Dennis Bevington

[Incorporation by Reference in Regulations Act, May 23rd, 2013]

I have to say that your wisdom has increased ever since you have become a Speaker, Mr. Speaker.

[Incorporation by Reference in Regulations Act, May 23rd, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to stand here at 11 o'clock at night to have the opportunity to speak to the Statutory Instruments Act.

First, I am not very pleased that the bill has come from the Senate. I find this is an inappropriate direction for legislation of this nature. It should have come from the House of Commons.

Right now, at the aboriginal affairs committee, we are dealing with another piece of legislation, Bill S-8, which also came from the Senate. That legislation has been panned by almost everyone who is standing in front of our committee because it does not have the ability to provide resources for the things that are required within the bill.

A Senate bill cannot put a financial burden on the government. Therefore, that bill is not effective. It is also the wrong direction, as well.

That aside, when we look at the bill, it is an interesting one. I think we have all learned a lot through this debate tonight, and I am sure the debate will continue on it because it is a very important bill. As my colleagues pointed out, it would make 170 decisions of the government legal after being illegal for a number of years.

There is a lot to regulation. There are 3,000 regulations on the books, consisting of 30,000 pages. There are also 1,000 draft regulations every year. That says that those 3,000 regulations are being changed constantly. There is change within the system. That change has the scrutiny of Parliament, its officers and its staff. That is taken care of within the confines of our Government of Canada.

We now have a bill that would open up change to our regulations from a variety of sources that we would no longer have control over. What is going to happen here?

In the bill, there is a section which says, “The power to make a regulation also includes the power to incorporate by reference an index, rate or number”. Now, we do not have definitions of those three things, but I guess we can assume that they cover most of the gamut of what regulations are. It goes on to say, “as it exists on a particular date or as it is varied from time to time”. Therefore, as it varies, it can be incorporated. It goes on to say, “established by Statistics Canada, the Bank of Canada”, all good institutions. I do not have a problem with those institutions helping with regulations. Then it says, “or a person or body other than the regulation-making authority”

As my colleague from Fort McMurray—Athabasca said, this can be Canadian regulations, it can be provincial regulations, or it can be international regulations.

We now have a situation where we are going to incorporate regulations under Parliament that are made in other countries. It sounds good. Countries make choices. They may be very good choices. However, those regulations can also be varied in those countries and we have no control over that. We would have no control over what would go on with those regulations when they are varied in those countries.

How does that fit with sovereignty? I am not here to sell Canadian sovereignty. That is not my goal in this Parliament, I am sorry. Canadians need to control the regulations that are created by Parliament. They need to have a say over how those regulations are changed, whether they come through the provinces, whether they come through bodies in Canada, or whether they come through international bodies. That is quite clearly the case. That is what most Canadians will want.

What we have is a situation where we need some amendments to the bill. We need to limit the ability to take on changes that are made in bodies outside our country. We need to ensure that changes made to regulations that are made within Canada have the scrutiny of Parliament through its procedures, through its committees that are set up to do exactly that. Those are types of amendments that could be made to the legislation to make it more palatable to most people when they understand the nature of what is going on with this innocuous named bill.

It does not sound very threatening and, if handled correctly in the interest of Canadians, with the understanding of Canadian sovereignty, it works out quite well, unless it is used as a tool in international trade agreements to take on regulations so that we can make trade deals with other countries and take on their regulations.

We are into the European Union right now. The European Union will demand a lot of things of Canada. It is going to demand that Canada do things the way the European Union does them. That is what it wants, if we want to have a trade deal with the European Union.

This is an opportunity to give the European Union exactly that. We could take on the regulations of the European Union for many things. We could put them into our system, and in the future, if they make changes to those regulations, those will fit into our system as well.

How does that fit with sovereignty? I do not buy it. I stand here today and say that if I do not hear a better argument against this, I cannot buy this legislation. If I do not see some kind of amendments in it that actually protect my country from having changes made to its laws by other countries without the scrutiny of this Parliament, I cannot buy that. That is not for me. If it is for you, then I say you should go back to your constituents and tell them what you are doing with Canada.

[Incorporation by Reference in Regulations Act, May 23rd, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have a chance to speak to this issue, and I was very glad that my colleague gave us a full exposition on the oversight committee on regulations.

Forgive me; I need someone to field me with some details on this committee. The committee has the ability to modify regulations or simply just return them to the government.

In the case of the bill, with the type of opportunity the government has to take regulations from other sources it does not control, would it not be that this committee would be sideswiped by this process in many cases, where the regulations that may be in place would be changed without that oversight occurring by the committee? Therefore that committee, which is an institution of this Parliament of which the members talk so highly, would lose some of its ability to ensure the regulations.

As he has told us, these regulations go back and forth very many times, and very bright and capable individuals are giving them a very deep and sincere scrutiny. Is it the case that we will have regulations now that will not be accorded the same respect by this Parliament, by the government, and in that case, are we losing something in the process we have?

[Business of Supply, May 9th, 2013]

Mr. Chair, when it comes to capital funding for schools, the minister has indicated $118 million a year. There are 600 reserves across Canada.

We have heard the figure of 48 schools that need to be replaced. The capital cost for replacing a school in a remote and isolated community, as I know very well, coming from the Northwest Territories, is probably in excess of $30 million.

Does the minister think that somehow this $118 million capital replacement budget that he has indicated for reserve schools is going to be adequate to actually catch up to the problem that we have with aboriginal schools being substandard across this country?

[Business of Supply, May 9th, 2013]

Mr. Chair, when the minister talked about housing for reserves, he talked about 1,700 houses built on 620-some reserves. That works out to fewer than three houses per reserve per year. He talked about renovations to housing on reserve. There were 3,000 houses renovated. That works out to fewer than five house per reserve.

Does the minister think that fewer than three houses built per reserve and fewer than five houses renovated per reserve are the numbers that are required to fix the problem of housing on aboriginal reserves across Canada?

[Business of Supply, May 9th, 2013]

Mr. Chair, in the last budget there was talk about clean energy for aboriginal communities in northern Canada.

Can the minister outline any of the efforts he has taken in that regard over the last year?

[Business of Supply, May 9th, 2013]

Mr. Chair, in the United States any transfers of offshore leases have to be signed off by the President of the United States. In Canada, the minister only has to be notified of a transfer of lease on offshore oil and gas developments.

Will the minister countenance in the near term changing the legislation to give him more control over the transfer of offshore leases?

[Business of Supply, May 9th, 2013]

Mr. Chair, the Land Claims Agreements Coalition is concerned about the changing to funding for the implementation of their land claims. Is the government still planning to move to per capita funding? Is it changing the funding formula in any way?

[Business of Supply, May 9th, 2013]

Mr. Chair, downhole injection of drill waste is a pretty straightforward issue. The minister changed the regulations. He has put them under the Canada Oil and Gas Operations Act. They are not going to come in front of any environmental assessment in the Northwest Territories. Can the minister explain why he did that?

[Business of Supply, May 9th, 2013]

Mr. Chair, why did the minister change regulations on the downhole injection of drill waste, removing them from the Northwest Territories' water regulations just before moving forward with the agreement to change legislation?