Mr. Speaker, I am a member, in fact I am the co-chair right now, of the scrutiny of regulations committee. The committee has been seized with this issue and has discussed it many times. In fact, the committee, in 2007, issued a report on this very matter. I want to quote one section of that report from our joint committee for the scrutiny of regulations. It noted at the time that:
...incorporation by reference also gives rise to concerns relating to accessibility to the law, in that although incorporated material becomes part of the regulations, the actual text of that material must be found elsewhere. Such concerns are heightened where material is incorporated “as amended from time to time”, in that members of the public may have difficulty ascertaining precisely what the current version is at a particular point in time. Where open incorporation by reference is to be permitted, provisions should also be put in place to require the regulation-maker to ensure that the current version of an incorporated document is readily available to the public, as are all previous versions that were previously incorporated.
My colleague spoke about this already, and I want to follow up a bit. I know that because we are now in an electronic age, some of us think it is easier to access materials now than it ever was before, that all we need to do is click on the web and everything will be there for us. However, we also know from other discussions we have had in the House that not all Canadians have equal access to those online resources. One of the things we need to absolutely make sure of is that the law would be applied equally for all Canadians and that all Canadians have access to the laws and regulations they are being asked to abide by.
I wonder if the member could take a couple of extra minutes to talk specifically about that issue of accessibility in the electronic age.