Senator Batters: Senator Woo, thank you for that. However, my question remains unanswered.

Perhaps you can answer this: Is this the first regulatory statute of this type from the Trudeau government during its six and a half years in power? If not, how many have there been? How many meetings did your committee have during the last parliamentary session, given that we are already several months into this session and we just had the first meeting?

Senator Woo: We call this the second Annual Regulatory Modernization Bill. The first one was part of the 2019 Budget Implementation Act. It was embedded within that bill but clearly spelled out as the first set of regulatory modernization activities. The short answer is that this is number two.

Insofar as Scrutiny of Regulations Committee meetings during the last Parliament, I believe we had one substantive meeting. The reasons are well known to all of us. It was lower in the pecking order in terms of priority time slots for committees to meet. Being a joint committee made it more complicated. There were delays in the nomination of the joint chair on the other side and, of course, there was a short parliamentary session.

However, as I mentioned, we now have some runway. With a bit of luck, we can get five meetings in before the end of June, and we hope to get a lot done.

Hon. Denise Batters: Senator Woo, I actually had the privilege of being the joint chair of the Scrutiny of Regulations Committee in 2014 and 2015, prior to that election. I was a member for a couple of years before that, from the time that I came to the Senate. I certainly know and understand that it is a very important committee where this type of technical work gets done.

Stemming from my work for the Government of Saskatchewan, I saw it as a real benefit to have these types of regulatory statutes, which are brought forward quite often — in Saskatchewan, generally they try to do this every year or two — where they tidy up these regulations and statutes. When I was joint chair, I suggested strongly that this be done by the federal government to ensure these types of corrections to statutes can be made in a timely way.

However, I don’t think that has happened. Since the Trudeau government has been in power, I’m not sure how many times these types of regulatory statutes have been tidied up. Could you please answer that question?

Just yesterday the Scrutiny of Regulations Committee had its first meeting of this parliamentary session, already several months into it. Has that also been a problem, that we haven’t had many Scrutiny of Regulations meetings? We used to have them every two weeks when I was joint chair.

Senator Woo: Thank you, Senator Batters, for the question. Let me start with the question about the committee’s constitution.

We did, in fact, meet yesterday for the first time in this Parliament. I’m honoured to have been elected joint chair, together with MP Blake Richards from the House of Commons. We will meet every two weeks now until we rise for the summer and we hope to get as much work done as possible.

Some of the work of the Scrutiny of Regulations Committee can translate into immediate change on the part of the government if it doesn’t require a change in legislation. You will know, since you were a former joint chair, that a number of the requests the committee has made to departments pointing out errors in their drafting of regulations has resulted in their making the changes. Sometimes it’s like pulling teeth, you will remember. That kind of progress can be made without, in fact, changing the acts.

Of course, if errors spotted by the Scrutiny of Regulations Committee require changes in legislation, then we are into this kind of process here. Indeed, Bill S-6 contains at least a dozen measures that derive directly from the direct or indirect advice of the committee. I would be happy to provide more information on what specific advice was given. Those of us who have served on this committee should take pride that our observations in the committee — with the blessing of this chamber and the House — will result in changes to legislation.

However, Bill S-6 is much more than just cleaning up of regulations and laws based on the comments of the Scrutiny of Regulations Committee. The majority of changes in Bill S-6 derive from either the regulatory review process that is held with business and consumer stakeholder groups, which Senator Quinn referred to, or they derive from targeted Regulatory Reviews that the government has launched in particular sectors.

We have three streams of material that have fed into Bill S-6. We have the work of the Scrutiny of Regulations Committee, often of a technical nature and to do with the integrity of the bill; we have the regulatory review consultation process with stakeholders and, finally, we have the targeted Regulatory Reviews that are led by departments.