Mr. Speaker, I am pleased-well, maybe not exactly pleased-to speak to Bill C-84 now before the House.
I listened earlier to the minister of Justice when he addressed the Chair to refer this bill to a parliamentary committee. I will come back to this issue in a little while, but for now, let me say that we know the party now in office, the Liberal Party, and the somewhat contradictory objectives it is pursuing by introducing all the bills we have seen lately. First, there was Bill C-43, the infamous bill on lobbyists on Parliament Hill. In that bill, the government stated its intention-probably because of the Pearson Airport fiasco-to have an ethics counsellor, someone to oversee everything.
Soon after, they introduced Bill C-62, which I call the standard substitution bill. That bill allowed civil servants to act on impulse, to give in to pressure by their colleagues, and often by friends of the government, as is still the case, and to change some statutory standards. That was what Bill C-62 was all about. Now, we are considering Bill C-84, an act to repeal the Statutory Instruments Act.
We, in the Bloc Quebecois, know that progress must be made, and the Liberals are not stupid. They talk about great principles, things like "increased efficiency", "something good", something close to the citizens, close to the governed. Let us examine this bill closely. It does contain interesting provisions that we cannot approve blindly.
Let us take, for example, this legislation by reference. The Joint Committee for the Scrutiny of Regulations is having problems with
Revenue Canada about the incorporation by reference of material in a regulation. We could have specified in the appropriate provision that these incorporations by reference also include material provided-as clause 16(1)( c ) says-by a government.
Can we incorporate in our legislation regulations passed by a foreign government? It is possible. It is possible when, for example, we want to figure out the income of a person, someone who has done his military service in the United States or in another country and is entitled, in that country, to compensation for his involvement in the armed forces. We could possibly refer to regulations or legislation from abroad. But we should specify it. Here we are faced with total uncertainty; we are not sure.
And what happens if the regulations to be incorporated by referral are amended? There again, we do not know. To come back to my example, are we to amend our regulations every time the State Department in the United States raises the pension payable to American veterans? Will we have to amend our regulations? If so, I start to doubt its efficiency.
This bill was motivated by good intentions, that could hardly be challenged. Everybody is in favour of efficiency. Yet, it starts by undermining the principles which, ever since the Bill of Rights of 1688, in England, have been part of the regulatory practices of our constitutional monarchy.
As they say in Latin delegatus non potest delegare, you cannot delegate something which has been delegated to you. However, this is what the bill does. After some 300 years of implementation of past regulations. I agree that we should make some changes, we all want changes, especially if they are for the best, but are we going to sub-sub-sub-delegate regulatory powers to the most junior clerk, hired last week, that would have an interest-I know that we must always assume that things are done in good faith-in, for example, changing a regulation to benefit someone in his family, one of his friends? There is no limit to sub-delegation under Bill C-84.
This is dangerous, especially when we refer back to Bill C-62 on measure substitution. Although it started with good intentions, I think the government is about to shoot through the bottom of the boat, which will sink. The bills of the justice minister are always like that. They always state fine principles. We have seen it with the gun control bill. The principle was noble, the principle was laudable, but watch out when it comes up in front of the courts. The government wants to relieve the courts' backlog, but this type of legislation will not help.
There is already too much pressure on the courts, and the government keeps introducing bills that are based on principles but not so much on reality.
At the beginning of my speech, I said that this bill should have been referred to another committee. The Minister of Justice said that it should be referred to a committee of members who would examine its scope. We have a Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Regulations which has existed for at least 25 years. It is composed of experts, and God knows the Liberals form the majority on that committee. Are they afraid of themselves?
There are Liberal MPs and Liberal senators on that committee. We know that all bills are sent to the Senate for review after they are adopted in the House. We asked the Solicitor General of Canada: Why not refer Bill C-84 to the Standing Joint Committee for the Scrutiny of Regulations, where sixteen MPs and senators spend a lot of time studying regulations? They would be the most competent people to evaluate the scope of this bill.
The solicitor general thought it was a wonderful idea, an extraordinary idea, but that there was no precedent in this House where a bill was referred to a joint committee.
But that is exactly what a precedent is all about; it is a first. If a precedent is not a first, it is not a precedent. Why is the minister so adamant in refusing to refer this bill to a committee which knows the subject, which does that kind of work year in and year out and which reviews thousands of regulations of all kinds annually, from the diameter of nickels to the disposal of toilet waste from airplanes.
There are all kinds of regulations and we study them all. And then we become incompetent overnight because there is no precedent. Another proof of this government's inability to go off the beaten path. The government keeps its eyes on its narrow path and fails to see anything outside of it. Therefore, I would ask the minister to show some common sense and ask his colleague, the Solicitor General of Canada, in the name of all Canadians and for the sake of our regulations, to actually set a precedent. Now is the time to act. Next year, it will be too late. The work will have been done. Otherwise, I will ask him to define "precedent".
This was my point. Finally, if this government is trying to be effective, why does it not give a response immediately, within the time frame set out in the Standing Orders? When the committee presents a report on amendments to regulations to the minister, why does he ask for two or three extensions and why does the committee have to go on writing for two years, finally giving up in desperation for lack of results? If at least the minister responded to the committee report, things would improve, and there would be greater effectiveness.