Bill S-6

An Act respecting regulatory modernization

This enactment amends various Acts as part of the Regulatory Modernization Initiative in order to repeal or amend provisions that have, over time, become barriers to innovation and economic growth or to add certain provisions with a view to support innovation and economic growth.
Part 1 modifies the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act to, among other things,
(a) replace the requirement to publish a notice of bankruptcy in a local newspaper with a requirement to do so in the manner specified in directives of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy; and
(b) provide that, if every opposition based solely on grounds referred to in paragraph 173(1)(m) or (n) of that Act is withdrawn, a bankrupt who was eligible for an automatic discharge before the opposition was filed will be issued a certificate of discharge.
It also amends the Electricity and Gas Inspection Act to allow the Governor in Council to authorize the director, appointed under subsection 26(1) of that Act, to establish plans for the verification of meters by any means.
It also amends the Weights and Measures Act to, among other things, enable the Minister of Industry to permit a trader to temporarily use, or have in their possession for use, in trade, any device even if the device has not been approved by the Minister or examined by an inspector.
It also amends the Budget Implementation Act, 2018, No. 2 to, among other things, amend a provision under which certain amendments to the Trademarks Act may be brought into force.
Finally, it amends the Canada Business Corporations Act , the Canada Cooperatives Act and the Canada Not-for-profit Corporations Act by replacing the term “annual return” with the term “annual update statement”.
Part 2 amends the Canada Oil and Gas Operations Act and the Canada Petroleum Resources Act to repeal certain provisions that require the publication of draft regulations in the Canada Gazette .
It also amends the Canada–Newfoundland and Labrador Atlantic Accord Implementation Act and the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Resources Accord Implementation Act to
(a) update the terminology in respect of hazardous products in the workplace to ensure alignment and consistency with the Hazardous Products Act ; and
(b) clarify the regulation-making authority with respect to record-keeping requirements for occupational health and safety matters.
Finally, it amends the Canada Lands Surveyors Act to, among other things,
(a) enhance the protection of the public by modernizing the complaints and discipline processes that govern Canada Lands Surveyors;
(b) reduce the regulatory burden of the Minister of Natural Resources by enabling the Council of the Association of Canada Lands Surveyors to make by-laws respecting a broader range of matters;
(c) harmonize the French and English versions of the Act for consistency and clarity by, among other things, ensuring uniformity between both language versions in relation to the definitions of “licence” and “permit” and by addressing certain recommendations of the Standing Joint Committee for the Scrutiny of Regulations;
(d) improve labour mobility within Canada and to better align with the Canadian Free Trade Agreement; and
(e) harmonize the text of that Act with the private law of the provinces and territories, being the civil law regime of the Province of Quebec and the common law regime in the rest of Canada.
Part 3 amends the Wild Animal and Plant Protection and Regulation of International and Interprovincial Trade Act to, among other things,
(a) remove the requirement for the Governor in Council to make and update regulations specifying the animals and plants that are listed as “fauna” and “flora”, respectively, in an appendix to the Convention on international trade in endangered species of wild fauna and flora; and
(b) clarify that the prohibitions in subsections 6(1) and 7(1) and (2) of that Act are subject to the regulations.
It also amends the Species at Risk Act to, among other things,
(a) authorize the Governor in Council to remove a species from Schedule 3 to that Act if the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC) has assessed the status of the species under section 130 of that Act or has determined that the species is not a “wildlife species” or a “species at risk” as defined in subsection 2(1) of that Act;
(b) remove from that Schedule 3 the species that have already been assessed by COSEWIC under that section 130 or determined by it not to be a “wildlife species” or a “species at risk” as defined in that subsection 2(1);
(c) clarify the timelines for preparing proposed recovery strategies and management plans that must be prepared as a result of an assessment under section 130 of that Act; and
(d) repeal Schedule 2 to that Act.
Part 4 amends the Agricultural Products Marketing Act to, among other things,
(a) provide that powers are delegated to a marketing board in relation to the marketing of an agricultural product in interprovincial or export trade by virtue of being named in the schedule to that Act, rather than by Order in Council;
(b) provide that the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food is responsible for the delegation of those powers;
(c) delegate powers in relation to the marketing of agricultural products to administrative bodies;
(d) provide for limitations and exceptions, that were previously set out in orders and regulations made under that Act, with respect to the exercise of the delegated powers; and
(e) require marketing boards and administrative bodies to make accessible to the persons with respect to which they exercise their delegated powers the requirements or other measures they establish in the exercise of those powers.
It also repeals certain Orders and Regulations.
Part 5 amends the Feeds Act to, among other things,
(a) provide that the approval and registration of feed are subject to prescribed conditions and to authorize the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, to make the approval and registration subject to additional conditions;
(b) provide that a notice requiring the removal or destruction of certain feed may be delivered by any method that provides proof of delivery or by any prescribed method; and
(c) authorize the Governor in Council to make regulations respecting the recognition of a system of any foreign state or subdivision of any foreign state relating to the safety of feeds.
It also amends the Fertilizers Act to, among other things,
(a) provide that the approval and registration of a fertilizer or supplement are subject to prescribed conditions and to authorize the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, to make the approval and registration subject to additional conditions;
(b) provide that a notice requiring the removal or destruction of certain fertilizers or supplements may be delivered by any method that provides proof of delivery or by any prescribed method;
(c) prohibit the release of novel supplements, except in accordance with the regulations, and authorize the Governor in Council to make regulations respecting any such release; and
(d) authorize the Minister to impose conditions on any authorization to release a novel supplement that the Minister may grant under the regulations.
It also amends the Seeds Act to, among other things,
(a) provide that a notice requiring the removal or destruction of certain seeds may be delivered by any method that provides proof of delivery or by any prescribed method;
(b) prohibit the release of certain seeds, except in accordance with the regulations; and
(c) authorize the Governor in Council to make regulations respecting the release of seeds, providing for the determination of varietal purity of seed crops by the Canadian Seed Growers’ Association and respecting the recognition of a system of any foreign state or subdivision of any foreign state relating to the safety of seeds.
It also amends the Health of Animals Act to, among other things,
(a) provide that a notice requiring the removal or disposal of certain animals or things may be delivered by any method that provides proof of delivery or by any prescribed method;
(b) authorize the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food to renew, amend, suspend or revoke a permit or any other document issued by that Minister;
(c) prohibit the release of certain veterinary biologics, except in accordance with the regulations, and authorize the Governor in Council to make regulations respecting any such release;
(d) authorize the Minister to approve programs developed by entities other than the Canadian Food Inspection Agency for certain specified purposes and authorize the Governor in Council to make regulations respecting the approval of such programs;
(e) clarify the circumstances under which an inspector or officer may declare that an infected place is no longer an infected place; and
(f) authorize the Minister to make an interim order if the Minister believes that immediate action is required to deal with a significant risk to human or animal health and safety or the environment.
It also amends the Plant Protection Act to
(a) provide that a notice requiring the removal or destruction of certain things may be delivered by any method that provides proof of delivery or by any prescribed method; and
(b) authorize the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food to renew, amend, suspend or revoke a permit or any other document issued by that Minister.
It also amends the Canadian Food Inspection Agency Act to authorize the use of electronic means to administer and enforce that Act and any Act or provision that the Agency is responsible for administering or enforcing.
Finally, it amends the Safe Food for Canadians Act to, among other things,
(a) clarify the definition of “food commodity” by specifying that the reference in that definition to the definition of “food” in the Food and Drugs Act is subject to an interpretation provision in that Act;
(b) provide that a notice requiring the removal or destruction of certain food commodities may be delivered by any method that provides proof of delivery or by any prescribed method; and
(c) authorize the Governor in Council to extend any interim order for a period of no more than two years.
Part 6 amends the Coastal Fisheries Protection Act to create an offence of contravening a term or condition of a licence or permit.
It also amends the Fisheries Act to remove the time limit for entry into an alternative measures agreement by an alleged offender and the Attorney General. Finally, it confirms that the provisions respecting alternative measures agreements do not limit the discretion of fishery officers, fishery guardians and peace officers in enforcing that Act.
Part 7 amends the Department of Citizenship and Immigration Act to authorize the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration to disclose, for certain purposes and subject to any regulations, personal information under the control of the Department within the Department and to certain other federal and provincial government entities.
It also amends the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act to authorize the making of regulations relating to the disclosure of information collected for the purposes of that Act to federal departments and agencies.
Part 8 amends the Customs Act to authorize the making of regulations aimed at streamlining the implementation of free trade agreements.
Part 9 amends the Canada Transportation Act to provide the Minister of Transport with the authority to make interim orders to implement international standards or to ensure compliance with Canada’s international obligations.

An Act Respecting Regulatory Modernization

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

Madam Speaker, tonight, we are looking at Bill S-6, which would not be cutting regulations; it is about modernizing regulations. We missed some opportunities where we could have improved various aspects of Canadian society by actually cutting some regulations and streamlining some other regulations.

This may just be my own childhood and background working in a small business. We had a restaurant and gift shop on the Cabot Trail. We had a lot of tourists come through. My father, who was rather funny, kept getting notices from the Government of Canada. One day, the notice would be about tariffs on T-shirts made in Bangladesh, and another day it would be about something else. He finally decided to start a wall along where people had to wait to get to the washroom. He posted all the notices that we received from the Government of Canada. He then made a lovely sign so he could keep it up to date. It said, “The Government of Canada never sleeps.” Perhaps I have been thinking of it because it is approaching midnight, and I suppose I never sleep, but the truth is that we could use some sense in regulations.

I recently met with a wonderful group that was here meeting with many members of Parliament, The College of Family Physicians of Canada. This is one area in which I wish we would see action. I generally believe we need regulations to protect health and safety, but some regulations simply do not make sense. The ones that generate unnecessary paperwork for doctors hurt our health care system because they tie doctors and their staff up with unnecessary, unproductive work. This includes, for example, having to write a letter every five years to say that a patient still has an amputated leg. There is also paperwork that has to be issued over and over again to help veterans. It takes up a doctor's time to fill out forms and write letters that are completely unnecessary. Often, especially in the case of the CRA, the patient ends up paying for the service separately, and that is the person who is least able to pay. There would be a great deal of sense in trying to figure out how to reduce the regulatory burden, especially where it is impeding our health care system.

We have been talking about this piece of legislation in terms of modernizing. Only one party, the Conservative Party, has put forward speakers tonight. Why am I standing here? It is because I am a bit worried about this bill. It is not necessarily just routine, regulatory modernization. My concern is that this bill, which affects 29 different acts, will go only to the industry committee for review. Most of it is pretty uncontroversial, which is why there has been very little interest in it tonight.

My concern is about what happens with the Species at Risk Act changes. When I read this over, I am not entirely sure they are not substantive. They do not appear to be entirely about modernizing; they appear to be substantial or at least substantive changes to the Species at Risk Act. We do not have a great record with the Species at Risk Act. For instance, the southern resident killer whale was listed as endangered in 2003, and the full recovery plan did not come out until 2018. Any changes to the Species at Risk Act that are more than purely routine must go to the environment committee, not the industry committee. We can send it to committee and study it there, but there are 29 different acts. What if something in there is a mistake and we just go ahead with it because these are just normal changes? What about the change to the Fisheries Act to give a fisheries officer the discretion to not lay charges? What if that is substantive, and what if that is a mistake? It is going to go only to the industry committee.

Wrapping things up, I urge some caution here. This is a missed opportunity to actually reduce regulations, but it is also not modernizing them. In the reading I have done since working on the bill for this evening and since the bill was tabled in the Senate, I have some concerns. I express those concerns now knowing full well this bill will be sent right away to the industry committee and probably promulgated without changes. I hope members of the committee will ensure that they are at least satisfied that changes to the Fisheries Act and changes to the Species at Risk Act would not, in fact, hurt nature in this country any more than we have seen through recent decisions. This includes the Roberts Bank expansion in the Port of Vancouver, which will surely hurt those very same southern resident killer whales.

[Corey Tochor, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate this opportunity to rise and speak to Bill S-6. How I came to this bill is probably like many people. We read the title: “an act respecting regulatory modernization”. It reminds me of going through Netflix when someone wants to watch something new so they look at the title and think that it kind of fits, and maybe they see the trailer or read the bio and a bit of what is going to go on in the video, and they say that it is something they can probably get behind.

We have lots of regulatory issues in Canada and modernizing them is probably a good thing. We know that over these eight long years, the current Liberal government has introduced more legislation that restricts people. It restricts our ability to get the services we need from our government and it restricts our freedoms and our rights in Canada. If any bill talks about “respecting regulatory modernization”, I would be all over it. There is a list of the departments. There are 12 organizations. I am not going to read all of them, but all of these are things that we should modernize, especially on the regulatory side. We have so much red tape. It has been said that we are the most heavily red-taped country in the world, which holds back our freedoms.

All this excess of regulation makes people sick and tired of dealing with government. They throw up their papers and say, “To heck with this, I am not doing this, not applying for that, not going to get into this program, not going to get this grant and not going to apply for this opportunity”, because there is no end to the red tape, the forms and the excess of regulation that Liberals are known for.

It goes back to the philosophy, I believe, of the Liberals, which is that government knows best, that someone knows better than the citizens. We have seen this time after time with respect to different legislation that gets introduced here. There is this feeling that the poor citizens need the government's protection and they need the hands of the all-knowing government to reach into their lives and make them difficult. I just think it is garbage. I think of all the waste we have in government, all the duplication and all the unnecessary things that everyday, common people go through just to interact with their government. The government is supposed to help them, but in a lot of ways it hurts Canadians. It hurts Canadians' productivity. It hurts our potential to grow our country, to expand, and to create opportunities for the next generation.

That is where the current government has failed miserably in some of the regulatory changes it did early on. I do question how history is going to look back at these eight long years. Hopefully they are coming to an end here soon. I think of the lost opportunity and of the regulatory change in Bill C-69. This is one bill that is terrible for our country. We have seen the results of the restrictive nature of shutting down everything. This goes from coast to coast to coast. I think of one of the largest missed opportunities for Canada. When we look back on these eight long years, what was the worst missed economic opportunity for this generation and probably the next? I think of the impact on liquefied natural gas.

When the Liberals came to government, they knew better than the industry and the citizens about what we should be doing to hopefully lower our emissions and grow our economy. There were 15 liquefied natural gas plants proposed for Canada. This is not just a mom-and-pop gas station down the road; this is $10 billion to $20 billion of economic driving force in those communities, and we had 15 of them proposed. Do members know how many got built? Zero of these plants were built. They were going to be massive economic drivers, and it was all derailed because of Bill C-69 and the Liberal government.

This is the regulatory framework that the Liberals put in. Their end goal was to shut down industry, and they shut it down. They shut down not only the opportunity on the coasts but also the opportunity for well-paying jobs in my province. In Saskatchewan, the drilling rates for natural gas dropped. I shudder to think of how many opportunities and powerful paycheques these families would have had if the Liberals had not brought in this regulation. It would have released so much natural gas out of Canada. That would actually have lowered emissions.

The gas from those plants, for the most part, was headed to Asia and the European market. We are positioned perfectly. Canada can supply the two largest markets with liquefied natural gas. There is no other market that has the known reserves that we have in the ground, positioned in the perfect location in terms of both Europe and Asia.

When we fast forward to what has happened since these plants were cancelled because of the regulatory regime, where the goalposts kept moving, we find that Asia has more coal plants. What the Liberal government does not understand is that we need energy to survive in this climate and to prosper. It is the same in other countries, where our liquefied natural gas could have offset all the tonnage of coal that Asia has been using. What a missed opportunity.

We could have lowered our emissions, provided well-paying jobs for Canadians and collected royalties that could be put back into our society. This is the virtuous circle that we should be encouraging in every industry, but this is an example of the heavy-handed regulatory changes and the red tape that the Liberals have introduced and that have canned so many projects. It is a shame. I think of the missed economic opportunity. There is no larger one that I know of in the history of our country other than the government's change in the regulatory process that killed those 15 plants.

That is on the environmental side. We know that natural gas is a superior source of energy over coal. It lowers emissions and provides good paycheques in Canada. Moreover, it could have saved lives in Europe; this is probably the area that I hope the members on the other side realize most. Energy security is the number one issue in Europe right now. Putin had the control of European countries for natural gas. As we know, unfortunately, what has transpired with the invasion of Ukraine has brought about a real challenge in Europe's energy security. How many lives would have been saved if we had these plants? Putin may not even have invaded Ukraine or, if he did, the war would have been that much shorter because of those countries that rely on natural gas.

It is not going away. As much as there are people who would wish oil and gas away in our lifetime or on our planet, it is always going to be within our mix. I think of how much more Ukraine could have counted on its neighbours in Europe if they were not worried about Putin cutting off their natural gas. That relates exactly to Bill C-69 and why the Liberals changed the goalposts and killed this industry that was just getting on its feet. I cannot think of another regulatory change that has had as much of a negative impact on our planet, be it environmentally or for energy security, as the regulatory change on liquefied natural gas has done.

I forgot to mention that I will be sharing my time.

Going back to the regulatory side of things, any time one puts a break on productivity, it hurts the citizens that one is supposedly there to serve. That is wrong. It has affected my home, the Speaker's home and all our homes. We are going to bring it home.

[Lori Idlout, NDP, Nunavut, NU]

Uqaqtittiji, I do, to some extent, agree with some of the member's statements, especially when it comes to the lack of impacts the bill has in engaging indigenous peoples in the various pieces of legislation it would be making amendments to. I wonder if the member would agree that Bill S-6 could be improved by ensuring regulations would require that indigenous peoples are better engaged in any of these pieces of legislation.

[Adam Chambers, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise here this evening and share my thoughts on Bill S-6. Before that, however, I just want to acknowledge that I heard the intervention from the hon. colleague from New Westminster—Burnaby about the point of privilege that was raised earlier. I want to say that I welcome his comments and thoughts on that matter. It is an important issue. I will turn to Bill S-6 in a second, but I just want to say that the number one thing I hear from Canadians who happen to catch any of the proceedings on TV is that nobody answers a question, and for the life of me I cannot understand why the government cannot answer the simple question of when it found out.

Bill S-6 is supposed to modernize the regulatory environment. It would make 46 minor changes to 29 acts across 12 different organizations. Apparently, this is supposed to be an annual bill. It is a little bizarre that it is coming in through the Senate, but that tells us one thing: There is actually no owner within the government's executive branch that is supposed to be in charge of red tape or regulatory reduction, because it has to farm out this work to a member of the Senate. Why is it that the government has to find an owner in the Senate? The government does not have anyone over there who is responsible for regulatory modernization. It had to find an owner who is in a different chamber.

My first instinct when looking at the bill is that I am supportive of it. It seems reasonable, but we have to ask ourselves whether these are really the life-changing regulations that we should be looking to reduce for Canadians.

There are other questions I have for the government. Is it going to accept amendments at committee if we have other really good ideas? We just took another senator's private member's bill and blew it up. We are going to accept a ton of other amendments to that senator's bill, so hopefully we will do that with this one.

Also, the government is not even measuring how many regulations we have. There are over 4,000 regulations in the consolidated regulations of Canada, and we are going to take out 45, but we do not know how many regulations are elsewhere. There is a saying, “What gets measured gets done.” However, we do not even have a baseline, and the government, by its own admission, is thinking about bringing in over 250 regulations over the next couple of years. This year, it would take out only 45, so it seems a little bizarre to claim some great victory that is going to change the lives of Canadians. The regulations seem relatively minor. I look forward to hearing the amazing testimony at committee from officials who are going to say how this is going to revolutionize Canadian lives and make us more innovative, but I am not sure. We should not hold our breath for that.

It is important to remember what the government was elected on. Its members said that better is always possible. That sounds really nice, but why does someone not say, “Why can we not make government simpler?” Why can we not make it simpler for Canadians to deal with the government? I will give a great example. The government has an idea of the underused housing tax. If someone does not use their house for their own personal reasons, they would fill out a form and prove that it is an allowable use, for which they do not have to pay this special tax. However, the form is six pages long. If they try to figure out whether they qualify for an exemption, it is confusing to even the most sophisticated accountants, and they would have to do the form every single year. If they are a farmer or a builder and they build multiple homes, it is unclear whether they would qualify for the exemption, so they would have to fill out that paperwork every year.

Why does the government not just say, “Listen, if you fill out the form once, that is all you have to do until you dispose of the property”? Then it would make sense. If there is no change in control of the property, why would they have to fill out the form, the same six pages, just to say to the government that everything is the same as it was last year? This is the approach the government takes to bringing in new regulations.

It was not that long ago that one could only fax documents into the CRA. In fact, my experience is that I got locked out of my CRA account just a few weeks ago. I owed documents to the CRA. I had to provide documents but since I was locked out of my account, I could not get into it. Do members know what the suggestion was? It was to fax in the documents. I asked why I could not just email them in, but was told the CRA could not accept emails. “Well, how about you print off the email and go and put it on the fax machine, like is that not a reasonable solution?” These are the kinds of things that would make Canadians' lives easier and make it better to deal with the government.

Let us take another example of immigration and some of the delays in the immigration process along with some of the regulatory issues that Canadians are dealing with. There is a young woman who works as a PSW at a retirement home in Midland. This young woman is waiting for her permanent residency card. She has been waiting almost two years. Guess what? This woman is a qualified nurse but she cannot change jobs while she is waiting for her PR card. How incredibly sad is that, to know that we have a health care crisis in this country due to a lack of labour, to know we have a qualified nurse able to do that job but the government, with its policies and its bureaucracy, is preventing that from happening. It is not her fault. It is the government's fault. We are waiting too long to process applications.

There is another example, and the member for Banff—Airdrie mentioned doctors earlier. There are taxi drivers who are qualified doctors in other countries. I met one of them last week. Waheed is his name. He is from Afghanistan and is an incredible human being. He is a qualified doctor. He has to wait four more years to be able to practise family medicine in Canada. His English is excellent. He seemed like a very competent individual. Surely there is a way we can get this person into the medical profession a lot sooner.

Another great example of some regulations we should change has to do with Transport Canada. It cannot approve medicals quickly enough to make sure that we can get pilots approved to fly. I will give an example. Gary lives in my riding. Gary is recently retired and Gary builds his own planes. That is what he does as a hobby. All he wants to do in his retirement years is fly a couple of planes. His medical has been sitting waiting to be approved at Transport Canada for almost two years. He says, “Adam, all I want to do is fly my planes. How many years do you think I have to wait to get this approved by Transport Canada?”

These are regulations that will actually change people's lives if we can speed them up. Instead, we have this list that seems like a bit of a list of low-hanging fruit from a bunch of other places. It is unclear to me what the actual impact will be of all these regulations. I hope that we will get a chance to get some evidence at committee and the government will be held accountable for how this is actually going to improve the lives of Canadians.

I will give one example as I close that the government might want to take back to its own people. The Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act provides that governments may allow electronic documents in place of paper documents. It is an opt-in provision for departments. I have a simple solution: departments must have a provision for electronic documents and paper documents. That would be a very simple, easy law to change that would then require each department, where they have a form, to also produce a digital version.

I think there are lots of things we could do. I hope the government is open to suggestions at committee and I look forward to fielding all of its questions right now.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Simcoe North.

With a Liberal government that, by all accounts, thrives on weaving red tape and thick layers of regulations into almost every government process, there is a certain irony in that it is now putting forward a bill that outlines measures, and I will quote from Bill S-6's preamble, that “repeal or amend provisions that have, over time, become barriers to innovation and economic growth [and] to add certain provisions with a view to support innovation and economic growth”. The great irony here is the bill's stated goal of supporting innovation and economic growth, which would certainly be better achieved by replacing this worn-out Liberal government with a new Conservative government. Such a government would have respect for the economic fundamentals that create wealth and jobs in this country and would properly balance regulations with the need to ensure that we have an innovative free market.

Perhaps this bill is an effort by the Liberals to try to burnish their credentials on this front. Those members over there know that their party lacks any credibility on this issue. Remember, it was just this year that, in its red-tape report card, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business gave the Liberals the worst-ever federal government grade for their inaction on reducing red tape.

I can guarantee that every member on that side has heard the outcry from constituents and from business leaders in their own ridings. I am sure members have heard from every income bracket and from every economic sector about their government's destructive penchant for heavy intervention in the economy, for burdensome restrictions and regulations and for ever-increasing taxes. These things are hard to ignore.

The Liberal inclination is to pursue every opportunity to suppress and suffocate businesses. That is among the reasons that Canada has a serious red-tape crisis and and a serious productivity crisis.

We see it, for example, in the housing crisis that we examined only yesterday in the House, during our party's opposition motion. We have a housing crisis in the country, one that needs to be urgently addressed. Home ownership and rental affordability continue to pose a crisis for Canadians struggling because of this government's inflationary policies, with monthly mortgage costs more than doubling since the Liberal government took office. With the average cost of rent now at about $3,000 a month, we simply need more housing in the country. This must address the existing need, not to mention the coming demand as our population continues to grow.

The country needs smart, responsive policy that enables a response to the demand to provide the affordable housing stock that a growing population needs. However, to have that, the market needs the tools to be nimble. It needs the government to stop intervening in processes as a matter of course rather than only when strictly necessary.

Unfortunately, interference seems to be deeply rooted in the culture of the Liberals. Their response to a housing crisis is to stick with the failed policies and the entrenched interests that block construction of new housing. They insist on tying unnecessary red tape and layers of bureaucracy into the process of getting new housing built. It is instinctual for them to use restriction and red tape to complicate problems rather than reasonably streamlining processes in order to find solutions.

As another example, we have a shortage of health care workers in this country. After eight years under the Liberals, more than six million Canadians lack access to a family doctor. One solution to this issue is having more doctors. The obvious first source for more doctors would be those already in the country. We have nearly 20,000 foreign-trained doctors who are already here and could help ease those shortages. However, a great many of them cannot work in Canada because of the red tape and regulations that prevent them from getting licences.

There are ways to streamline the onerous layers of bureaucracy to allow these individuals to more efficiently prove their qualifications to work in Canada and to meet our standards. However, the Liberals will not do it. They prefer to keep failed processes and policies in place rather than responding in an innovative fashion. This is another thing that will change under a soon-to-come Conservative government. We are going to remove the gatekeepers and eliminate the red tape that prevents foreign-trained health care workers who are already here in our country from being able to practise their professions. Our party's blue seal plan to efficiently license professionals who prove they are qualified is going to help ease the shortage that, under the Liberals, has Canada projected to be short 44,000 physicians by 2030.

I want to take a minute now to address what I would say is probably the most significant thing we could do in this area with respect to removing some of the red tape, barriers and burdens that government puts up. This would really help to unlock the potential of our economy, not only in my home province of Alberta but also all across this country of Canada. This is to remove some of the burdensome, ever-changing regulations and restrictions on getting major energy projects built in this country.

I think about the pipeline projects that the current government has effectively killed with the ever-changing restrictions and regulations it has put in place. Northern gateway was ended because of a ban on tanker traffic off our west coast. Energy east finally threw the white flag up because the government kept changing the rules as it went along. Billions of dollars were being spent trying to go through the process. When companies are literally spending hundreds of millions of dollars, into the billions in some cases, to try to go through these processes, and the government just pulls the carpet out from under them, eventually they have to quit throwing good money after bad. That is what happened in the case of the energy east project.

I could go on about that, but I also want to touch on LNG, liquid natural gas. This has been widely talked about in recent years. As Conservatives, we have talked about it for a number of years now, pretty much since the government first took office. There were 15 proposals for LNG projects that sat on the Prime Minister's desk, and not one of those has been built. We could be meeting the needs of Europe and other parts of the world for LNG. We could replace Russian gas, for example, and coal-fired power in such places as China. However, those kinds of opportunities are stifled because of red tape and regulations in this country.

We could be creating billions of dollars in economic activity for this country. We could be creating hundreds of thousands of jobs for Albertans and for all Canadians. We could have an immeasurable and very positive impact on our environment by reducing emissions. We could have a major impact on human rights. We could have a major impact on improving global security and global energy security. This could be major. It could unlock so much potential in this country. We should be seeking ways to do that when we talk about housing, pipelines and major projects.

We could be doing so much if we could just get government interference out of the way. Everyone knows that we need regulations and that we need to ensure we have proper rules. However, we need to make sure that this is being done in a reasonable way. We need a government that understands the real costs of red tape. It makes our country less competitive in the world. It makes our citizens less successful. The government is content to continue to increase the size and the cost of government while creating more regulations that make life even more expensive. However, that failed approach does not bring in more skilled immigrants, doctors and tradespeople, nor does it bring bigger paycheques for the workers we need here in Canada. It is obvious that the real work on tackling red tape and bringing common sense to the regulatory structure will only begin under a new Conservative government.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Madam Speaker, we will see about that.

I want to return to one issue that has been in the news lately and is in another area where I would challenge the government to do more when it comes to modernizing processes. This is about how our institutions respond to the issue of foreign state-backed interference. Many Canadians are deeply concerned about foreign state-backed interference, as they should be.

We are dealing with an instance here in the House where, as we found out, a member of the House of Commons had his family threatened by a foreign government, and those threats involved the actions of an accredited diplomat here in Canada. That diplomat continues to be an accredited diplomat, and the government has not dealt with this. The government did not, for a number of years, inform the member about these threats to his family.

These are issues we are raising in question period and elsewhere. The Conservatives have been calling on the government to take action to expel diplomats involved in foreign interference in Canada, and to respond to a broad range of challenges associated with foreign interference, including to have a foreign agent registry and other such actions.

When it comes to government structures and processes, one of the challenges we see is that various institutions are charged with keeping Canadians safe in various ways. It is not always clear for Canadian victims of foreign interference, or for institutions that feel they face these kinds of threats, where to engage or how to get support. What I have heard in conversations with those who have been victims of this kind of foreign state-backed interference is that very often they feel they get the runaround. They might go to the RCMP, they might go to the local police, they might go to CSIS or they might go to Foreign Affairs, and then they might be directed between different institutions.

What we now have is a proposal from the government to create an office for foreign interference, or an office against foreign interference. In effect, the proposal from the government is to say it is going to put aside a few million dollars and create another office, which is ostensibly another institution dealing with a problem that has not been dealt with.

I do not really blame these other institutions. The problem has often been political will. I suspect that in many cases, things have been brought to the attention of the government and the government has not been willing to take the appropriate action. That has led to a great deal of frustration on the part of some of these institutions. Clearly, we see a lot of frustration on the part of CSIS.

On this point, the government needs to take a serious look not only at its own failures, but also at how to strengthen our institutions and strengthen our structures in terms of how we respond to these issues of foreign interference. It should make the kind of substantial legislative and other changes that are required to move us forward.

Overall, Bill S-6 is better than nothing. I will be voting for it, but needless to say, the country is still piled in red tape, there are still far too many gatekeepers and there is still much more work required.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to address the House this evening, as well as the various people who are watching at home. I know my kids are watching. They wanted to watch the hockey game, but I told them no, as it was important for them to be watching their dad on CPAC instead. Given the score, though, they will be glad of the choice that has been made for them.

I want to assure members I will not be splitting my time, by the way.

The bill we are debating tonight is Bill S-6. This is a bill dealing with the issue of regulatory modernization. I have to say we have heard some complaints from the member for Kingston and the Islands, who does a lot of speaking and does a lot of complaining about other people speaking in this place. He has been asking why people are interested in speaking to this bill. Why are people interested in speaking on behalf of their constituents about the important policy issues that are raised by this bill?

It is clear in the substantive, important speeches that have been given by various members that there is a lot to say. To distill the essence of why this debate is important is that, on so many fronts, there is the government's failure to take seriously the need to modernize regulations; consider the competitiveness of our economy; and consider, broadly speaking, the environment in which businesses operate. The failure of the government to understand what is important for our businesses to succeed is at the heart of so many challenges facing this country.

It is important to remind people of something that I think Conservatives understand. That is that we want to have strong social programs and those strong social programs must be built on a foundation of economic prosperity. If we ignore the economic prosperity side of the equation and then talk about how we want to be giving more money to people, that is not going to add up at a certain point. That is why we need to have a strong economy driven by a strong private sector that is able to create jobs and deliver opportunity.

A strong economy provides the platform on which we can then do more for each other and more for the most vulnerable. It has to be on that foundation of prosperity. It is something that the government and the parties of the left in general, I think, very much fail to understand. We need to have a strong economy built on a strong private sector, and that requires the kind of regulatory modernization we are talking about.

We have had various bills over the last number of weeks that have dealt, broadly speaking, with questions of the economy. We have had regulatory modernization proposals, and we have this bill, Bill S-6. We also had the budget implementation act. I have to say that, in the midst of all of it, and I would never refer to the presence or absence of members in this place, but let us just say that, in terms of the statements that are on the record, the questions that are answered, we have heard very little from the finance minister.

We now have a discussion going on at the finance committee about the budget implementation act and there is a simple ask from Conservative. On issues around the state of our regulations, the state of our economy and what is in the budget, it is a reasonable ask to say that Canada's finance minister should come to speak to the budget for, let us say, at least two hours. Not only has the finance minister not answered questions in the House very frequently for quite some time, but also the government is not willing to agree to a simple amendment to the programming motion from Conservatives saying that the finance minister should come for two hours to answer questions on the budget implementation act because the finance minister is the person setting the economic agenda in this country. I know that Bill Morneau, the previous finance minister, has said since leaving office that most of the decisions about the economic direction of the country are made in the Prime Minister's office, but if we believe that it is the finance minister who is setting the tone, surely we should expect that the finance minister would be available to answer questions on these important topics.

As it relates to the strength of our economy, and as it relates to regulatory modernization, I think there are many questions to be answered. Here is what I see in the approach of the government. The approach of the government is kind of a retread of this old left-wing, government-knows-best idea of the economy, but it expresses itself now in a very different way.

At one time, parties of the left were more explicit in calling for draconian state regulations, state control, picking winners and losers, interfering in the economy, and controlling the means of production, as at least perhaps one member is still willing to say. That is the kind of explicit interventionist language we used to hear from parties of the left in this place and elsewhere.

Now the government is taking a new approach to the justification of its agenda, but it is still a retread of the same basic philosophical idea, which is that, fundamentally, the government knows best which sectors are going to succeed in the future, where new technologies are going to come from and which sectors are no longer required. Therefore, its budget has this policy of significant subsidies toward certain sectors, piling regulatory burdens on other sectors and saying which kinds of things are going to be the sectors, the companies and the investments of the future, while these other things are just not.

The government is still trying to make these decisions, but it is trying to implement these decisions with a greater level of subtlety. It is the long arm of the state trying to mask itself in velvet gloves, but the interventionism inherent in the government's industrial policy is still very evident.

The government's efforts to undertake regulatory reform are actually very selective. It would like to talk about regulatory reform but be selective in its implementation of it for selective subsidies and tax advantages to certain kinds of companies, certain companies in certain regions, and leave in place a significant regulatory burden in other areas.

Conservatives will support Bill S-6 because it is better than nothing, but we also see it as lacking in ambition. It is lacking in ambition for truly making this the kind of country where, as I think we used to be, we are a great magnet for investment, not just in particular sectors where the government is trying to subsidize what it thinks the winners of the future will be, but to be the kind of country where anybody with a good and profitable idea can come here to invest, and those regulatory burdens would be removed.

By the way, one area where we really need regulatory reform is in the area of getting critical natural resource projects, especially in the oil and gas sector, approved. The need for this was put in sharp focus by the horrific genocidal Russian invasion of Ukraine.

In the context of this invasion, it became clear what a mistake it had been for various European countries to become so dependent on gas imports from Russia. The need for a rapid transition away from that dependency became very clear. There was an opportunity for Canada to say we have a unique vocation in the democratic world and that is to supply the world with secure and stable access to energy.

At the time, Conservatives were saying that. If we look at the democratic world, most of the world's democracies are geographically small, densely populated nations. In Europe, but also in east Asia, there are many democracies that look like that, geographically small and densely populated.

Canada is relatively unique in the democratic world as being a geographically vast, sparsely populated nation that is very rich in natural resources. We could be that critical source of energy security for our friends, allies and partners throughout the democratic world so they do not need to be reliant on hostile powers that do not share our values and do not have the same security interests.

I would like to see Canada step up to fill that vital need. To do that, we will need to modernize, update and improve our regulations when it comes to getting projects approved. It is clear Liberals do not want us to fulfill that role. They talk a good talk sometimes about supporting Ukraine, but they do not see this vital strategic opportunity for Canada stepping up to fill this gap and be a supplier of the energy security our allies need.

The gas association was saying, right away, that we need to improve the regulatory environment to make it easier for projects to move forward. I think there were mixed messages sent on that, from various members of the Liberal cabinet, but no action on it. The Prime Minister said that there was no business case for these projects. Then European countries have gone and signed deals, and found sources of energy elsewhere.

Canada still has such immense potential. Why would we not seize that opportunity to now expand the development of oil and gas, creating wealth here in Canada, and supplying our allies and partners with energy security?

I know some members would say that the regulatory burdens that are imposed on energy companies are in service of the environment. However, if we look globally, if we look at the alternatives, we could see that that is not at all the case. In fact, in so many cases, in particular, gas exports from Canada, it could displace not only the conflict energy sources and save lives by reducing European dependence on Russia, but also the less environmentally friendly sources of energy. Some countries in Europe made the mistake of being reliant on Russian gas. Other countries in Europe are still using coal, because their response to the threat posed by the Putin regime has been to say that they do not want to be reliant on Russian gas so they will take whatever alternatives they have available to them, which may mean coal.

Canadian energy exports, the fact that we are a free democracy exporting energy and that we could displace coal with Canadian gas, could be good for global security and good for the environment. However, that requires regulatory modernization. That requires a willingness to go much further than Bill S-6 has done, to have a greater level of ambition, in terms of what we could be as a country and what we could accomplish. That would require us to broaden the range of the kind of regulatory changes that we are prepared to make. I think this would be the right approach, and it is the one that Conservatives have been championing.

In general, I will say, in terms of the gaps and the need for regulatory modernization, we have bureaucracy out of control in this country. We have a government that has massively expanded the public service, but at the same time has dramatically increased its spending on outside consultants. Go figure that one out. The government is spending more on the public service and substantially more on contracting out. One would expect that if it is spending more on the public service, it would contract out less, or if there was a smaller public service then it would contract out more. Aside from the sort of underlying arguments about contracting out or not, one would expect those things to be somewhat inversely proportional.

However, the Liberal government is spending more on bureaucracy, is spending more on contracting out and, in the midst of all this, is not actually able to achieve any kind of labour peace. We have this strike, right in the midst of the time when Canadians are filing their taxes, so they cannot get answers. Talking about the regulatory burden, the red tape people face, it is hard enough trying to figure out how to file taxes, and then when we do not have the people there who are supposed to be available to answer questions, it underlines the impression that so many Canadians have, that everything is broken, that the government just is not working.

Again, Bill S-6 does a little but it does not solve the fundamental problem. What is the alternative? What could we propose as an alternative in terms of regulatory modernization?

We have seen that the previous Conservative government, and other Conservative parties around the world, have taken the one-for-one approach, that if a new regulation is brought in, an old regulation has to be repealed. That recognizes the fact that there are likely plenty of regulations out there that are outdated, that no longer apply. It creates an impetus for government to always be looking to repeal old regulations that are no longer necessary, if a particular minister or department wants to bring in a new regulation.

This approach has been used successfully in the past and has created an impetus for government to go further when it comes to removing gatekeepers, streamlining processes and making this the kind of country where it is easy to invest and create jobs and opportunity.

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Madam Speaker, my hon. colleague did, sort of, reference his life before entering the House of Commons. We are so fortunate to have him here. He has a very strong background in business.

As the government goes on to do the third iteration of Bill S-6, from a completely business perspective, and as we did see in The Globe and Mail today that this is a time when fewer Canadians than ever are considering starting a small business, what are some considerations for business or even small business?

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Madam Speaker, this is the second interruption from the other side for some reason.

I am splitting my time today with the member for Mirabel.

It is good to see a bill that reduces the administrative burden government places on business, facilitates digital interactions with government and simplifies regulatory processes. All our legislation should be aimed at making government smaller and simpler, in order to serve the Canadian people rather than handicap them. This is a new idea from the Liberals, one I hope they stick with.

I am encouraged to discover that this bill makes exemptions from certain regulatory requirements to test new products without sacrificing safety. It will also make cross-border trade easier through more consistent and coherent rules across governments. If we ask those in business, they will tell us that all too often the rules applied by one government department are not consistent with those applied by another department.

It was also encouraging to hear that the measures proposed in Bill S-6 are the result of a public consultation process by the Treasury Board Secretariat, as well as asking federal departments what changes are required to further streamline the regulatory process. Consultation makes sense and I would encourage the government to try it in other areas as well.

I would also encourage the Liberals to speed up the process for eliminating unnecessary government red tape. The regulatory modernization bill, the RMB, is supposed to be instituted annually to optimize regulatory processes between government departments. By doing this every year, the hope is the bureaucratic hill of red tape will not be allowed to grow into a mountain.

If we look at the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat's website, we will in fact see that the legislation is referred to as an annual regulatory modernization bill. Admittedly, English is not my first language, but I was led to understand that “annual” describes something that happens every year. This is the second RMB the current government has offered us. The first was only four years ago. This one was introduced last year, but obviously has not been a priority for the Liberals. Simple math says that they need to introduce four more RMBs this year to bring us up to date, but as we have seen with the budget and the government's financial plan, simple math is not their strong suit.

The 2019 RMB made changes to 12 pieces of legislation in the areas of transportation, pest control, electricity and gas inspections.

For example, the Canada Transportation Act and the Food and Drugs Act were amended to allow for innovation, permitting limited exemptions from regulatory requirements for regulatory sandboxes to test the new products that would benefit Canadians, such as tissues developed through 3D printing.

The Electricity and Gas Inspection Act was amended to support the use of new technologies, including zero-emission vehicles, light-emitting diodes, LEDs, and hydrogen-fuelled vehicles.

The Canada Transportation Act was amended to allow for digital and electronic processes and documents in addition to in-person or paper-based ones.

Changes to the Pest Control Products Act removed a redundant review requirement when another review was already considering the issue or could be modified to include the issue.

Amendments to the Food and Drugs Act provided more clarity to industry about which regulations apply to their products.

Now we have Bill S-6, which proposes 46 minor changes to 29 acts that are administered by the following 12 government organizations: Canadian Food Inspection Agency; Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada; Natural Resources Canada; Environment and Climate Change Canada; Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada; Fisheries and Oceans Canada; Canada Border Services Agency; Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada; Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada; Health Canada; Transport Canada; and Parks Canada.

It is good to see that the bill has a larger scope than the previous RMB and that the Liberals are discovering more places where the government needs to get out of the way. It is the least they can do.

Ask any business person and they will tell us that Canada has a red tape and productivity crisis, which is why, to me, this bill is both encouraging and disappointing.

It is encouraging because at least the Liberals are beginning to understand that there is a problem. It is disappointing because there is so much more that needs to be done; an annual bill that is, in reality, brought to the House once every three or four years is not enough to solve the problem.

The items addressed in this bill are minor at best and do little to address the onerous red tape regime that is slowing economic growth in Canada. It is the barest of the bare minimums the Liberals could make in reducing red tape and bureaucratic overreach.

It does nothing to substantively address the bureaucracy and red tape stifling economic growth. It is a Liberal bill heavy on announcement and light on delivery.

Certainly, no one would object to the changes proposed, which includes amending the Health of Animals Act to enable the minister to make an interim order that may be used when immediate action is required to deal with a significant risk, to protect animal health, human health and the environment. This is just basic common sense.

It includes making changes to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency Act, which would allow the agency to deliver services and allow businesses to interact with CFIA through electronic means rather than having to rely solely on paper-based transactions. This change would reduce administrative burdens for businesses and allow them greater flexibility in their interactions with the government. Paper-based transactions are usually slower than electronic ones. This is also a matter of common sense.

It includes making changes to the Department of Citizenship and Immigration Act, to enable information sharing to help administer any federal or provincial law for permanent and temporary residents.

This bill has three main purposes: first, to make doing business easier, especially when government is involved; second, to provide flexibility and agility in government regulatory systems; and, third, to improve the integrity of the regulatory system. It is good to start but it is only a start. As the mountain of red tape grows, we need to do better. Given the track record of the Liberal government, though, maybe I am dreaming.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Madam Speaker, I know that many of us are not used to being here this late in the evening, but maybe we are not really here and this is all a dream, because I have difficulty believing that the government is actually doing something about this mountain of red tape that Canadians face. While it is true that Bill S-6 would not do much, at least we are doing something.

Before the people of Edmonton Manning asked me to represent them here, I was a business owner. For over 20 years, I worked to build a company that had not only domestic but international sales. I have first-hand experience in how the excessive regulations and red tape this government imposes on business hurt Canadian companies and prevent them from being competitive—

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill S-6, An Act respecting regulatory modernization, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Madam Speaker, in response to the member opposite's good-faith question, the reality is that it is the Liberal House leader who will ultimately make the decision when each of the bills before Parliament is brought to a vote. It is a negotiation with the Liberals' coalition partners, the NDP, and the official opposition, the Conservatives.

I spoke in good faith to Bill S-6. Many of the regulations related to the Health of Animals Act on biosecurity, I think, are really relevant. It is a good bill, but ultimately, in terms of its passage and when we come to a vote on it will be determined by whether or not the Liberal House leader is willing to work with the official opposition to make sure that bills are properly scrutinized and debated accordingly.

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Madam Speaker, it is an honour to be in the chamber once again, and I am pleased to rise to speak to Bill S-6.

The stated purpose of the bill is to “reduce administrative burden for business, facilitate digital interactions with government, simplify regulatory processes, make exemptions from certain regulatory requirements to test new products, and make cross-border trade easier through more consistent and coherent rules across governments.” The proposed measures were a result, I am told, of a public consultation by the Treasury Board Secretariat as well as a call-out to federal departments on what changes they required in order to further streamline the regulatory process.

The regulatory modernization bill would be instituted, I believe for the first time this year, to optimize regulatory processes between departments. This is the second regulatory modernization bill, with the first instance of this legislation having been introduced in 2019, under the Budget Implementation Act. The stated purpose of this legislation is to “reduce administrative burden for business, facilitate digital interactions with government, simplify regulatory processes, make exemptions from certain regulatory requirements to test new products, and make cross-border trade easier”.

In all, Bill S-6 proposes 46 minor changes to 29 acts that are administered by the following 12 organizations: the Canadian Food Inspection Agency; Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada; Natural Resources Canada; Environment and Climate Change Canada; Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada; Fisheries and Oceans Canada; the Canada Border Services Agency; Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada; Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada; Health Canada; Transport Canada; and Parks Canada.

The first part of Bill S-6 would remove the requirement that a notice of bankruptcy be published in a local newspaper and allow the superintendent of bankruptcy to issue directives regarding how the notice will be published. That is actually a pretty interesting regulation. I cannot remember the last time I saw an advertisement in The Abbotsford News, the Mission City Record or The Ashcroft-Cache Creek Journal outlining that someone was bankrupt. I think I might even follow up with a question to the Library of Parliament to find out the last time this regulation was used. Perhaps in the 21st century economy we can outline people's bankruptcy over Facebook.

The second regulation that Bill S-6 seeks to amend is to allow the application for mediation to be withdrawn, and for the trustee to proceed with an automatic discharge of the bankrupt, where an agreement had been breached between the trustee and the bankrupt before a scheduled mediation.

The third change that the bill would bring into effect is to make changes to the Weights and Measures Act to provide a temporary permission mechanism allowing the minister to permit temporary permissions for devices for use in trade, set terms and conditions, and allow the minister to revoke such permission.

The next regulation that the bill would deal with is to repeal the regulation regarding authority related to the requirement for contact information on vending machines that dispense liquids. The next one is to repeal the requirement for dealers and traders to notify Measurement Canada when they import a measuring device for use in their business. I guess that, with the onset of Amazon and the ease with which we can find a scale these days, it is probably a good regulation to repeal.

The next regulation would be to revise the coming-into-force date for recent amendments to the act in 2018's budget implementation act. The next one would be to change the term “annual return” to a term that is less confusing for stakeholders. I am not quite sure exactly what bill that would refer to.

Bill S-6 would update language pertaining to the handling of hazardous products in the workplace to ensure alignment with the Hazardous Products Act. I would be remiss if I did not mention another government bill, coming from the independent Senate on CEPA, and how changes to the Hazardous Products Act may intertwine with the Canadian Environmental Protection Act.

The next area of regulation this bill seeks to change is to amend the Agricultural Products Marketing Act to simplify the regulatory system for provincial agricultural marketing boards. I look forward to hearing from government members as to how, by simplifying the regulatory system for provincial agricultural marketing boards, we might see more local produce in our grocery stores. I come from a riding with the highest farm gate sales per capita in Canada and there is broad unanimity among the constituents in my riding that we need to see more local produce on the shelves. After the floods last year, this was of particular concern. Many of the prime blueberry fields in the province were flooded out when the Nooksack River in Washington state washed away the agricultural lands on Sumas Prairie. I look forward to seeing how the minister would enact such regulations to improve the way local produce is marketed in Canada.

The next regulation is to amend the Health of Animals Act to enable the minister to approve a program elaborated by a third party for the purposes of preventing the introduction of any vector, disease or toxic substance or for controlling, eradicating or preventing the spread of vectors, diseases and toxic substances. Similarly, earlier this week in Parliament, we debated the private member's bill of the member for Foothills, which also talked about the Health of Animals Act in the context of biosecurity on farms and the challenges that many agricultural producers are facing with respect to the avian flu and other diseases that are impacting agricultural sectors.

I will note that, in the United States, perhaps because its biosecurity provisions on agricultural properties and its health of animals act were not as robust as the ones we have in Canada, the avian flu led to a massive increase in poultry prices and the destruction of hundreds of thousands of birds meant for consumption. Therefore, I am happy to see this amendment, to ensure that we do the best to protect our farmers and the consumers of their food.

Another amendment in Bill S-6 also touches upon the Health of Animals Act, to enable the minister to make an interim order that may be used when immediate action is required to deal with significant risks to protect animal and human health and the environment. This is a good-sense regulation that speaks to my previous point that we need to give the Canadian Food Inspection Agency the tools it needs when there is another outbreak of avian flu or another disease impacting our agricultural products, like foot-and-mouth disease, which has also impacted production in the Fraser Valley in previous times.

The next amendment in Bill S-6 would make changes to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency Act that “would allow the agency to deliver services and businesses to interact with CFIA through electronic means rather than having to rely solely on paper-based transactions. This change would reduce administrative burden for businesses and allow them greater flexibility in their interactions with government.”

Any time any government agency is taking a step forward to digitize its interactions with Canadians, it is a positive step.

A member from Kingston and I had a debate a few months ago about the immigration services MPs provide in our constituency offices. We both agreed that sometimes we take on too much of this work on behalf of public servants. In many cases, the constituents who come to my office and talk about their interactions with Citizenship and Immigration decry the fact that so much of what they need to do is still based on paper forms that are anachronistic.

I am happy the Canadian Food Inspection Agency is making the relevant regulatory changes to allow people to communicate by email in the 21st century. That is a good change.

The next regulation in Bill S-6 I would like to discuss is the proposed amendment to the Safe Foods for Canadians Act to amend the definition of “food commodity” to align it with the definition of food in the Food and Drugs Act, as amended in 2019.

The next change would provide authority to make regulations as a result of Canada entering into a free trade agreement. We would not know the context of this specific regulation until it is enacted and put into practice by the Minister of International Trade upon this bill hopefully receiving royal assent.

There are a number of amendments related to the Canada Transportation Act that would enable new mechanisms to be used to integrate regulatory changes stemming more quickly from updates to international transportation safety standards. This would ensure our transportation sectors meet the most up-to-date safety standards and keep pace with changes in technology and innovation.

Abbotsford is home to Cascade Aerospace. I was able to speak on a concurrence motion to a regulatory change that might be covered in Bill S-6, and that is the fact that when students are taking the test to be an airplane mechanic or to work in the aviation sector, the training manuals still require students, in the 21st century, to go through a module on cloth wings. I do not think there are many planes in Canada made with cloth any longer.

Cascade Aerospace specifically said that the aerospace industry at large has asked for many years that Canada's regulatory process be more in line with the FAA in the United States to stay competitive and allow for companies like Cascade to bid on contracts with American companies to provide the types of manufacturing and high-tech jobs we are looking for in Canada. Hopefully this amendment to the Transportation Act will help us get there.

The next regulation would revise the Electricity and Gas Inspection Act to broaden the type of sampling that could be used as the basis for verification or reverification of meters beyond only statistical sampling.

The next one would make changes to the Canada Petroleum Resources Act and the Canada Oil and Gas Operations Act to provide flexibilities to update regulations for miscellaneous technical or administrative changes.

The next regulation would make changes to the Canada Land Surveyors Act to modernize the legislative framework that regulates the Canada land surveyors profession.

On this side of the House, we have been speaking a lot about the designation of skilled workers in Canada. Hopefully, this is a positive change that would allow more immigrants, for example, to work as surveyors in our communities. Like many professions, we are seeing a shortage of workers, especially in skilled fields such as this one. Hopefully, this regulation would encourage more people to become surveyors in Canada and do the necessary work to build our roads and prepare neighbourhoods for development as we look to see more housing construction in Canada.

In fact, I had to hire a surveyor recently in Abbotsford for my own house. I was very pleased with the service they provided, but, due to the shortage of workers I could not believe the bill I had to pay at the end. However, that is a debate for another time.

Let me just conclude by looking over some of the remarks made by Senator Woo, who sponsored this bill on behalf of the government. Senator Woo is one of five senators from the province of B.C. When he sponsored this bill, it almost felt to me that he was a member of the Liberal government. He talked about looking ahead and that the Treasury Board Secretariat would be considering more proposals for another regulatory modernization bill. He talked about his close working relationship with the Treasury Board Secretariat, as if he were a member of the Liberal government and not an independent.

This is particularly challenging for me, because I actually think this bill is really important and would do a lot of things that stakeholders and deputy ministers across the Government of Canada have been asking for, for a long time. That is to clean up the balance sheet, so to speak, so government can function more effectively on behalf of Canadians and provide the services that we collectively need and the regulation that is required to run different sectors of our economy and our consumption of goods and produce. However, I would be remiss if I did not mention that it was hard for me to see that it was the government not tabling this directly in the House of Commons but instead it went through the Senate.

British Columbia right now has a population of just over five million. That means every senator we have represents, effectively, one million people. In Ontario, it is not much better. It is at 592,000. On Prince Edward Island, it is 38,000. The government should not be doing its important work through its Liberal senators in the other chamber. It should be doing the important work here in this chamber.

With respect to the Senate, as a British Columbian, I hope one day we will have a more effective voice in the Canadian Confederation. When I go door knocking during elections, almost every day someone raises the fact that Ottawa does not adequately represent the interests of my province. This is largely due to the fact that we only have six senators allotted to us, with five in place right now. We pay equalization payments to other provinces and we have the third-highest population.

In the years ahead, indigenous people are going to take more control of their lives through natural resources development. There are a number of amazing companies that are partnering with indigenous people in the natural resources sector. I am very optimistic about trade and commerce on Canada's west coast in the years ahead. I hope, by the economic growth that we are going to see that is going to drive the Canadian economic growth in the 21st century, and that one day we are going to have a sufficient number of senators or equal representation in Ottawa. British Columbians deserve it.

[Lori Idlout, NDP, Nunavut, NU]

Uqaqtittiji, first of all, I do not know what the education system is like in the member's riding of Dufferin—Caledon, but simple mathematics is what should be expected in Bill S-6.

I know that this legislation covers about 30 pieces of legislation to try to help reduce red tape. I wonder if the member agrees that, because the bill covers at least 30 pieces of legislation and the summary says, “repeal or amend provisions that have, over time, become barriers to innovation and economic growth”, the bill is actually a good way to make sure we reduce red tape.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Madam Speaker, one of the concerns I have with Bill S-6 is that a lot of the amendments focus on eliminating paper. I agree with this to some degree, but I also recognize, as a person who represents a more rural and remote riding, that not all people have digital access. As the seniors critic for the NDP, I also recognize that a lot of seniors contact my office requesting paper copies of information or forms from different federal departments.

I am wondering if the member has any thoughts on that. Does he agree that we need to work with our systems to ensure there is access to information for people who do not have digital access?