My question follows up on the ones I asked about the oversight mechanism.
You told me that, when the joint committee looks at regulations, it will also look at incorporating the regulations. However, that only applies in the cases where the legislative authority is the one that makes the inclusion directly in the regulations, not when we are dealing with non-governmental organizations or foreign legislation. Basically, that is a problem. Let me give you an example.
Paragraph 18.1(3) reads as follows:
(3) The power to make a regulation also includes the power to incorporate by reference an index, rate or number—as it exists on a particular date or as it is varied from time to time—established by Statistics Canada, the Bank of Canada or a person or body other than the regulation-making authority.
It seems to me that the definition of the words “a person or body” is extremely broad in this case. As Ms. Pledge said, the scope of an act goes far beyond a simple examination of the regulations by the joint committee. We are talking here about a regulation-making authority that could incorporate other regulations without consultation in any case. It could even be an external organization, a foreign one. Perhaps I am wrong, but I believe that we may well be authorizing connections with no consultation or oversight mechanism.
Do you not find that the words “a person or body” should be better defined and have a meaning that is less broad? In some situations—as many witnesses in the Senate pointed out—our national standards could be changed by organizations without the slightest consultation.