say to him is that he is absolutely right to be embarrassed; the Conservatives did nothing with their majority aside from getting nine bills passed, and they had to resort to time allocation motions to ram the bills through. There is something not quite right with this government. The Conservatives are averse to debate. They do not like hearing opinions that do not coincide with their own. When the Conservatives too often hear something they disagree with, a red light suddenly goes on. We have had to debate many a time allocation motion. I do not know how many times I have taken part in debates in the House or how many speeches I have made expressing my dissatisfaction with the fact that we have been stripped of our right to speak.

The Conservatives made mention of Bill C-13. I am fortunate to be the NDP justice critic and to have had the opportunity to voice my opinion regarding this omnibus bill, right after the minister spoke. This is no small bill; on the contrary, it is approximately 50 pages long and has an impact on numerous other pieces of legislation. It does address the issue of cyberbullying, as the government likes to point out, but it goes much farther, so far that the committee is being flooded with requests for meetings. We hear all manner of experts warning us to be careful. That is what is missing in the House.

The Senate is referred to as a chamber of sober second thought, but we were not elected to this place in order to abdicate our duty to think. Members have a responsibility to be present in the House to voice and stand up for the opinions of their constituents. Canadians expect us to go about our work in an intelligent and thoughtful manner, to take the time to properly analyze bills. I am in favour of debating this bill in the House and referring it to committee for further consideration. More often than not, bills are analyzed at lightening speed.

The Conservatives will say that the House was given an opportunity to debate Bill C-13, the bill on cyberbullying, and thank God, especially given the time allocation motion that was foisted upon us so as to ram the bill through to committee.

Suddenly, things became urgent. Why urgent after the death of Rehtaeh Parsons, and yet not after the death of Amanda Todd? That was a question a witness asked us. The notion that the government would somehow need to act urgently does not really cut it with me; these things are more politically driven than they are concrete. It is a bit worrisome.

Bill C-13 is large and contains a number of disturbing provisions. When considered alongside the remarks made by the Conservative committee members, it leads me to believe that the Conservatives will not be very receptive to the many amendments proposed by expert witnesses. If past events are any indication, I am not very optimistic. Still, I am an optimistic woman by nature.

In light of this, I have trouble believing it when the government tells us, hand on heart, that its goal is to work harder. Working harder, for a Conservative, does not necessarily mean working more effectively and harder. It simply means that members end up working until midnight in order to discuss all the bills before the House, including those bills that have not been studied for an eternity.

For example, there is Bill C-2 on safe injection sites; Bill C-3 on marine transportation; Bill C-6, which implements the Convention on Cluster Munitions; Bill C-8 on counterfeit products; and Bill C-10 on contraband tobacco, which we finished studying in committee such a long time ago that I will have to reread all my material. Indeed, since then, we have studied so many other topics that I have almost had enough time to forget all about it. We will resume studying this bill at report stage. We could have covered it a long time ago. I have been waiting for some time for this stage to be completed in the House. Everything will have to be done over. It is a colossal waste of time for everyone concerned. There is also Bill C-11 on the hiring of injured veterans. If there is a category of people in our society who have huge needs, it certainly is our veterans.

Suddenly, the Conservatives are going to try and push all this through at once. The member for Burlington has done the math when it comes to the number of hours, and the government is going to try and give us a few hours for each bill. Then the government turns around and calls itself a champion of hard work. Well done, champion.

There is also Bill C-17, Vanessa’s law, about drug safety, an extremely important bill that must be debated; Bill C-18, concerning farm regulations; and Bill C-20, concerning the Canada-Honduras agreement, which is at report stage. I no longer even remember when I gave my last speech on that subject. It has already been a heck of a long time. The Conservatives have been in no rush, but all of a sudden, they are in a rush.

We will examine Bill C-21, concerning red tape for small businesses. The junior Minister of Tourism is travelling all over Canada to talk about the importance of eliminating red tape everywhere, while this bill is stuck in some office or other. It could have been debated a long time ago.

There is Bill C-22, concerning oil, gas and nuclear liability, and Bill C-24, concerning the Citizenship Act. These are bills that are announced to us with great fanfare at big press conferences, but then they stagnate and we do not see them again.

There is Bill C-26, about sexual predators. I expected that one would move quickly, because the Conservatives told us we had to work on this issue quickly. There is also Bill C-27, about hiring veterans in the public service. It is extremely important, I repeat, because it concerns a category of people in our society who have needs that are just as important.

Then there is Bill C-32, about the victims bill of rights. I think it is the reason why this government’s Motion No. 10 has no credibility at all. For a full year, I was treated to one press conference after another. If it was not the Prime Minister, it was the Minister of Justice with his senator from the other side. They told us they were going to work very hard, listen, set up panels and do everything we could wish for, and then they brought forth a charter that was denounced by many people, starting with victims, because they expected a lot more. That may be why the Conservatives kept their charter hidden for some time.

Apart from the minister, one Liberal and myself, no one has yet spoken on this subject. I am going to make a wager with my colleagues in the House. I expect there will be a time allocation motion on this. The Conservatives are going to rend their garments and plead that it is urgent, that it is extremely important and that it must be passed immediately, or the opposite will happen, because they will want to talk to us about it for hours on end. It becomes part of their narrative.

Every Conservative member wants to go back to their riding and have their householder and the excerpt from their speech in the House, which they made to show that they are protecting victims’ rights.

In the NDP, we want to talk about important issues and show that we could do even better than Bill C-32, specifically by amending it. We want to talk about the proposals made by the federal ombudsman for victims of crime. In fact, Bill C-32 does not contain a large percentage of her recommendations. A balance has to be struck. For every Conservative who speaks, the New Democrats will also speak.

When we want to talk about something, it is not important. That is the message we constantly get in the House, and, perhaps because we are approaching the end of the session, it is becoming extremely annoying, to put it mildly and stay within the bounds of parliamentary language.

It is appalling to see that people who are elected to represent the residents of their riding are silenced as often as we are by this government. We get told they are not interested. I have also heard the member for Burlington say—and I am going to talk to him about it again, in fact, at the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights—that sometimes we just need to go and read because members all read pretty much the same thing.

If the people of Gatineau think the same thing as the people of Laval, I think it is important that this be pointed out. Who has more right than whom to speak in the House on a particular bill? There is something indecent about wanting to constantly silence people.

Sometimes, I tell the members opposite that they should stop imposing time allocation motions and motions to get things done, as they like to say. I very much liked the expression my colleague used yesterday, when he talked about motions that are “a licence for laziness”.

This is unpleasant. If they had taken the time spent on debating those motions and instead used the time to finish the debate on the bill that they were trying to stop from being debated, we would probably have finished. The fact is that not all members in the NDP caucus or the Liberal Party or the Green Party or whatever colour you like necessarily wish to speak.

However, if the government limits the speaking time of a single member who wishes to speak, we cannot claim to be living in a democratic system. That is what is known as the tyranny of the majority. I believe we have to stand up against that, loud and clear. Every time that happens here, we are going to speak out against it, in every way possible.

We are told that we could perhaps go faster. I listened to the Minister of Foreign Affairs say that, and what he said made sense, in some respects. The way that Manitoba and the NDP government operate makes sense. Those consensus-based approaches make sense.

Quebec managed to pass a bill on a very sensitive issue, end-of-life care, with the agreement of all parties. There was an election, and the members all agreed to reinstate the bill once the election was over. That is being discussed.

The problem here is that the people on the Conservative benches are not talking to the opposition parties. All they talk about is strategies. We keep wondering who is going to pull a fast one on us. They use roundabout tactics such as counting how many MPs are in the House, catching them off guard, and forcing a party leader to go testify before a committee. This is unprecedented—and they say they are democratic.

Then the Conservatives get all offended when we say that Motion No. 10 is total nonsense. This is not about giving us more time. This is about taking all of the bills—there are more on the agenda than have already been passed, and that took much longer than the amount of time we have between now and June 20—and making us think they are giving us more time. They are not giving us a thing. I do not believe in Conservative gifts, and nobody in Canada should believe in any Conservative gift whatsoever.

The truth is that the Conservatives are going to shove their agenda down our throats because they could not get through it in a mature, parliamentary, by-the-rules way. They could have said that the House leaders would discuss it and try to see if some of the bills were more palatable or if we could agree to pass some of them more quickly. Then the real committee work could have started.

It is true, for Bill C-13, we had a lot of witnesses. However, I am not yet ready to give a seal of approval to the government in power, indicating that the bill has been studied in depth, because we still have the entire amendment stage. I believe that what the other side wants to accept is under so much remote control that the committee is not really doing the work. Instead, the higher-ups are dictating to our colleagues opposite what they have to do, while at the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, we are trying to bring out the best in the bill.

I have not even mentioned the upcoming Bill C-35, dealing with service animals. Bill S-2 deals with statutory instruments and may not seem like much. However, it is a very significant bill that is going to change an entire way of doing things in terms of regulations. We know that regulations have an impact on the everyday lives of our fellow Canadians in all kinds of areas: the environment, transportation, health and what have you. This is a real concern. I bet that we will analyze it very quickly. That concerns me.

The fact that we are extending our hours until midnight does not encourage any belief on my part that we will be having constructive debates followed by more productive work in committee. That is why the Conservatives have this problem with credibility. We are not the only ones saying so. When their measures are challenged in court, the Conservatives get slammed.

I will take a deep breath and take a little time to say that perhaps we should review our way of doing things. Our friends in the House may not know this, but the bill on prostitution may well be coming our way next week. We hear whispering in the corridors that the government wants the bill passed. It is huge, though, since it comes as a response to a Supreme Court of Canada decision. Everyone in the House knows that passing the bill will not be easy because there are people on all sides of that issue. I would bet that we are going to have just a few hours of debate before they pitch it—to put it very nicely—to the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights. We can expect a hot and heavy summer on that one.

Extending the sitting hours until midnight just to work harder is one more tactic that is just like their time allocation motions, closure motions and any other kind of motion they can think of. It is part of the Conservatives' bag of undemocratic tricks. They will force these tricks on the House, but not on themselves, as ministers. Based on how the motion is written, I think it will be quite humourous. It will be interesting to see how many of them will be here in the House to happily participate in the debates on all the topics I mentioned, instead of at a cocktail party. That is why it is extremely important that we amend this motion.

Seconded by the hon. member for LaSalle—Émard, I move:

That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word “place” and substituting the following:

(b) when a recorded division is demanded in respect of a debatable motion, including any division arising as a consequence of the application of Standing Order 61(2), but not including any division in relation to the Business of Supply, Private Members’ Business, or arising as a consequence of an order made pursuant to Standing Order 57,

(i) before 5:30 p.m. on a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday, it shall stand deferred until the time immediately before the time provided for Private Members’ Business at that day’s sitting,

(ii) after 5:30 p.m. on a Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday, it shall stand deferred until the time immediately before the time provided for Private Members’ Business at the next day’s sitting,

(iii) after 5:30 p.m. on a Thursday, or at any time on a Friday, it shall stand deferred until 6:30 p.m. on the following Monday.

Incorporation by Reference in Regulations Act

[John Duncan, Conservative, Vancouver Island North, BC]

moved for leave to introduce Bill S-2, An Act to amend the Statutory Instruments Act and to make consequential amendments to the Statutory Instruments Regulations.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

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-2, An Act to amend the Statutory Instruments Act and to make consequential amendments to the Statutory Instruments Regulations.