I'm going to cover at the same time subdivision E, the Precious Metals Marking Act, and subdivision F, the Textile Labelling Act, because they're related measures.
The proposed legislative amendment would expand the current regulatory authority in the act that allows for exemptions from labelling rules to be made by regulation. It's to allow for exemptions that are conditional on the performance of a certain action or actions. These proposed legislative amendments will not require subsequent regulatory amendments.
In 2000, the Standing Joint Committee for the Scrutiny of Regulations concluded that the Textile Labelling Act's regulatory authority is not broad enough to allow for certain of the textile labelling and advertising regulations that grant exemptions from labelling rules conditionally upon the performance of specific actions. In the absence of legislative amendments, such ultra vires regulations would have to be repealed and the Standing Joint Committee for the Scrutiny of Regulations could recommend disallowance by the Governor in Council, which would lead to undesirable consequences.
We've taken the opportunity at the same time as making this change to the Textile Labelling Act to do so as well for the Precious Metals Marking Act, which has exactly the same regulatory issue at play.
That means when a precious metal or a textile arrives that does not meet our current regulatory standards for labelling, instead of rejecting it outright, it can be brought in on a non-commercial basis, subject to the meeting of the conditions that are required. Essentially it gets relabelled before it actually enters the marketplace. It's a well-utilized function and we heard loudly from industry and others that, should this provision be struck down, there would be great risk of the possibility of deferred shipments and other things. This just cleans up two very long-standing statutes, both the Precious Metals Marking Act and the Textile Labelling Act.