Mr. Chair, the government does not support this amendment.
This amendment would have the effect of limiting the material that could be incorporated by reference pursuant to this proposal to only federal and provincial legislation. The amendment fails to recognize the vast array of material that is already incorporated by reference and would make the legislation far less responsive and modern, in our opinion. The amendment would mean that the standards developed as part of the national standards system of Canada could not be incorporated pursuant to this authority, nor could the standards that are developed internationally.
For example, the standards that are developed by the standards development organizations under the umbrella of the Standards Council of Canada, whom we just heard from, such as the Canadian Standards Association and the Canadian General Standards Board, or any international standards-writing organization such as the International Organization for Standardization, ISO, certain international agreements, internationally accepted rules, such as the generally accepted accounting principles and legislation of other jurisdictions, including the United States and the European Union, all of which currently exist as incorporated by reference in various regulations, would be limited and prevented by this amendment were we to adopt it.
Standards represent a significant amount of the material that is key to responsive, effective regulations, and is essential to achieving goals of regulatory alignment in cooperation and protecting the health and safety of the public. The effect of the amendment would leave much of the outstanding legal issues with respect to the scrutiny of regulations report unresolved which was a main purpose of this legislation.
For all those reasons, Mr. Chair, we will not be supporting this amendment.