Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Sherbrooke for his question. We all know that there is a legal principle that applies to everyone equally, from the prime minister to a private citizen, which is that ignorance of the law is no excuse. In its broadest sense, the word “law” includes regulations and others.
When talking about incorporation by reference, certainly there are parts of the regulations that the public will not necessary be aware of. I wish to draw to the attention of the House that if anyone is interested in these kinds of issues, simply look back over the last 10 years of Conservative government to look at the bills and the amount of power given to the minister or someone to whom this power is to be delegated, with respect to regulations.
This means that very often, once the initial regulations are passed, the subsequent regulations by reference will be completely unknown. As my colleague from La Pointe-de-l’Île rightly pointed out, section 18.4 clearly states that there will be no requirement for it to be published in the Canada Gazette, which is currently the tool of choice for determining what exists in terms of regulations. This will mean having to conduct more research.
Clause 18.6 tells us that a person is not liable to be found guilty unless the material incorporated by reference was accessible. We tried to get clarification as to what exactly the word “accessible” meant. Is it written down somewhere? It is not clear. The fact that the Conservatives refused to amend this clause to clarify it for the benefit of Canadian taxpayers suggests to me that they prefer it to be vague. It is worrisome when things are vague, because that allows the government to play little shell games.