Mr. Speaker, the state of the law today is that there are no restrictions on incorporation by reference.
That member is a member of a party that formed government from 1993 to 2006, during which time thousands upon thousands of things were incorporated by reference into regulations passed under his party's government with no oversight and no restriction whatsoever. Bill S-2 would put those restrictions and guidelines in place.
Obviously the member has not read subparagraph18.1(4) of the bill, and I would encourage him to do so right now if he can. He will see there is a definition of regulation-making authority and every individual or body is accountable to Parliament. This legislation would make all of this accountable to Parliament, whether it is incorporation of a foreign statute or incorporation by technical standards.
Those members talk about putting technical standards in the Canada Gazette, which could be tens of thousands of pages of numbers and schematics. They have not really thought this through.