Government Operations Committee on March 10th, 2020

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you very much.

Mrs. Vignola, you have six minutes.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Good afternoon.

I was reading, rereading and trying to understand the bill as a whole. One question keeps coming back to me. You talk about cost reductions. Actually, there are two of them. We are talking about a reduction of $24.33 million. Is that a cost reduction for the government or is it a cost reduction for business?

[James van Raalte]

That is the reduction for businesses across Canada.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Okay.

How many businesses are there in Canada, approximately?

[James van Raalte]

I don't have that number in front of me, but it is a very large number. Let's start with the number of companies in Canada, and then there would be the number of companies implicated by any one or series of regulations. Each regulatory package that comes forward for Treasury Board consideration would have that cost-benefit analysis built in for the companies that would be implicated by the regulations and the cost across Canada for administering, or administrative savings with that change. This is a cumulative calculation.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Okay.

I know there are several kinds of businesses. There are small, medium, large and very large businesses. I imagine that the cost reductions vary depending on the size of the business. Still, what is the average annual cost reduction for a business?

[James van Raalte]

I'm not sure we calculated on that basis.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Okay.

[James van Raalte]

We can go back and take a look at that, but I'm not sure our dataset would permit us to calculate that answer.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

I have five pages of questions. I'm a questions gal.

Earlier, we were talking about “two-for-one” and “three-for-one” and so on.

I was looking at the bill and wondering where the cost reduction was, if we were going “one-for-one”. I see that some regulations have been adopted, and that two or three others have been repealed. Still, I'm wondering why preventive action isn't being taken.

When new regulations are put in place, is there not a way to ensure that they meet health and safety standards and everything else, but also that they do not add to the administrative burden as a priority? At the same time, we have a new regulation that does not increase this burden, and we are removing another one that may be unnecessary, depending on the analysis.

Why don't we do that instead of just applying a one-for-one approach to increased administrative burden?

[James van Raalte]

This is a very important question, and I think my colleague from Health Canada has started to explain that. The regulators, under the cabinet directive, are required to minimize the cost to business as they are developing the regulations. It's part of the regulatory cycle. It's part of what they are required to do.

When a regulatory package is considered by the Treasury Board, the proactive work up front has already been done. The challenge function has already been executed, both within that department and then by officials at the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat, in terms of asking those hard questions about whether you really need this. Can you reduce this? Can you do this in a different way, in a better way?

The submission that is approved by the Treasury Board is the lowest-cost option to the business. Sometimes that administrative burden is required, which is the one-for-one rule, and the offset allows for a recognition of something that was required maybe 10 years ago that is not required anymore. There's a better way of doing it, and that allows us to reduce that burden while recognizing that we may need, from an administrative perspective, a new part of burden. Within that, there are two questions about administrative burden. What is the minimum that is required in terms of administering this new regulation or this change in regulation?

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Okay. Thank you.

Quebec, the provinces and the territories have their own regulations, as does Canada.

Is there a process in place to avoid duplication between Quebec, the provinces, territories and Canada, and to ensure, for example, that there is good communication between the parties to exchange information, while respecting data protection and privacy laws?

[James van Raalte]

Yes, there is.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you very much. I appreciate the economy of words, sir.

Mr. Green, you're up for six minutes.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to begin with a submission from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. It's a process question.

In their submission, they state:

In almost every important regulatory matter there will be competing or conflicting interests at play—between employers and workers, communities and companies, large and small firms, resource extraction and Indigenous rights, maximizing profits and protecting the environment.... While common ground should be sought, [the] Treasury Board's most recent regulatory consultations have been heavily slanted towards [the] commercial “stakeholders.” There is little evidence [that] this input is being balanced out by other societal interests.

My question for you is, would you care to comment on that? Would you also care to share with us who sits on these external committees? Is this critique a valid critique, in your opinion?

[James van Raalte]

It's a bit of a wide-ranging question. Treasury Board ministers consider the full range of implications from a regulatory submission perspective. Again, those are requirements under the cabinet directive, so it's not a question of shutting out any voice or any representation. Certainly, great efforts are made in terms of consultation that is undertaken on behalf of the government by the public service to ensure that the broad range of views are taken into account.

I do recognize that there may be a perception of imbalance in terms of the private sector and not-for-profit organizations. Some private sector organizations have a lot of resources behind them in terms of engaging organizations. We do make extra efforts in terms of trying to put together that balancing act.

I'm going to turn to my colleague from Health Canada, who may have some specific examples of how Health Canada provides that balancing act in terms of their regulatory consultations.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Prior to that, if I may, on the specific question, I know that there's been the establishment of the centre for regulatory innovation, and there's also an external advisory committee on regulatory competitiveness and ongoing support for international and provincial regulatory co-operation. Who sits on that committee, and how are they selected?

[James van Raalte]

The members of the committee were selected by the President of the Treasury Board of the day. I'll quickly go through the list of members, if I may, Mr. Chair. The work of the president's external advisory committee on regulatory competitiveness is transparently published on the Treasury Board of Canada's website, so I'm not revealing any brand new information.

The chair is Ms. Laura Jones, who is the executive vice-president and chief strategic officer of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business.

Dr. Catherine Beaudry is a professor and Canada research chair in the creation, development and the commercialization of innovation, at Polytechnique Montréal.

Stewart Elgie is a professor of law and economics and executive chair of the Smart Prosperity Institute, University of Ottawa.

Ginny Flood is vice-president of government relations at Suncor Energy.

Anne Fowlie is the CEO of AgWise Strategic Solutions, Fruit and Vegetable Dispute Resolution Corporation.

Don Mercer is the president of the Consumers Council of Canada.

Keith Mussar is the vice-president of regulatory affairs, I.E.Canada, Canadian Association of Importers and Exporters.

Finally, Nancy Olewiler is the director of the School of Public Policy at Simon Fraser University.

Consumer representation, academic representation and industry representation balance out the membership of that advisory committee.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

With, I think, perhaps some blind spots, as laid out by the CCPA....

According to the preamble of the Red Tape Reduction Act, “the one-for-one rule must not compromise public health, public safety or the Canadian economy”. Why are these elements included in the preamble of the act, as opposed to being included in a separate section? Does that have any legal implications?

[James van Raalte]

From a public policy perspective, those were decisions made by the legislature of the day. We can go back to the debates about why something was included in a piece of legislation, but that's how the legislation was passed in 2015.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Okay. In your opinion as a policy-maker, is there—

[James van Raalte]

I'm sorry. I do not make policy. The legislature and the government make policy, Mr. Chair.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Okay. In your professional opinion as a very qualified professional, does putting language in a preamble versus in the body of an act have a legal implication?

[James van Raalte]

Based on my professional experience, the lawyers will tell you that the preamble provides guidance to courts in terms of what was the intention of the legislature as it was debating and passing a piece of legislation, but preambles have no legal standing.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you.