Not at present. That is all right too because this is the stuff of good government. It also is the stuff of promise keeping. One of the major promises in our red book in 1993 was to simplify and streamline the red tape that affected small business and this act will do just that. For example, it will replace the antiquated and misunderstood phrase statutory instrument with the word "regulation".
In my time practising law, teaching law and commenting on the law in the media before I came to this place, there was the idea that we had to demystify the processes of law and government for most Canadians. It is certainly of great importance that we demystify those processes for those Canadians working in the area of small business.
The legislation will modernize the regulatory process for the information age by providing a legislative framework for the electronic publication of regulations and for public comment, the electronic medium. That is yet another milestone for us on the information highway, an area in which the hon. Minister of Industry and the hon. Secretary of State for Science and Technology have served us so well in recent days.
The act will make regulations more responsive to public concerns by improving the scrutiny role of the Joint Committee on the Scrutiny of Regulations.
It was not necessarily one of those committees that members of Parliament from either side of the House rushed to join, but it was one very important to the smooth functioning of good government. One of the reasons the government is in power is that historically and currently we offer good government to Canadians.