Hon. Yuen Pau Woo: Honourable senators, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the first report of the Standing Joint Committee for the Scrutiny of Regulations, which deals with the work of the committee and other matters.

(For text of report, see today’s Journals of the Senate, p. 430-1.)

Hon. Yuen Pau Woo moved second reading of Bill S-6, An Act respecting regulatory modernization.

He said: Honourable senators, I’m pleased to be the sponsor of Bill S-6, An Act respecting regulatory modernization, and to speak to it at second reading.

Bill S-6 has been introduced in this chamber so that we can thoroughly study it on behalf of Canadians. I’d like to thank all of you in advance for your wise counsel on this bill, and I look forward to our collective deliberations.

[Translation]

Businesses are the backbone of Canada’s economic success. They create the goods, services and wealth that have made our country so prosperous. As we emerge from the pandemic and look ahead to the economic recovery, Bill S-6 will help Canadian businesses by ensuring that the regulatory system evolves to keep pace with changing technologies and that it reflects today’s realities.

[English]

This bill will make regulatory processes simpler and easier to navigate, moving paper-based or in-person processes online and ensuring Canadian regulations keep pace with international trends.

Specifically, Bill S-6 proposes to modify 29 acts through 46 amendments and it applies to 12 departments and agencies.

While the immediate impact of each proposal is relatively modest, all the proposals aim to eliminate legislative irritants and to reduce the overall administrative burden that have become barriers to innovation and economic growth. What’s more, all of the proposals are cost-neutral and the associated risks are low to non-existent.

Taken together, these amendments represent meaningful change to the federal regulatory system and the need for continued commitment to its modernization.

[Translation]

Before I get into the details, allow me to provide some information on how this bill came about.

[English]

To begin with, the process to modernize regulations is part of the mandate of the President of the Treasury Board of Canada. In her mandate letter from the Prime Minister, Minister Fortier is asked to continue regulatory reform efforts in collaboration with her cabinet colleagues. This includes improving transparency, reducing administrative burden and harmonizing regulations that maintain high safety standards and improve the competitiveness of Canadian businesses.

The bill is meant to be a recurring legislative mechanism that allows the federal government to address overly complicated, inconsistent or outdated requirements and to keep the regulatory system relevant and up-to-date. It is designed to address legislative challenges raised by businesses and all Canadians through consultations and targeted regulatory reviews. Business stakeholders, including the Economic Strategy Tables and the Advisory Council on Economic Growth, have emphasized the importance of regularized mechanisms in order to review and update Canada’s regulatory system.

In addition, the External Advisory Committee on Regulatory Competitiveness, made up of business, academic and consumer stakeholders, has recommended that there be continued efforts to reduce the administrative burden of regulations and to ensure that they are “future proofed,” which means keeping pace with changing technologies and business realities.

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.

The bill does just that, and it also helps address irritants in regulatory processes, ensuring that our regulatory system evolves with the times.

This bill is a key part of the government’s plan to improve the regulatory system. Initiatives supporting regulatory reform were announced in four successive budgets beginning in 2017. In the 2018 Fall Economic Statement, the government announced that starting in 2019, it would introduce annual legislation to ensure that the regulatory system evolves with changing technologies and reflects the current realities, challenges and opportunities faced by business.

Accordingly, the Budget Implementation Act 2019, No. 1 included a regulatory modernization component that modified 12 pieces of legislation. That bill included measures to digitize paper-based processes; enable innovation through regulatory sandboxes that allow exceptions from certain regulatory requirements to test new products; and to make rule changes in consideration of zero-emission vehicles.

The current Bill S-6 would have arrived in Parliament sooner but for the COVID-19 pandemic. It was, however, foreshadowed in Budget 2021 in which the government committed to table in Parliament the second Annual Regulatory Modernization Bill, which is Bill S-6.

Let me now turn to some of the key amendments proposed in this bill.

There is a change, for example, to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency Act that would allow the CFIA to deliver services and for businesses to interact with the agency using electronic means rather than having to rely solely on paper-based transactions. This will reduce the administrative burden for businesses and allow them greater flexibility in their interactions with government.

In addition, there are amendments to the Canada Transportation Act that would allow for new mechanisms to integrate changes more quickly to international safety standards. This would ensure that our transportation sectors are meeting the most up-to-date safety standards, keeping pace with changes in technology and innovation. The Standards Council of Canada, on whose board I served for a number of years, examined 34 Transport Canada regulations in 2021 and found that 41% of the standards referenced in those regulations are outdated.

There are also 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 would support collaboration between federal departments, provinces and territories and enable faster processing of applications to address labour market needs. Did you know that 50% of permanent residency applicants already have temporary residency applications approved and, hence, have already provided much of the information needed for their PR applications? This is not trivial, because some forms require the applicants to address more than 100 questions.

There are other amendments, for example, to the Canada Business Corporations Act, the Canada Not-for-profit Corporations Act and the Canada Cooperatives Act to simply change the term “annual return” so that it doesn’t create confusion to stakeholders.

Colleagues, if you are thinking what could be so confusing about the term “annual return” and asking yourself if it isn’t just the tax return that companies have to file every year, the answer is that it is not. If you figured that they were one and the same, you would be among the thousands of Canadian business owners who have been confused by this nomenclature.

In fact, the annual return that is referenced in the Corporations Act and related acts is not the same as the tax return that is administered by the CRA. Rather, it is an annual submission to provide updated information about the entity, shareholders, directors and officers. Not filing this information for a number of years can result in a company being dissolved, as well as expenses to revive the company.

A simple, possibly innocent, error due to confusing nomenclature can result in significant consequences, and the proposed amendment in Bill S-6 seeks to eliminate the likelihood of such errors.

Adding clarity through these amendments would reduce the risk of active corporations becoming dissolved because they did not file.

I would also mention the amendments to the Electricity and Gas Inspection Act to allow the use of different sampling methods to verify electric and gas meter measurements. Electric and gas meters are used by utility companies in residential and commercial properties to track energy usage for billing purposes. Allowing greater flexibility in the sampling and testing approach would help ensure that Measurement Canada — the agency responsible for regulation — only samples what is required to verify accurate readings, saving time and money.

There are also amendments to the Fisheries Act that would clarify that fisheries officers have the authority to use alternative measures in response to minor violations, which is an authority that was unclear in the existing legislation. This change could not only reduce the number of lengthy and costly court processes but also ensure that small violations don’t result in criminal records and the stigma and barriers that can come with it.

The use of such alternative measures has been supported by the fishing community and by Indigenous groups. In fact, all of the proposed amendments come from either the advice of multi-stakeholder groups that are involved in ongoing consultations or targeted regulatory reviews, or from the recommendations of our very own Standing Joint Committee for the Scrutiny of Regulations. I have been a member of the Scrutiny of Regulations Committee almost the entire time that I have served in the Senate, and I’m very pleased for the recognition that this bill gives to the important work of that committee.

Perhaps next time there is committee selection, there will be a rush of applicants to join the Scrutiny of Regulations Committee.

Since the amendments are both disparate and quite technical, I will not be able to address all of them in this speech nor likely even to address all of the questions you may have on very specific items in the bill, which is why I think the best place to study the specific amendments is in committee. I would encourage us to send the bill to the relevant committees as soon as possible so that they have sufficient time to do their work.

Honourable colleagues, these are just a few of the amendments included in the bill, but I think they give you a sense of the breadth and the potential impact of having it passed.

Looking ahead, the Treasury Board Secretariat is already considering proposals for the third Annual Regulatory Modernization Bill. A key theme of this next round of modernization will be how it might contribute to the response to COVID-19 and recovery efforts to that end. Businesses and all Canadian stakeholders will have the opportunity to share their views on improving the regulatory system. A consultation will take place this fall to collect ideas for potential amendments to be included in subsequent regulatory modernization bills.

Let me add that because this is meant to be an annual exercise with an Annual Regulatory Modernization Bill introduced each year, passing this Bill S-6 as a stand-alone bill will help establish a precedent for future bills and, I hope, establish the commitment that Parliament has to ongoing improvements to our regulatory system.

Colleagues, in addition to the Annual Regulatory Modernization Bill exercise, there are other ongoing initiatives to modernize our regulatory system. For example, there is a process of targeted regulatory reviews to reduce barriers to economic growth and competitiveness, and to advance novel regulatory approaches to support innovation.

Federal regulators are also implementing regulatory road maps for two rounds of reviews. Some of the areas of focus for these regulatory reviews have included agri-food and aquaculture, health and biosciences, transportation, clean technology and international standards to name just a few. Indeed, some of the changes proposed in Bill S-6 stem from the regulatory reviews that I just described.

There is also within government something called the Centre for Regulatory Innovation that promotes a whole-of-government approach to regulatory experimentation to support innovation and competitiveness, and help regulators and the regulatory system keep pace with technological advances.

Finally, Canada is actively engaging with partners in the United States and the EU, as well as with provinces and territories, to reduce unnecessary regulatory differences and eliminate duplicative requirements among jurisdictions.

Honourable senators, this bill is about modernizing Canada’s federal regulatory system. It seeks to make the system more efficient and less burdensome, while maintaining protections for consumers, health, safety and the environment. I look forward to working with all of you on this bill, and I hope we can soon send it to the committees for their detailed scrutiny of the proposed amendments.

Thank you.