44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 3, 2023 02:00PM
- May/3/23 6:30:16 p.m.
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moved that Bill S-6, An Act respecting regulatory modernization, be read the second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Industry and Technology.
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- May/3/23 6:30:40 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, before I begin my speech, I would like to take a moment to acknowledge that we are gathered here on the unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinabe people.
I am very pleased to add my voice to the debate on Bill S-6, an act respecting regulatory modernization. Regulations are the book of rules that govern how businesses operate and that protect consumers, the environment, our health and our safety. As we have seen, these rules can pile up and become obsolete over time. When that happens, innovation and growth are stifled, which weakens the economy and causes more problems for Canadians.
Modernizing our regulatory system improves Canada's ability to attract investment in growth-oriented businesses. That is why this bill is so important. It would have an important impact on Canadian businesses and advance public service efficiencies.
In a time of economic recovery, Bill S-6 would ensure that the legislative frameworks that support Canada's regulatory system evolve with the changing technologies and environment.
The fact is that we have been working on the modernization of regulations for some time. The Budget Implementation Act, 2019, No. 1 amended 12 regulatory instruments with the first annual regulatory modernization bill. It included making changes to digitalize paper-based processes, streamlining the review process for zero-emission vehicles, and enabling innovation by changing regulatory requirements to test new products.
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- May/3/23 6:33:26 p.m.
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The fact is that regular and eminently sensible updates ensure greater competitiveness. At the same time, we must protect Canadians' health, safety and environment.
An important way to ensure that we can modernize and streamline regulations while protecting Canadians and the environment is to put in place an in-depth and effective review process. To that end, this bill will serve as a recurring legislative mechanism. This means that the Government of Canada can ensure that the regulatory system remains pertinent, effective and up to date. It is designed to address the legislative challenges raised by businesses and citizens through consultations and targeted regulatory reviews.
In fact, consultations with stakeholders in the business sector led to the inclusion of this recurring mechanism. The economic strategy tables and the Advisory Council on Economic Growth pointed out that creating a regular mechanism such as this is essential to improving Canada's regulatory system.
I would also like to point out that the External Advisory Committee on Regulatory Competitiveness, made up of stakeholders from business and academia and consumers, has recommended continuing efforts to keep the administrative burden of regulation at a reasonable level and to ensure that regulations stand the test of time.
At its core, Bill S-6 proposes to modify 28 different acts through 45 common-sense amendments to modernize our regulatory system.
For example, the bill contains amendments to the Fisheries Act that would make it clear that fisheries officers have the authority for minor violations to reach an agreement with fishers instead of taking them to court, an authority that was unclear in the existing legislation. Not only would this reduce the number of lengthy and costly court processes, but it would also ensure small violations do not result in criminal records and the stigma and barriers that could come as a result. Importantly, this change has been supported by the fishing community and by indigenous peoples.
Another example is the minor change proposed to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency Act. In short, this amendment would allow the CFIA to provide services and allow businesses to interact with the agency electronically instead of through paper transactions. This will give businesses more flexibility in their interactions with the federal government, resulting in a reduced regulatory burden.
There are also proposed amendments to the Canada Transportation Act that would allow us to adopt international transportation safety standards faster, in consultation with the businesses affected.
As we have seen, even minor changes can often have a significant positive impact on various sectors of the economy, and I have covered only three of the 45 amendments included in this bill. In addition, all of the proposals are cost-neutral, with little or no associated risk.
Bill S-6 helps ensure that our regulatory system stays up to date and sets up Canadians and businesses for success in the years ahead by amending laws that are too inflexible, too specific or simply outdated. This bill is an important reminder of the need for ongoing regulatory review and legislation that stands the test of time.
I want to also assure all hon. members that the bill is not a one-off.
It will be an annual undertaking. In fact, work on the next bill is already under way.
The Canadian regulatory system plays a key role in helping companies succeed and in protecting Canadians and the environment. For our economy to keep growing, we need a more effective and streamlined regulatory system that keeps on delivering world-class protection for consumers, health, safety and the environment.
This is exactly what Bill S‑6 does. It helps modernize the current rules to make things easier for companies, and it will continue to set up regulatory agencies, stakeholders and Canadians for success. This is something we can all get behind.
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- May/3/23 6:54:48 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the member briefly mentioned the PMRA.
We are having a lot of issues with the PMRA regulatory regime right now. There are many products that have been arbitrarily banned or pulled from the shelves because of uncertainty around the PMRA. Would the member support making some changes to regulations that would actually provide more certainty for our producers, so that companies are not arbitrarily pulling products off the shelves because of regulatory uncertainty?
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- May/3/23 6:55:24 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is an important question. I represent an agricultural riding, as I know the hon. colleague across the way does as well; as such, I will say that the PMRA is a really important agency for agricultural competitiveness. Obviously, its decisions always have to be based on science and the evidence that is before it. I am not fit to make those decisions, and I would respectfully say, neither is the member opposite.
I said in my speech, and I want to reiterate in my answer here, that if there are ways that the PMRA can create expedited pathways based on the sound science of other trusted jurisdictions, that is extremely important. It could increase Canada's competitiveness by reducing the lag time before an applicant applies and when they can actually get approval. Therefore, I would agree with the member opposite that where we can use regulatory reform to help drive processes without compromising values, we absolutely should be doing that.
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- May/3/23 6:56:13 p.m.
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- Re: Bill S-6
Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech and for speaking French. It was excellent.
The bill would repeal section 15 of the Canada Oil and Gas Operations Act. As a result, regulatory changes to oil and gas operations would essentially no longer have to be published in Part I of the Canada Gazette.
The Senate debates revealed that many regulations are irrelevant, no longer used and no longer managed, and that changes could facilitate the process. As it stands, however, Bill S‑6 does not distinguish between minor regulatory changes and changes that would be much more consequential.
I am wondering if my colleague believes that this matter could be studied in committee to ensure that there is still a certain obligation to publish substantive regulatory changes that do not simply seek to simplify the process.
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- May/3/23 6:57:11 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I absolutely agree with the proposal to study this bill in committee. In my view, it is very important to publish major regulatory changes.
At the same time, I believe that, with respect to the Atlantic provinces, the bill is very important as a means of identifying a way to adopt regulations for offshore wind power for the hydrogen sector.
I believe that measures for Atlantic Canada are very important, but that it is also important to be transparent in the future. I would be pleased to continue the work on this bill in committee.
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- May/3/23 7:44:06 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, Bill S‑6 contains a lot of little regulatory changes that we are told can make a big difference for the business community.
It seems to me that some big changes, like Quebec's independence, could eliminate some major duplication and simplify the lives of Canadians, Quebeckers and businesses.
I am wondering whether my colleague can give us a few more examples on this lovely evening.
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- May/3/23 8:01:15 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, today I am honoured to rise to speak to Bill S-6. I want to thank the previous speaker for highlighting many of the areas that are contemplated in this bill. I would argue that it was one of the better speeches made today.
I also want to speak to what the bill does. Of course, as was just mentioned, it was originally contemplated in the minister's mandate letter as far back as 2015 that the economic viability of our regulatory processes be looked at to ensure increased innovation and competitiveness. This version of Bill S-6 removes the existing negative barriers to imperative regulation processes, as outdated provisions can lead to significant errors and impact essential work within government departments.
This is one of the greatest tests of our time. Between the tabling of the previous iteration of this bill and the tabling of this version there was a significant event. COVID–19 impacted our country in ways we never would have expected. We practically went online overnight. In a short period of time, we went from living our regular everyday lives to being almost alone in our homes and relying on digital technology. Federal civil services were also impacted by the requirement of regulations and the burden of ensuring we were able to address those issues via companies and regulators throughout COVID. Therefore, it is a very timely bill in the sense that we can finally address some long-awaited areas. If the government had done a better job, some of these regulations might have already been passed before we experienced COVID–19, this tragic, ongoing, international disease.
I want to speak to the broadness of the bill. It modifies 29 acts through 46 amendments and applies to 12 departments and agencies. Imagine how large and significant that will be. We have seen, through Senate committee hearings, for example, that the amendments are low risk and deal largely with the requirement of modernizing existing processes, for example, the requirement for physical postings versus online postings, so we can see that the nature of these amendments is such that they will make the operations of government more consistent and more appropriate for the processes and regulations to be used.
It is important as well to ensure that, regarding the regulations to be reviewed at committee, other folks, like agriculture, for example, which is one of the departments most affected by this bill, be at the table to speak directly to the issues, particularly those amendments with respect to agriculture. I know the member of Parliament for Cowichan—Malahat—Langford is doing good work with many agriculture representatives across the country and is consulting on this as we speak.
New Democrats will stand in support of the passage of this bill at second reading in order to get it to committee. At committee, I would invite all our colleagues to work diligently to ensure that the vastness and scope of the bill is truly reviewed at committee. If it requires amendments, I hope the government will be willing to table the amendments in earnest and adopt them.
One of the greatest concerns I have with the bill, which has also been referenced by other members of this chamber, is with respect to the vast consultations. When we look at some of the consultation documents that were tabled by the government and reviewed at the Senate hearings, for example, it is clear that the government was consulting businesses, industry and stakeholders, but the one important stakeholder that was absent was labour unions. We know that good, quality work in Canada is one of the most important skills we have. We know that human resources and good skilled labour is truly our best resource in this country, so why would we not invite labour unions to the table when talking about some of the most significant changes these folks will deal with in their industry? Although they are minor in their area and impact, it is regular everyday people who will have to process these regulations, so why not make it easier for all those who process those regulations to do that work, including the labour unions? I believe labour and management can do great things in this country if they work together. At committee we are going to ensure that we invite many labour representatives to speak directly to the impacts of this legislation on labour.
I want to speak about the benefits of improving our regulatory systems on an annual basis, another important piece to this legislation. It speaks about the important work that is required when provisions go out of date. We are not immune to modernity in this place, nor are our laws, meaning that we need to invest in time and processes. Bill S-6 contemplates a process to modernize these things.
Regulations, of course, are important pieces of how the government needs to operate. They are the biggest role of the government. They ensure that consumers are most and best protected, regular everyday folks, folks who need these kinds of protections. New Democrats have always cautioned against outright removal of regulations that would seek to harm consumers for the benefit of big corporations. Although this bill does not contemplate any of these vast changes, the annual process, as a matter of fact, could.
At committee stage, I hope we can find ways to close up and tighten the language of this bill to ensure, when we are speaking about annual regulation changes, that process is defined in area, scope and impact, and we make sure the right stakeholders are at the table. I do agree that the government did a good job in terms of its consultations with businesses, industry and stakeholders, but the important piece of ensuring that labour is there is most critical.
We also see mention of “help cut red tape”. That is a famous Conservative line, that they are going to cut the red tape. We see the Liberals are joining this process of calling for the cutting red tape. As a matter of fact, we heard a speech from a Conservative earlier, who did not mention anything about Bill S-6. I hope the vast debates that they are going be hosting tonight and the vast number of speeches that they have asked for today speak directly to this aspect, speak directly to the fact that we are going to see a reduction of regulations through this bill. I would imagine the Conservatives are going to be voting in favour in this, but have yet to hear their position.
When we talk about how existing regulations in this bill are going to work, for example, the ones related to agriculture, we need to be careful when we talk about fairness in competition and innovation that we protect Canadian producers. I am a bit nervous with some of the language presented in the agriculture amendments that look at other jurisdictions. It was mentioned by a Liberal member earlier today that some of these regulations could impact the competitiveness of Canadian farmers and producers by looking at other jurisdictions and equalizing, for example, the requirements they have. I think of dairy products, for example. Canada has some of the best laws protecting our dairy industry, but if we were to reduce those regulations in favour of other jurisdictions' regulations and “scientific processes reviews”, they could in fact harm producers. That is why New Democrats are consulting at this time with the agriculture sector and we hope to invite their amendments to this bill at committee.
As well, we know that during the hard time during COVID-19 when so many Canadians had to all of a sudden deal with the reality of going online, we found that many Canadians were unequipped to do that. We found that many Canadians did not have some of the services that the country is moving forward with, and that is an important piece to this. As much as we are in favour of ensuring that we are going to be operating in the 21st century by eliminating fax machines, for example, and ensuring that people can apply online, we have to remember those in northern, rural and remote communities.
There has to be a way to ensure that those who are not yet connected, those who lack ability and connectivity, have a chance to access these services, too. That means ensuring that rural and remote communities continue to access their services the way they know how. Should there be a barrier, like being unable to apply for a service online because of a lack of technology, Internet or availability, the government needs to take special consideration of those realities.
We also want to ensure that environmental groups are consulted on the impacts of much of this work. We know that environmental groups are some of the most passionate, hard-working and decent people who are looking at the very environment we live in, the conditions we live in.
It is important that they are invited to the table because the ministry of environment has a proposed amendment. Why not invite more people into the room? Come committee stage, we hope that environmental groups will also be invited to have their testimony heard in relation to the bill.
The external advisory committee on regulatory competitiveness, made up of business, academic and consumer stakeholders, has also recommended that there be continued efforts to reduce the administrative burden on regulations and to ensure that they are future-proof, which means keeping pace with changing technologies and business realities. We agree with this. New Democrats believe that the government must continue to keep pace with modernity, such as Canadians are. However, it is important that the government acts on Canadians' best interests and, in particular, act in the interest of protecting consumers.
For example, we live in an age when many members of the House have probably heard of ChatGPT, which is artificial intelligence, or AI, so part of the regulations that contemplate an annual renewal of regulations should take special consideration of AI technology. My colleague, the member for Windsor West, has spoken to this and has done good work to ensure that the science and technology is well regulated and that the processes are there to protect regular Canadians. We need to ensure that annual regulation reviews take special consideration of that level of changing technology.
AI will dramatically change the landscape on how regular, everyday people interact with our government, with one another and online. We need to ensure that our regulatory systems, in particular, the continued annual regulatory systems, take into special consideration these facts. We may not even know what kind of future innovation is out there yet.
To contemplate a process that looks at the future renewal of regulations means that we have to take special consideration with a special eye on science and technology. We need to ensure that, as it exponentially grows, the regulations are put in place to better protect them. I am saying that we should not only see regulation review and the modernity of regulation review as a process to remove regulations, but we should also consider what regulations could be put in place that are common sense and good for Canadians. For example, common sense in access, equitability and applicability.
We have the power in this place to ensure that the processes are in place so that everyday, regular Canadians, or the companies that our country is proud to host, can interact in a fair system in a way that does not take advantage of their time and where they can actually see their products and innovative work produced and put onto the market without hindrance. I agree with that principle, and that is the nature of the bill before us.
However, by no means should we take my airing this caution as a way to diminish the innovation that is happening, but we need to have a balance. Regulation and the processes that government creates to ensure that these regulations are put in place are there to protect Canadians from ulterior motives that could otherwise take from them more than we had ever anticipated. This is because of the unique relationship between science and technology, regulation and the future. When the committee asks for something to be future-proof, we have to contemplate what that really means. When the committee asks how we can create a future-proof system to deal with regulations that are cumbersome, we need to consider the balance of facts and the risk that could be present to Canadians.
We know, for example, that banks and big corporations often look at the letter of the law to find ways to get around it. Why would a company do something like? Well, oftentimes we find that these companies are seeking to get around those laws to get around the protections that we have put in place for consumers so they can maximize their own interests. If it is our job in this place to ensure that the interests of Canadians, regular folks and consumers, are heard, then it is in the interest of all members in this chamber to put in place good regulations. Those regulations should be for the betterment of understanding, whether it is in agriculture, technology and science, and we truly future-proof that process by taking an earnest consideration of the power of regulations.
Therefore, a red tape reduction act like this, the one being contemplated here, does have some areas that we have to hear about in committee. It does not mean that we are opposed to the vast number of amendments in here. It means that we have to do more work.
New Democrats stand ready and firm to work with all members of the House to ensure that we get to a place where we strike the balance I spoke about between what is future-proof and what is in the public good of Canadians. How do we strike a balance between these two in a way that encourages innovation and science, but keeps the protection of Canadians at heart? That is the role of the government. That is the role of bills such as Bill S-6.
We need to find ways to ensure that, while we future-proof this process, we take those lessons learned to ensure that we continually build on the good work of regulation review and that it does not become a process for governments, whether it is this one or the next one, to abuse. We do not want to see a vast abuse of the power found within Bill S-6 to have an annual review of regulations to toss out regulations a government may not like. That would hurt, for example, regular everyday people. That would hurt innovation in our country. These are two important aspects of how our country should be governed, by balancing those two interests.
From the testimony from the committee related to Bill S-6, we heard that it proposes 46 amendments to 29 acts under 12 departments and agencies. This may seem like a huge and cumbersome amount, but I want to remind members of the chamber that these are minor and, according to the independent committee, low risk. However, it is our job to ensure that, during a line-by-line review in committee, those interests of business, of consumers, and of labour and environmental groups are heard. It is important to do that because we can ensure the future-proofing process. That is the part I am most concerned about. How can we have an annual review with a good and well-established scope, so we cannot go so far outside those boundaries, so who knows how many governments in the future would be utilizing this process.
In addition to regulations that are being amended within Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, we also see some amendments within Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship. Let us consider the problems there.
One of the greatest problems in Canada right now is the lack of an ability to ensure that travel documents are in the hands of those who need them most. Every single MP in this chamber, I know for a fact, has had to deal with immigration in their office. When they deal with that immigration work, they find out that the processes are delayed. Every MP, whether Liberal, Bloc, New Democrat or Conservative, finds out that the processes are not working. Even the members across the way on the Liberal bench know it is broken.
Therefore, I was really pleased to see that there is an amendment within Bill S-6 to make that easier. It is a process that looks at ensuring that people can apply some of these processes online, in particular allowing for applications within existing visa applications to be used and duplicated in the PR system of applications. That is a common sense amendment. Why were we doing it differently before? These are the kinds of problems that contribute to these backlogs.
It is important that we pass a bill such as this to ensure an amendment like this works, and so that IRCC has more and better tools to process the information it already has, rather than asking regular folks to do the same application twice. Why would we make them do that?
It is important that these regulations are passed, that we ensure consultation during the committee phase and, finally, that we ensure the future annual amendments and review of regulations process is one that takes into consideration the unique factors of balancing the need to protect regular Canadians and consumers with the need of ensuring that businesses can continue to innovate and make our country great.
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- May/3/23 8:26:54 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, there is a lot of regulatory uncertainty and burdens that are put onto our producers, and there is one issue that has come up multiple times from constituents of mine. It is the issue of trying to get a federally regulated vet to go down to the border to do something as simple as scan an ear tag so a rancher can bring his bull back across the border.
It seems at times we have unnecessary regulations in place, especially when we have a big shortage of federally regulated vets in this country. There are other vets who are also licensed and regulated to a very high standard who could probably do the work just as well as the vet who goes down to the border to do it, but there seems to be unnecessary regulations that get in the way. However, we do not see the government moving to address some of those kinds of regulations.
I am wondering if the member has any comments on that.
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- May/3/23 9:16:14 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, when I first thought I wanted to get into politics I was about 14 years old, and it was always my dream to speak to regulatory modernization. I was one of those kids who said that if I could make it to Parliament to talk about regulatory modernization, I would know I really succeeded in life. I want to talk about this, because I think it is an important issue for Canadians from coast to coast to coast.
When I meet with farmers in my riding of Dufferin—Caledon, which is the number one producer of economic growth for our GDP, and when I speak to small businesses, I ask them, “What things make your lives more difficult?” Members would think the farmers might say they have to get up at 5 a.m. and have to do this and that, and that there are always more things for them to do than they have time for. However, what the farmer will say is that the regulatory and tax burdens in this country keep them up at night and take up so much of their time. The same thing is said when we talk to small businesses.
I think the real disconnect is that when regulations get passed by the Liberals, they assume that somehow, much like in a minister's office, 1,000 people will be there to make sure someone checks box A, circles things in the right direction and does all these kinds of things. However, most small businesses, which are the driver of economic activity in this country and truly the lifeblood of the Canadian economy, are very small organizations. It is often one or two people working hard to understand what the regulatory burden is for their business, on top of trying to make their business successful and profitable. That is the challenge we have all across this country.
I want to divert momentarily, because the other big thing they talk about besides regulations is the carbon tax. The carbon tax is such a punishing thing for Canadian businesses, especially in the farming sector.
I had the opportunity to visit farms on our last break week. I met with a number of farmers and I asked them, “How much carbon tax did you end up paying in the last year?” The first farm I went to said they paid $17,000 in carbon taxes. Can members imagine how much this impacts that family's bottom line? That is $17,000 that they do not have for investing in a new combine, for investing in more sustainable agricultural practices or for putting food on the table.
These are the kinds of difficult things being experienced. However, when we add to that the difficulty of complying with regulations from across this country, it is a burden wearing down Canadians. That is why it was so great to hear my colleague talk about the plan to cut red tape. It is something a Conservative government would absolutely do.
One interesting thing is that the bill would make 46 slight changes to regulations. I had the opportunity to look at the Government of Canada's forward regulatory plan for 2021-23. While the bill is going to nibble around the edges of 46 slight changes, the plan is to bring in 270 new regulations. This is exactly the problem: We are going to nibble around these 46 things and then bring in 270 new ones.
Now, I am not very good math, but I would say that is approximately 234 more regulations going in than are potentially coming out, and that is how this government works. Somehow it thinks that adding to regulatory burden, making things more complex and more difficult for small and medium-sized businesses to understand and implement, is the way forward for economic success. However, we know it is not, and we see that in projections for Canada's economic growth going forward. We are continuously moving down.
We are moving down on the productivity scale as well. We are becoming less and less productive. I suggest that people are less productive because they are spending more time in the office trying to navigate through the myriad of red tape regulations than they are in putting productive effort into their businesses. This is the challenge we have after eight years of the Liberal government: more regulations, more all the time.
The other problem with the regulatory process from the government is that it is regulate first and ask questions after. It does not do the hard work of seeing whether there is a way to promulgate regulations that would not be so burdensome and that would not be so hard for businesses to comply with.
I am going to speak very briefly to one example of that: film plastic regulations. The Government of Canada just said it thinks we should get to 60% recyclable content there. However, the technology does not exist. It is not even close to existing. The government is therefore bringing forward a regulation, which may be well-intentioned, to add recycled content into plastic film, but it has not taken the time to figure out whether or not it is actually possible. What does that do? Imagine being in a business and finding out that the business now has to comply with this regulation, but its own scientists and its own R and D are saying they have no idea how this is possible. This is just one tiny example going on across the country from coast to coast to coast.
Why is it so hard for the government, if it is going to bring in a new regulation, to consult with businesses that are going to be affected before it brings in the regulation? That is how to find a path forward if it is going to bring in a new regulation. Instead, what the government does is it decides the path forward, and businesses need to comply whether they can or cannot. If they cannot, that is too bad; they will just leave the country. This is incredibly disturbing to me as a way to move forward with regulatory reform.
Another thing I want to talk about is giving the Minister of Transport the ability to make interim orders. This is a very broad discretion being granted to the Minister of Transport. We know the Minister of Transport. He is the jolly fellow who has been governing the country with the chaos at our airports over the last two years. I do not know about other people in this chamber, but air travel in this country is not an enjoyable experience anymore. If our flight is on time, which is rare, there is some kind of chaos at the airport where we are landing, and we are sitting for an extended period of time.
In my own recent experience when flying from Toronto to Ottawa, I showed up at the airport, got to the gate when it was time to board and then was told the pilots did not show up. Did they only know that 15 minutes before? Then there was a problem with the plane. Then the crew timed out. Then the flight was delayed even more. This is happening all over the place, and the number of complaints being filed with respect to this is astronomical.
My submission is that the last minister who should be getting any authority to make new regulations on anything is the minister who has governed during the chaos at our airports. It is all across the transportation sector too. This affects our supply chains. We know that part of the cost of living crisis in this country is a result of challenges with our supply chain. Who could fix these things? Maybe the Minister of Transport could, but clearly he cannot. Why are we going to give the Minister of Transport any more authority to make things worse than they already are in this country?
There is a bright future, though. The Conservative Party has promised that if any new regulation comes in, a regulation has to go out. This would not be 46 minor changes while bringing in 270 new regulations. It is going to be a bright new future. We are going to consult with businesses. We are going to reduce red tape and get the economy of Canada moving.
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- May/3/23 9:27:13 p.m.
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- Re: Bill S-6
Madam Speaker, it is a good question. It would actually make some difference, and I did say that. The challenge is that it is not ambitious enough. As I pointed out, the Government of Canada's forward regulatory plan from 2021 to 2023 is to actually bring in 270 new regulations. Therefore, if it is going to take out 30, as the member said, or 46, as I said, and then bring in 270 new regulations, it is defeating the purpose. The government should be more ambitious. The government should be working harder to reduce red tape, and that is the real problem with this piece of legislation.
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- May/3/23 9:29:02 p.m.
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- Re: Bill S-6
Madam Speaker, I did actually put forward, in a previous Parliament, a private member's bill called “think small first”, but have not been able to get it back through the legislative drafting. It was designed for small businesses, to ensure that there would be a regulatory review of any new regulation and to consider specifically how it would affect small businesses. It is based on a similar bill that was brought forward by the Green Party in the European Union. Therefore, I have a lot of sympathy, but not for cutting deeply without figuring out where we need regulations, because they help protect health and safety.
I just met with representatives of the College of Family Physicians, and they pointed out that there is a federal regulatory burden that costs our health care system because of forms that doctors have to fill out for the federal government. I wonder why that is not in this bill, and whether the member has any thoughts.
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- May/3/23 9:30:30 p.m.
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- Re: Bill S-6
Madam Speaker, it is an honour to be in the chamber once again, and I am pleased to rise to speak to Bill S-6.
The stated purpose of the bill is to “reduce administrative burden for business, facilitate digital interactions with government, simplify regulatory processes, make exemptions from certain regulatory requirements to test new products, and make cross-border trade easier through more consistent and coherent rules across governments.” The proposed measures were a result, I am told, of a public consultation by the Treasury Board Secretariat as well as a call-out to federal departments on what changes they required in order to further streamline the regulatory process.
The regulatory modernization bill would be instituted, I believe for the first time this year, to optimize regulatory processes between departments. This is the second regulatory modernization bill, with the first instance of this legislation having been introduced in 2019, under the Budget Implementation Act. The stated purpose of this legislation is to “reduce administrative burden for business, facilitate digital interactions with government, simplify regulatory processes, make exemptions from certain regulatory requirements to test new products, and make cross-border trade easier”.
In all, Bill S-6 proposes 46 minor changes to 29 acts that are administered by the following 12 organizations: the Canadian Food Inspection Agency; Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada; Natural Resources Canada; Environment and Climate Change Canada; Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada; Fisheries and Oceans Canada; the Canada Border Services Agency; Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada; Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada; Health Canada; Transport Canada; and Parks Canada.
The first part of Bill S-6 would remove the requirement that a notice of bankruptcy be published in a local newspaper and allow the superintendent of bankruptcy to issue directives regarding how the notice will be published. That is actually a pretty interesting regulation. I cannot remember the last time I saw an advertisement in The Abbotsford News, the Mission City Record or The Ashcroft-Cache Creek Journal outlining that someone was bankrupt. I think I might even follow up with a question to the Library of Parliament to find out the last time this regulation was used. Perhaps in the 21st century economy we can outline people's bankruptcy over Facebook.
The second regulation that Bill S-6 seeks to amend is to allow the application for mediation to be withdrawn, and for the trustee to proceed with an automatic discharge of the bankrupt, where an agreement had been breached between the trustee and the bankrupt before a scheduled mediation.
The third change that the bill would bring into effect is to make changes to the Weights and Measures Act to provide a temporary permission mechanism allowing the minister to permit temporary permissions for devices for use in trade, set terms and conditions, and allow the minister to revoke such permission.
The next regulation that the bill would deal with is to repeal the regulation regarding authority related to the requirement for contact information on vending machines that dispense liquids. The next one is to repeal the requirement for dealers and traders to notify Measurement Canada when they import a measuring device for use in their business. I guess that, with the onset of Amazon and the ease with which we can find a scale these days, it is probably a good regulation to repeal.
The next regulation would be to revise the coming-into-force date for recent amendments to the act in 2018's budget implementation act. The next one would be to change the term “annual return” to a term that is less confusing for stakeholders. I am not quite sure exactly what bill that would refer to.
Bill S-6 would update language pertaining to the handling of hazardous products in the workplace to ensure alignment with the Hazardous Products Act. I would be remiss if I did not mention another government bill, coming from the independent Senate on CEPA, and how changes to the Hazardous Products Act may intertwine with the Canadian Environmental Protection Act.
The next area of regulation this bill seeks to change is to amend the Agricultural Products Marketing Act to simplify the regulatory system for provincial agricultural marketing boards. I look forward to hearing from government members as to how, by simplifying the regulatory system for provincial agricultural marketing boards, we might see more local produce in our grocery stores. I come from a riding with the highest farm gate sales per capita in Canada and there is broad unanimity among the constituents in my riding that we need to see more local produce on the shelves. After the floods last year, this was of particular concern. Many of the prime blueberry fields in the province were flooded out when the Nooksack River in Washington state washed away the agricultural lands on Sumas Prairie. I look forward to seeing how the minister would enact such regulations to improve the way local produce is marketed in Canada.
The next regulation is to amend the Health of Animals Act to enable the minister to approve a program elaborated by a third party for the purposes of preventing the introduction of any vector, disease or toxic substance or for controlling, eradicating or preventing the spread of vectors, diseases and toxic substances. Similarly, earlier this week in Parliament, we debated the private member's bill of the member for Foothills, which also talked about the Health of Animals Act in the context of biosecurity on farms and the challenges that many agricultural producers are facing with respect to the avian flu and other diseases that are impacting agricultural sectors.
I will note that, in the United States, perhaps because its biosecurity provisions on agricultural properties and its health of animals act were not as robust as the ones we have in Canada, the avian flu led to a massive increase in poultry prices and the destruction of hundreds of thousands of birds meant for consumption. Therefore, I am happy to see this amendment, to ensure that we do the best to protect our farmers and the consumers of their food.
Another amendment in Bill S-6 also touches upon the Health of Animals Act, to enable the minister to make an interim order that may be used when immediate action is required to deal with significant risks to protect animal and human health and the environment. This is a good-sense regulation that speaks to my previous point that we need to give the Canadian Food Inspection Agency the tools it needs when there is another outbreak of avian flu or another disease impacting our agricultural products, like foot-and-mouth disease, which has also impacted production in the Fraser Valley in previous times.
The next amendment in Bill S-6 would make changes to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency Act that “would allow the agency to deliver services and businesses to interact with CFIA through electronic means rather than having to rely solely on paper-based transactions. This change would reduce administrative burden for businesses and allow them greater flexibility in their interactions with government.”
Any time any government agency is taking a step forward to digitize its interactions with Canadians, it is a positive step.
A member from Kingston and I had a debate a few months ago about the immigration services MPs provide in our constituency offices. We both agreed that sometimes we take on too much of this work on behalf of public servants. In many cases, the constituents who come to my office and talk about their interactions with Citizenship and Immigration decry the fact that so much of what they need to do is still based on paper forms that are anachronistic.
I am happy the Canadian Food Inspection Agency is making the relevant regulatory changes to allow people to communicate by email in the 21st century. That is a good change.
The next regulation in Bill S-6 I would like to discuss is the proposed amendment to the Safe Foods for Canadians Act to amend the definition of “food commodity” to align it with the definition of food in the Food and Drugs Act, as amended in 2019.
The next change would provide authority to make regulations as a result of Canada entering into a free trade agreement. We would not know the context of this specific regulation until it is enacted and put into practice by the Minister of International Trade upon this bill hopefully receiving royal assent.
There are a number of amendments related to the Canada Transportation Act that would enable new mechanisms to be used to integrate regulatory changes stemming more quickly from updates to international transportation safety standards. This would ensure our transportation sectors meet the most up-to-date safety standards and keep pace with changes in technology and innovation.
Abbotsford is home to Cascade Aerospace. I was able to speak on a concurrence motion to a regulatory change that might be covered in Bill S-6, and that is the fact that when students are taking the test to be an airplane mechanic or to work in the aviation sector, the training manuals still require students, in the 21st century, to go through a module on cloth wings. I do not think there are many planes in Canada made with cloth any longer.
Cascade Aerospace specifically said that the aerospace industry at large has asked for many years that Canada's regulatory process be more in line with the FAA in the United States to stay competitive and allow for companies like Cascade to bid on contracts with American companies to provide the types of manufacturing and high-tech jobs we are looking for in Canada. Hopefully this amendment to the Transportation Act will help us get there.
The next regulation would revise the Electricity and Gas Inspection Act to broaden the type of sampling that could be used as the basis for verification or reverification of meters beyond only statistical sampling.
The next one would make changes to the Canada Petroleum Resources Act and the Canada Oil and Gas Operations Act to provide flexibilities to update regulations for miscellaneous technical or administrative changes.
The next regulation would make changes to the Canada Land Surveyors Act to modernize the legislative framework that regulates the Canada land surveyors profession.
On this side of the House, we have been speaking a lot about the designation of skilled workers in Canada. Hopefully, this is a positive change that would allow more immigrants, for example, to work as surveyors in our communities. Like many professions, we are seeing a shortage of workers, especially in skilled fields such as this one. Hopefully, this regulation would encourage more people to become surveyors in Canada and do the necessary work to build our roads and prepare neighbourhoods for development as we look to see more housing construction in Canada.
In fact, I had to hire a surveyor recently in Abbotsford for my own house. I was very pleased with the service they provided, but, due to the shortage of workers I could not believe the bill I had to pay at the end. However, that is a debate for another time.
Let me just conclude by looking over some of the remarks made by Senator Woo, who sponsored this bill on behalf of the government. Senator Woo is one of five senators from the province of B.C. When he sponsored this bill, it almost felt to me that he was a member of the Liberal government. He talked about looking ahead and that the Treasury Board Secretariat would be considering more proposals for another regulatory modernization bill. He talked about his close working relationship with the Treasury Board Secretariat, as if he were a member of the Liberal government and not an independent.
This is particularly challenging for me, because I actually think this bill is really important and would do a lot of things that stakeholders and deputy ministers across the Government of Canada have been asking for, for a long time. That is to clean up the balance sheet, so to speak, so government can function more effectively on behalf of Canadians and provide the services that we collectively need and the regulation that is required to run different sectors of our economy and our consumption of goods and produce. However, I would be remiss if I did not mention that it was hard for me to see that it was the government not tabling this directly in the House of Commons but instead it went through the Senate.
British Columbia right now has a population of just over five million. That means every senator we have represents, effectively, one million people. In Ontario, it is not much better. It is at 592,000. On Prince Edward Island, it is 38,000. The government should not be doing its important work through its Liberal senators in the other chamber. It should be doing the important work here in this chamber.
With respect to the Senate, as a British Columbian, I hope one day we will have a more effective voice in the Canadian Confederation. When I go door knocking during elections, almost every day someone raises the fact that Ottawa does not adequately represent the interests of my province. This is largely due to the fact that we only have six senators allotted to us, with five in place right now. We pay equalization payments to other provinces and we have the third-highest population.
In the years ahead, indigenous people are going to take more control of their lives through natural resources development. There are a number of amazing companies that are partnering with indigenous people in the natural resources sector. I am very optimistic about trade and commerce on Canada's west coast in the years ahead. I hope, by the economic growth that we are going to see that is going to drive the Canadian economic growth in the 21st century, and that one day we are going to have a sufficient number of senators or equal representation in Ottawa. British Columbians deserve it.
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- May/3/23 10:09:46 p.m.
- Watch
- Re: Bill S-6
Madam Speaker, this is the second interruption from the other side for some reason.
I am splitting my time today with the member for Mirabel.
It is good to see a bill that reduces the administrative burden government places on business, facilitates digital interactions with government and simplifies regulatory processes. All our legislation should be aimed at making government smaller and simpler, in order to serve the Canadian people rather than handicap them. This is a new idea from the Liberals, one I hope they stick with.
I am encouraged to discover that this bill makes exemptions from certain regulatory requirements to test new products without sacrificing safety. It will also make cross-border trade easier through more consistent and coherent rules across governments. If we ask those in business, they will tell us that all too often the rules applied by one government department are not consistent with those applied by another department.
It was also encouraging to hear that the measures proposed in Bill S-6 are the result of a public consultation process by the Treasury Board Secretariat, as well as asking federal departments what changes are required to further streamline the regulatory process. Consultation makes sense and I would encourage the government to try it in other areas as well.
I would also encourage the Liberals to speed up the process for eliminating unnecessary government red tape. The regulatory modernization bill, the RMB, is supposed to be instituted annually to optimize regulatory processes between government departments. By doing this every year, the hope is the bureaucratic hill of red tape will not be allowed to grow into a mountain.
If we look at the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat's website, we will in fact see that the legislation is referred to as an annual regulatory modernization bill. Admittedly, English is not my first language, but I was led to understand that “annual” describes something that happens every year. This is the second RMB the current government has offered us. The first was only four years ago. This one was introduced last year, but obviously has not been a priority for the Liberals. Simple math says that they need to introduce four more RMBs this year to bring us up to date, but as we have seen with the budget and the government's financial plan, simple math is not their strong suit.
The 2019 RMB made changes to 12 pieces of legislation in the areas of transportation, pest control, electricity and gas inspections.
For example, the Canada Transportation Act and the Food and Drugs Act were amended to allow for innovation, permitting limited exemptions from regulatory requirements for regulatory sandboxes to test the new products that would benefit Canadians, such as tissues developed through 3D printing.
The Electricity and Gas Inspection Act was amended to support the use of new technologies, including zero-emission vehicles, light-emitting diodes, LEDs, and hydrogen-fuelled vehicles.
The Canada Transportation Act was amended to allow for digital and electronic processes and documents in addition to in-person or paper-based ones.
Changes to the Pest Control Products Act removed a redundant review requirement when another review was already considering the issue or could be modified to include the issue.
Amendments to the Food and Drugs Act provided more clarity to industry about which regulations apply to their products.
Now we have Bill S-6, which proposes 46 minor changes to 29 acts that are administered by the following 12 government organizations: Canadian Food Inspection Agency; Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada; Natural Resources Canada; Environment and Climate Change Canada; Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada; Fisheries and Oceans Canada; Canada Border Services Agency; Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada; Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada; Health Canada; Transport Canada; and Parks Canada.
It is good to see that the bill has a larger scope than the previous RMB and that the Liberals are discovering more places where the government needs to get out of the way. It is the least they can do.
Ask any business person and they will tell us that Canada has a red tape and productivity crisis, which is why, to me, this bill is both encouraging and disappointing.
It is encouraging because at least the Liberals are beginning to understand that there is a problem. It is disappointing because there is so much more that needs to be done; an annual bill that is, in reality, brought to the House once every three or four years is not enough to solve the problem.
The items addressed in this bill are minor at best and do little to address the onerous red tape regime that is slowing economic growth in Canada. It is the barest of the bare minimums the Liberals could make in reducing red tape and bureaucratic overreach.
It does nothing to substantively address the bureaucracy and red tape stifling economic growth. It is a Liberal bill heavy on announcement and light on delivery.
Certainly, no one would object to the changes proposed, which includes amending the Health of Animals Act to enable the minister to make an interim order that may be used when immediate action is required to deal with a significant risk, to protect animal health, human health and the environment. This is just basic common sense.
It includes making changes to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency Act, which would allow the agency to deliver services and allow businesses to interact with CFIA through electronic means rather than having to rely solely on paper-based transactions. This change would reduce administrative burdens for businesses and allow them greater flexibility in their interactions with the government. Paper-based transactions are usually slower than electronic ones. This is also a matter of common sense.
It includes making changes to the Department of Citizenship and Immigration Act, to enable information sharing to help administer any federal or provincial law for permanent and temporary residents.
This bill has three main purposes: first, to make doing business easier, especially when government is involved; second, to provide flexibility and agility in government regulatory systems; and, third, to improve the integrity of the regulatory system. It is good to start but it is only a start. As the mountain of red tape grows, we need to do better. Given the track record of the Liberal government, though, maybe I am dreaming.
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- May/3/23 11:08:54 p.m.
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- Re: Bill S-6
Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Simcoe North.
With a Liberal government that, by all accounts, thrives on weaving red tape and thick layers of regulations into almost every government process, there is a certain irony in that it is now putting forward a bill that outlines measures, and I will quote from Bill S-6's preamble, that “repeal or amend provisions that have, over time, become barriers to innovation and economic growth [and] to add certain provisions with a view to support innovation and economic growth”. The great irony here is the bill's stated goal of supporting innovation and economic growth, which would certainly be better achieved by replacing this worn-out Liberal government with a new Conservative government. Such a government would have respect for the economic fundamentals that create wealth and jobs in this country and would properly balance regulations with the need to ensure that we have an innovative free market.
Perhaps this bill is an effort by the Liberals to try to burnish their credentials on this front. Those members over there know that their party lacks any credibility on this issue. Remember, it was just this year that, in its red-tape report card, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business gave the Liberals the worst-ever federal government grade for their inaction on reducing red tape.
I can guarantee that every member on that side has heard the outcry from constituents and from business leaders in their own ridings. I am sure members have heard from every income bracket and from every economic sector about their government's destructive penchant for heavy intervention in the economy, for burdensome restrictions and regulations and for ever-increasing taxes. These things are hard to ignore.
The Liberal inclination is to pursue every opportunity to suppress and suffocate businesses. That is among the reasons that Canada has a serious red-tape crisis and and a serious productivity crisis.
We see it, for example, in the housing crisis that we examined only yesterday in the House, during our party's opposition motion. We have a housing crisis in the country, one that needs to be urgently addressed. Home ownership and rental affordability continue to pose a crisis for Canadians struggling because of this government's inflationary policies, with monthly mortgage costs more than doubling since the Liberal government took office. With the average cost of rent now at about $3,000 a month, we simply need more housing in the country. This must address the existing need, not to mention the coming demand as our population continues to grow.
The country needs smart, responsive policy that enables a response to the demand to provide the affordable housing stock that a growing population needs. However, to have that, the market needs the tools to be nimble. It needs the government to stop intervening in processes as a matter of course rather than only when strictly necessary.
Unfortunately, interference seems to be deeply rooted in the culture of the Liberals. Their response to a housing crisis is to stick with the failed policies and the entrenched interests that block construction of new housing. They insist on tying unnecessary red tape and layers of bureaucracy into the process of getting new housing built. It is instinctual for them to use restriction and red tape to complicate problems rather than reasonably streamlining processes in order to find solutions.
As another example, we have a shortage of health care workers in this country. After eight years under the Liberals, more than six million Canadians lack access to a family doctor. One solution to this issue is having more doctors. The obvious first source for more doctors would be those already in the country. We have nearly 20,000 foreign-trained doctors who are already here and could help ease those shortages. However, a great many of them cannot work in Canada because of the red tape and regulations that prevent them from getting licences.
There are ways to streamline the onerous layers of bureaucracy to allow these individuals to more efficiently prove their qualifications to work in Canada and to meet our standards. However, the Liberals will not do it. They prefer to keep failed processes and policies in place rather than responding in an innovative fashion. This is another thing that will change under a soon-to-come Conservative government. We are going to remove the gatekeepers and eliminate the red tape that prevents foreign-trained health care workers who are already here in our country from being able to practise their professions. Our party's blue seal plan to efficiently license professionals who prove they are qualified is going to help ease the shortage that, under the Liberals, has Canada projected to be short 44,000 physicians by 2030.
I want to take a minute now to address what I would say is probably the most significant thing we could do in this area with respect to removing some of the red tape, barriers and burdens that government puts up. This would really help to unlock the potential of our economy, not only in my home province of Alberta but also all across this country of Canada. This is to remove some of the burdensome, ever-changing regulations and restrictions on getting major energy projects built in this country.
I think about the pipeline projects that the current government has effectively killed with the ever-changing restrictions and regulations it has put in place. Northern gateway was ended because of a ban on tanker traffic off our west coast. Energy east finally threw the white flag up because the government kept changing the rules as it went along. Billions of dollars were being spent trying to go through the process. When companies are literally spending hundreds of millions of dollars, into the billions in some cases, to try to go through these processes, and the government just pulls the carpet out from under them, eventually they have to quit throwing good money after bad. That is what happened in the case of the energy east project.
I could go on about that, but I also want to touch on LNG, liquid natural gas. This has been widely talked about in recent years. As Conservatives, we have talked about it for a number of years now, pretty much since the government first took office. There were 15 proposals for LNG projects that sat on the Prime Minister's desk, and not one of those has been built. We could be meeting the needs of Europe and other parts of the world for LNG. We could replace Russian gas, for example, and coal-fired power in such places as China. However, those kinds of opportunities are stifled because of red tape and regulations in this country.
We could be creating billions of dollars in economic activity for this country. We could be creating hundreds of thousands of jobs for Albertans and for all Canadians. We could have an immeasurable and very positive impact on our environment by reducing emissions. We could have a major impact on human rights. We could have a major impact on improving global security and global energy security. This could be major. It could unlock so much potential in this country. We should be seeking ways to do that when we talk about housing, pipelines and major projects.
We could be doing so much if we could just get government interference out of the way. Everyone knows that we need regulations and that we need to ensure we have proper rules. However, we need to make sure that this is being done in a reasonable way. We need a government that understands the real costs of red tape. It makes our country less competitive in the world. It makes our citizens less successful. The government is content to continue to increase the size and the cost of government while creating more regulations that make life even more expensive. However, that failed approach does not bring in more skilled immigrants, doctors and tradespeople, nor does it bring bigger paycheques for the workers we need here in Canada. It is obvious that the real work on tackling red tape and bringing common sense to the regulatory structure will only begin under a new Conservative government.
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- May/3/23 11:23:50 p.m.
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- Re: Bill S-6
Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise here this evening and share my thoughts on Bill S-6. Before that, however, I just want to acknowledge that I heard the intervention from the hon. colleague from New Westminster—Burnaby about the point of privilege that was raised earlier. I want to say that I welcome his comments and thoughts on that matter. It is an important issue. I will turn to Bill S-6 in a second, but I just want to say that the number one thing I hear from Canadians who happen to catch any of the proceedings on TV is that nobody answers a question, and for the life of me I cannot understand why the government cannot answer the simple question of when it found out.
Bill S-6 is supposed to modernize the regulatory environment. It would make 46 minor changes to 29 acts across 12 different organizations. Apparently, this is supposed to be an annual bill. It is a little bizarre that it is coming in through the Senate, but that tells us one thing: There is actually no owner within the government's executive branch that is supposed to be in charge of red tape or regulatory reduction, because it has to farm out this work to a member of the Senate. Why is it that the government has to find an owner in the Senate? The government does not have anyone over there who is responsible for regulatory modernization. It had to find an owner who is in a different chamber.
My first instinct when looking at the bill is that I am supportive of it. It seems reasonable, but we have to ask ourselves whether these are really the life-changing regulations that we should be looking to reduce for Canadians.
There are other questions I have for the government. Is it going to accept amendments at committee if we have other really good ideas? We just took another senator's private member's bill and blew it up. We are going to accept a ton of other amendments to that senator's bill, so hopefully we will do that with this one.
Also, the government is not even measuring how many regulations we have. There are over 4,000 regulations in the consolidated regulations of Canada, and we are going to take out 45, but we do not know how many regulations are elsewhere. There is a saying, “What gets measured gets done.” However, we do not even have a baseline, and the government, by its own admission, is thinking about bringing in over 250 regulations over the next couple of years. This year, it would take out only 45, so it seems a little bizarre to claim some great victory that is going to change the lives of Canadians. The regulations seem relatively minor. I look forward to hearing the amazing testimony at committee from officials who are going to say how this is going to revolutionize Canadian lives and make us more innovative, but I am not sure. We should not hold our breath for that.
It is important to remember what the government was elected on. Its members said that better is always possible. That sounds really nice, but why does someone not say, “Why can we not make government simpler?” Why can we not make it simpler for Canadians to deal with the government? I will give a great example. The government has an idea of the underused housing tax. If someone does not use their house for their own personal reasons, they would fill out a form and prove that it is an allowable use, for which they do not have to pay this special tax. However, the form is six pages long. If they try to figure out whether they qualify for an exemption, it is confusing to even the most sophisticated accountants, and they would have to do the form every single year. If they are a farmer or a builder and they build multiple homes, it is unclear whether they would qualify for the exemption, so they would have to fill out that paperwork every year.
Why does the government not just say, “Listen, if you fill out the form once, that is all you have to do until you dispose of the property”? Then it would make sense. If there is no change in control of the property, why would they have to fill out the form, the same six pages, just to say to the government that everything is the same as it was last year? This is the approach the government takes to bringing in new regulations.
It was not that long ago that one could only fax documents into the CRA. In fact, my experience is that I got locked out of my CRA account just a few weeks ago. I owed documents to the CRA. I had to provide documents but since I was locked out of my account, I could not get into it. Do members know what the suggestion was? It was to fax in the documents. I asked why I could not just email them in, but was told the CRA could not accept emails. “Well, how about you print off the email and go and put it on the fax machine, like is that not a reasonable solution?” These are the kinds of things that would make Canadians' lives easier and make it better to deal with the government.
Let us take another example of immigration and some of the delays in the immigration process along with some of the regulatory issues that Canadians are dealing with. There is a young woman who works as a PSW at a retirement home in Midland. This young woman is waiting for her permanent residency card. She has been waiting almost two years. Guess what? This woman is a qualified nurse but she cannot change jobs while she is waiting for her PR card. How incredibly sad is that, to know that we have a health care crisis in this country due to a lack of labour, to know we have a qualified nurse able to do that job but the government, with its policies and its bureaucracy, is preventing that from happening. It is not her fault. It is the government's fault. We are waiting too long to process applications.
There is another example, and the member for Banff—Airdrie mentioned doctors earlier. There are taxi drivers who are qualified doctors in other countries. I met one of them last week. Waheed is his name. He is from Afghanistan and is an incredible human being. He is a qualified doctor. He has to wait four more years to be able to practise family medicine in Canada. His English is excellent. He seemed like a very competent individual. Surely there is a way we can get this person into the medical profession a lot sooner.
Another great example of some regulations we should change has to do with Transport Canada. It cannot approve medicals quickly enough to make sure that we can get pilots approved to fly. I will give an example. Gary lives in my riding. Gary is recently retired and Gary builds his own planes. That is what he does as a hobby. All he wants to do in his retirement years is fly a couple of planes. His medical has been sitting waiting to be approved at Transport Canada for almost two years. He says, “Adam, all I want to do is fly my planes. How many years do you think I have to wait to get this approved by Transport Canada?”
These are regulations that will actually change people's lives if we can speed them up. Instead, we have this list that seems like a bit of a list of low-hanging fruit from a bunch of other places. It is unclear to me what the actual impact will be of all these regulations. I hope that we will get a chance to get some evidence at committee and the government will be held accountable for how this is actually going to improve the lives of Canadians.
I will give one example as I close that the government might want to take back to its own people. The Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act provides that governments may allow electronic documents in place of paper documents. It is an opt-in provision for departments. I have a simple solution: departments must have a provision for electronic documents and paper documents. That would be a very simple, easy law to change that would then require each department, where they have a form, to also produce a digital version.
I think there are lots of things we could do. I hope the government is open to suggestions at committee and I look forward to fielding all of its questions right now.
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- May/3/23 11:38:33 p.m.
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- Re: Bill S-6
Madam Speaker, I appreciate this opportunity to rise and speak to Bill S-6. How I came to this bill is probably like many people. We read the title: “an act respecting regulatory modernization”. It reminds me of going through Netflix when someone wants to watch something new so they look at the title and think that it kind of fits, and maybe they see the trailer or read the bio and a bit of what is going to go on in the video, and they say that it is something they can probably get behind.
We have lots of regulatory issues in Canada and modernizing them is probably a good thing. We know that over these eight long years, the current Liberal government has introduced more legislation that restricts people. It restricts our ability to get the services we need from our government and it restricts our freedoms and our rights in Canada. If any bill talks about “respecting regulatory modernization”, I would be all over it. There is a list of the departments. There are 12 organizations. I am not going to read all of them, but all of these are things that we should modernize, especially on the regulatory side. We have so much red tape. It has been said that we are the most heavily red-taped country in the world, which holds back our freedoms.
All this excess of regulation makes people sick and tired of dealing with government. They throw up their papers and say, “To heck with this, I am not doing this, not applying for that, not going to get into this program, not going to get this grant and not going to apply for this opportunity”, because there is no end to the red tape, the forms and the excess of regulation that Liberals are known for.
It goes back to the philosophy, I believe, of the Liberals, which is that government knows best, that someone knows better than the citizens. We have seen this time after time with respect to different legislation that gets introduced here. There is this feeling that the poor citizens need the government's protection and they need the hands of the all-knowing government to reach into their lives and make them difficult. I just think it is garbage. I think of all the waste we have in government, all the duplication and all the unnecessary things that everyday, common people go through just to interact with their government. The government is supposed to help them, but in a lot of ways it hurts Canadians. It hurts Canadians' productivity. It hurts our potential to grow our country, to expand, and to create opportunities for the next generation.
That is where the current government has failed miserably in some of the regulatory changes it did early on. I do question how history is going to look back at these eight long years. Hopefully they are coming to an end here soon. I think of the lost opportunity and of the regulatory change in Bill C-69. This is one bill that is terrible for our country. We have seen the results of the restrictive nature of shutting down everything. This goes from coast to coast to coast. I think of one of the largest missed opportunities for Canada. When we look back on these eight long years, what was the worst missed economic opportunity for this generation and probably the next? I think of the impact on liquefied natural gas.
When the Liberals came to government, they knew better than the industry and the citizens about what we should be doing to hopefully lower our emissions and grow our economy. There were 15 liquefied natural gas plants proposed for Canada. This is not just a mom-and-pop gas station down the road; this is $10 billion to $20 billion of economic driving force in those communities, and we had 15 of them proposed. Do members know how many got built? Zero of these plants were built. They were going to be massive economic drivers, and it was all derailed because of Bill C-69 and the Liberal government.
This is the regulatory framework that the Liberals put in. Their end goal was to shut down industry, and they shut it down. They shut down not only the opportunity on the coasts but also the opportunity for well-paying jobs in my province. In Saskatchewan, the drilling rates for natural gas dropped. I shudder to think of how many opportunities and powerful paycheques these families would have had if the Liberals had not brought in this regulation. It would have released so much natural gas out of Canada. That would actually have lowered emissions.
The gas from those plants, for the most part, was headed to Asia and the European market. We are positioned perfectly. Canada can supply the two largest markets with liquefied natural gas. There is no other market that has the known reserves that we have in the ground, positioned in the perfect location in terms of both Europe and Asia.
When we fast forward to what has happened since these plants were cancelled because of the regulatory regime, where the goalposts kept moving, we find that Asia has more coal plants. What the Liberal government does not understand is that we need energy to survive in this climate and to prosper. It is the same in other countries, where our liquefied natural gas could have offset all the tonnage of coal that Asia has been using. What a missed opportunity.
We could have lowered our emissions, provided well-paying jobs for Canadians and collected royalties that could be put back into our society. This is the virtuous circle that we should be encouraging in every industry, but this is an example of the heavy-handed regulatory changes and the red tape that the Liberals have introduced and that have canned so many projects. It is a shame. I think of the missed economic opportunity. There is no larger one that I know of in the history of our country other than the government's change in the regulatory process that killed those 15 plants.
That is on the environmental side. We know that natural gas is a superior source of energy over coal. It lowers emissions and provides good paycheques in Canada. Moreover, it could have saved lives in Europe; this is probably the area that I hope the members on the other side realize most. Energy security is the number one issue in Europe right now. Putin had the control of European countries for natural gas. As we know, unfortunately, what has transpired with the invasion of Ukraine has brought about a real challenge in Europe's energy security. How many lives would have been saved if we had these plants? Putin may not even have invaded Ukraine or, if he did, the war would have been that much shorter because of those countries that rely on natural gas.
It is not going away. As much as there are people who would wish oil and gas away in our lifetime or on our planet, it is always going to be within our mix. I think of how much more Ukraine could have counted on its neighbours in Europe if they were not worried about Putin cutting off their natural gas. That relates exactly to Bill C-69 and why the Liberals changed the goalposts and killed this industry that was just getting on its feet. I cannot think of another regulatory change that has had as much of a negative impact on our planet, be it environmentally or for energy security, as the regulatory change on liquefied natural gas has done.
I forgot to mention that I will be sharing my time.
Going back to the regulatory side of things, any time one puts a break on productivity, it hurts the citizens that one is supposedly there to serve. That is wrong. It has affected my home, the Speaker's home and all our homes. We are going to bring it home.
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- May/3/23 11:49:38 p.m.
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- Re: Bill S-6
Madam Speaker, I have an urgent message for Canadians if they heard that Liberal member speak. They should not cut the gas line to their house. Winter is coming back, probably in seven months. The Liberal member thinks that people should be cutting the line to their furnace. We heard it here first, the Liberals would like people to go home and cut their natural gas furnace off. This is ridiculous.
On the facts about liquified natural gas, we approved the only one that is getting built right now. It is not done yet, because the regulatory changes have slowed the process. The United States has built six since then, and they have 20 more in the books. That is jobs and paycheques that should go to Canadians, not Americans, and it is all because of these Liberals.
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- May/3/23 11:54:31 p.m.
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- Re: Bill S-6
Madam Speaker, tonight, we are looking at Bill S-6, which would not be cutting regulations; it is about modernizing regulations. We missed some opportunities where we could have improved various aspects of Canadian society by actually cutting some regulations and streamlining some other regulations.
This may just be my own childhood and background working in a small business. We had a restaurant and gift shop on the Cabot Trail. We had a lot of tourists come through. My father, who was rather funny, kept getting notices from the Government of Canada. One day, the notice would be about tariffs on T-shirts made in Bangladesh, and another day it would be about something else. He finally decided to start a wall along where people had to wait to get to the washroom. He posted all the notices that we received from the Government of Canada. He then made a lovely sign so he could keep it up to date. It said, “The Government of Canada never sleeps.” Perhaps I have been thinking of it because it is approaching midnight, and I suppose I never sleep, but the truth is that we could use some sense in regulations.
I recently met with a wonderful group that was here meeting with many members of Parliament, The College of Family Physicians of Canada. This is one area in which I wish we would see action. I generally believe we need regulations to protect health and safety, but some regulations simply do not make sense. The ones that generate unnecessary paperwork for doctors hurt our health care system because they tie doctors and their staff up with unnecessary, unproductive work. This includes, for example, having to write a letter every five years to say that a patient still has an amputated leg. There is also paperwork that has to be issued over and over again to help veterans. It takes up a doctor's time to fill out forms and write letters that are completely unnecessary. Often, especially in the case of the CRA, the patient ends up paying for the service separately, and that is the person who is least able to pay. There would be a great deal of sense in trying to figure out how to reduce the regulatory burden, especially where it is impeding our health care system.
We have been talking about this piece of legislation in terms of modernizing. Only one party, the Conservative Party, has put forward speakers tonight. Why am I standing here? It is because I am a bit worried about this bill. It is not necessarily just routine, regulatory modernization. My concern is that this bill, which affects 29 different acts, will go only to the industry committee for review. Most of it is pretty uncontroversial, which is why there has been very little interest in it tonight.
My concern is about what happens with the Species at Risk Act changes. When I read this over, I am not entirely sure they are not substantive. They do not appear to be entirely about modernizing; they appear to be substantial or at least substantive changes to the Species at Risk Act. We do not have a great record with the Species at Risk Act. For instance, the southern resident killer whale was listed as endangered in 2003, and the full recovery plan did not come out until 2018. Any changes to the Species at Risk Act that are more than purely routine must go to the environment committee, not the industry committee. We can send it to committee and study it there, but there are 29 different acts. What if something in there is a mistake and we just go ahead with it because these are just normal changes? What about the change to the Fisheries Act to give a fisheries officer the discretion to not lay charges? What if that is substantive, and what if that is a mistake? It is going to go only to the industry committee.
Wrapping things up, I urge some caution here. This is a missed opportunity to actually reduce regulations, but it is also not modernizing them. In the reading I have done since working on the bill for this evening and since the bill was tabled in the Senate, I have some concerns. I express those concerns now knowing full well this bill will be sent right away to the industry committee and probably promulgated without changes. I hope members of the committee will ensure that they are at least satisfied that changes to the Fisheries Act and changes to the Species at Risk Act would not, in fact, hurt nature in this country any more than we have seen through recent decisions. This includes the Roberts Bank expansion in the Port of Vancouver, which will surely hurt those very same southern resident killer whales.
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