Mr. Speaker, as I was saying when I was questioning my colleague, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice, to some people, it may seem as though the House is dealing with a housekeeping bill. I read this in a newspaper article today. However, in my opinion, Bill S-12 is anything but a housekeeping bill. It is crucial to our role as legislators. It is not necessarily bad, but it has a lot of ramifications.
When I arrived here at the beginning of this Parliament, I co-chaired the Standing Joint Committee on Scrutiny of Regulations. When the party leader at the time, Jack Layton, called me to tell me that I was going to co-chair the committee, I wondered what it was all about. I thought that I was quite knowledgeable in this field, but during my all too brief stint on this committee, I had the opportunity to work with the great legislative and legal minds in this Parliament, and I learned a lot about the important role played by this joint committee, which brings together senators and MPs. This committee ensures that our regulations are in line with the legislation and the delegation order and that they are written in specific way.
As an aside, right now, members of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights are discussing a motion that I moved regarding Justice Canada's obligation, under the Department of Justice Act, to assure this House that any bills that are introduced in the House or the Senate are consistent with the charter and respect the division of power under the Constitution.
The same exercise applies when it comes to regulations. I urge my colleagues in this House, who will have to deal with Bill S-12 and decide whether it should be sent to the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, to examine the bill and the changes it makes. Obviously, it adds text to what we call regulatory statutes. People are not necessarily aware of the Statutory Instruments Act, which states in section 3 that:
(1) Subject to any regulations made pursuant to paragraph 20(a), where a regulation-making authority proposes to make a regulation, it shall cause to be forwarded to the Clerk of the Privy Council three copies of the proposed regulation in both official languages.
(2) On receipt by the Clerk of the Privy Council of copies of a proposed regulation pursuant to subsection (1), the Clerk of the Privy Council, in consultation with the Deputy Minister of Justice, shall examine the proposed regulation to ensure that
(a) it is authorized by the statute pursuant to which it is to be made;
It is important to understand that in order to have the right to regulate, the agency or deputy minister must have the authority to make or draft regulations.
(b) it does not constitute an unusual or unexpected use of the authority pursuant to which it is to be made;
(c) it does not trespass unduly on existing rights and freedoms and is not, in any case, inconsistent with the purposes and provisions of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Canadian Bill of Rights; and
(d) the form and draftsmanship of the proposed regulation are in accordance with established standards.
What the heck does the Standing Joint Committee on Scrutiny of Regulations do? My colleague from Hamilton Mountain co-chairs the committee with Senator Runciman from the other place. Every week, they receive stacks of regulations. If members think that we study a lot of bills in these chambers, it is nothing compared to the regulations. It can be mind-boggling.
I am telling the House about all this because that which is extremely important for our constituents is often found within the regulations. It is often through the regulations that we are able to say, based on enabling legislation, that a person has the right to do something or not.
We have regulations by the tonne. Thank heaven, because often the lawyers, the great legal minds we have in this precinct—and I am referring not to the House, but to the support provided at the Standing Joint Committee for the Scrutiny of Regulations—have already done a good analysis. For example, they communicate with the Minister of the Environment or the deputy minister to tell him that there is a problem with the regulations, and that he must rectify it. Sometimes the English version does not correspond to the French version. It is unbelievable.
I recall going before a liaison committee to have a budget adopted. I heard colleagues from the House, legislators, say that the Standing Joint Committee for the Scrutiny of Regulations was a waste of time, when it is the bastion for the Canadian public that makes sure that regulations hold up, that they are legal and are not unconstitutional or contrary to the charters. That is a big responsibility.
I would like to give my colleagues some background so they do not think that Bill S-12 is mere housekeeping. What does it do? It extends the powers of the authorities that are empowered to make regulations. It allows them to practice what I call the "et cetera" or "dot dot dot" technique.
I am not saying this to diminish the impact of Bill S-12. I understand why it is sometimes important to use incorporation by reference, given that it can be a lengthy, costly and sometimes utterly irritating process that often has a lot of red tape and pitfalls that may seem to be administrative. We know why. This is an effort, possibly with good reason, to cut delays so we can be effective in a modern society, as my colleague the parliamentary secretary put it. Technology has changed and we have computers. I certainly do not intend to stand in the way of progress. But progress must not come at the expense of the rights of the people we represent. That is extremely important.
I encourage my colleagues in the House to read. It will be a funny thing to hear a New Democrat talk about the Senate, but it is the government that decided to go by way of the Senate for a bill this important. In my opinion, no bill, and especially not bills that have as far-reaching an impact on the people we represent, should start out in the Senate, because senators are not representatives of the people, they are individuals who have been appointed by the government in power, whichever one it may be.
Given this background, when bills of this nature and with this far-reaching effect are to be introduced, bills that can have significant consequences for the people we represent, they should be introduced here.
Having said that, I do believe the Senate does its work seriously. The parliamentary secretary insisted on the point that the bill was adopted without amendment. Personally, that is not something I would boast about, because some senators had raised solid and serious objections.
I encourage members of this House to read what happened in the Senate and what was discussed. Various witnesses were heard, including experts in regulation. People working on the standardization of regulations are in favour of speeding up the process. As I said earlier, that is not a problem. Still, it must not diminish the legislators' powers, the powers we still enjoy in this fine democracy, thank God, to ensure that things are done properly.
That is one of the major problems. This bill speaks of accessibility. In other words, someone may find they have contravened a regulation. The body that made the regulation must demonstrate that its regulation was accessible. What is meant by "accessible" is not very clear. How will it be accessible? We are used to searching the Internet, using computers, and we can type and find things.
The other day I was telling someone that I have been a lawyer for almost 30 years. It is astounding to see how things have improved and accelerated. Now we can get answers in 3.25 seconds to questions it used to take two weeks to answer.
I wonder how I was able to answer all the questions and provide services when I was first practising law. Now I am able to do it in a fraction of the time it used to take. Newcomers to the profession do not know what it is like to go into a law library, take out books and search for regulations. Now they only need to type in "regulation concerning such and such" and it appears on the screen.
But not everyone has these skills. Not everyone is Internet savvy. Some older people may have more difficulty.
The regulations that are incorporated by reference may not be very accessible. How does one find a document? What is the starting point? What clues are there regarding incorporation by reference?
Some other questions have occurred to me. If we are searching for international treaties or standards, for example, which ones should we use to find out what stage they are at in those countries?
Let us imagine a person from my part of the country, Quebec, who lives in the most distant part of the province, who does not speak a word of English, and receives a regulation written only in English.
It could also be in New Brunswick, my colleague's province, where there are proud francophones who insist that things be written in both official languages.
All of this was discussed in the Senate. Details were provided about the type of reference documents being discussed, and what would be included.
I encourage members to read the senators' speeches, the questions they asked, and the answers provided by the minister, for example. It is more than simply updating the process. We must also deal with the content and the direction we want to go. Nevertheless, our fundamental right as legislators is to be able to view and analyze regulations.
We have been told that it will not diminish the role of the Standing Joint Committee on Scrutiny of Regulations. I have my doubts about that, because the committee will be able to examine the initial regulation, but for any reference and what becomes of it, the committee will not be able to follow through.
I do not think that our legal drafters will use the regulation that has been referred if, at some time, they want to see where it is at a given moment. They will study it with respect to adoption and drafting of the regulation itself.
And yet it is clear in the Statutory Instruments Act: a regulation must have been published. This is going to short-circuit a large part of the regulations we are accustomed to.
I will repeat: the NDP is not against progress. We are prepared to support the government and send the bill to committee.
However, I would like to see some openness on the government side. I make the same appeal every time: when we have objections, we are not trying to throw a monkey wrench into the works; we are trying to protect ourselves from those wrenches hitting us on the head later, if this kind of regulation is implemented.
There will be situations when people have not had access, and other times when it is not in the right language. That takes us back to step one.
The NDP often tries to keep the government out of trouble. I do not think the Conservatives intentionally look for trouble. Perhaps they would benefit from listening to what the official opposition is telling them.
We will take our considerable reservations and worries to committee. We will hope to get answers that were given but not necessarily listened to in the Senate. The House and the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights hope to get these answers. If not, there may be a lot of difficulty getting support for this bill in the next stages.
If there are amendments to be proposed, I hope that all my colleagues on the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights will have open minds and will not assume that everything coming from the opposition is necessarily bad. At the heart of the matter, we all want to help Canadians understand.
Thousands of statistics on regulations are adopted every year. It is important to understand them and to provide for the use of incorporation by reference. I will leave it up to my NDP colleagues, some very knowledgeable law professors, to explain the difference between static incorporation by reference and ambulatory incorporation by reference. Since I do not want to put anyone to sleep here in the House, I will leave it up to the professors, who know how to make it all very interesting.
Nevertheless, with all these methods, it is hard to see things clearly. It is not like reading a document that clearly states what the regulations are. There is a logical outcome, but we cannot necessarily see it. We do not know where, since answers from the Senate are not always clear, but I hope we can get some clearer ones.
I have heard MPs say that the Standing Joint Committee on Scrutiny of Regulations is useless. Although I am no longer a member, from having been one in the past, I can assure this House that it is one of our most important committees, because it serves as a watchdog and it is non-partisan.
Perhaps my speech did nothing more than convince the members that that committee is non-partisan, and heaven knows that there is precious little about this place that is non-partisan. For goodness' sake, we need to make sure it stays that way. It is fundamental, because it is our guarantee to Canadian defendants and litigants that the regulatory work is being done in their interest, legally and in accordance with the Canadian Constitution and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
And with that, I am now ready to answer questions.