The top ones that I would like to highlight are, first of all, that we need a kind of a North Star, an idea of what it is we want our regulatory system to do. I think that too often we equate more rules with better protection and fewer rules with less protection. That's sometimes the case, but it's not always the case.
We spend a lot of time talking about what regulatory excellence looks like, and we think that Canadians benefit from high standards. Certainly, our products are very marketable around the world because they're seen as coming from a jurisdiction that has high standards. That's important, but of course we want to minimize the drag on productivity and wasting people's time that unnecessary rules have. That regulatory excellence is the first recommendation.
Second, I just want to come in again on how we need better measurement. I mean, we wouldn't think on the fiscal side of not having really good measures and a budget that's tabled that we can debate and argue about and numbers that are readily available. We don't have that on the regulatory side. We need better measures to support striving towards regulatory excellence.
Also, then, we heard a lot from different people about plain language and just making sure that they're in constant conversation with the people who are regulated, not just before a regulation goes into place in doing a kind of “one and done” consultation, but also making sure that they're then following up. Are we achieving the desired outcomes? Are there things we need to change? Are there burdens we could reduce? Are there things we need to do better? Also, in some cases, are there areas where we're not regulating enough and we need to do more in order to protect Canadians?
These are all important questions, and they deserve more attention than they're getting.