Hon. Larry W. Smith: Honourable senators, I rise in my capacity as critic to speak to Bill S-6, An Act respecting regulatory modernization.

This bill’s stated objective is to amend or repeal provisions in various acts which have “become barriers to innovation and economic growth” and to add provisions to acts that encourage economic growth and innovation. More preciously, this bill proposes to modify 29 acts, with over 40 amendments, including amending the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act, the Electricity and Gas Inspection Act and the Fisheries Act, to name a few.

The proposed changes, seemingly minor and technical on the surface, would remove, as Senator Woo appropriately put, “legislative irritants” that increase the administrative burden not only for the government but for the private sector as well.

For example, Bill S-6 amends the Canada Lands Surveyors Act in order to streamline how the public registers complaints, as well as harmonizing the French and English versions of the act to ensure consistency of language.

Like Senator Woo, I will not have the time to captivate the chamber by addressing every single amendment, as time would not permit it. This is why I believe further and more detailed study of this bill at the various committees is warranted.

Colleagues, regulations play a critical part in protecting Canadians and the environment, acting as guidelines for businesses and consumers to ensure compliance with laws and remedying instances of non-compliance.

It may come as a surprise to many just how regulated our lives are, from the homes we live in, to the cars we drive, to the products we use, to the services we demand, to the food we consume, to the content we watch. Regulations play an important role in protecting our safety and that of our surroundings.

A quick glance at the Canada Consumer Product Safety Act, which is designed to protect the public by addressing or preventing threats associated with consumer products, will reveal nearly 40 different regulations listed. These regulations include children’s jewellery, cribs, window coverings, glass doors, kettles, mattresses, hockey helmets and even glazed ceramics and glassware. In many of these cases, regulations are crucial; without them, we are risking the health and safety of Canadians.

Nevertheless, there are bad and obsolete regulations, and they come at a cost to productivity, competitiveness and efficiency. Burdening businesses and consumers with outdated, ineffective and costly regulations creates unnecessary administrative expenses.

For example, businesses needing to comply with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency Act must, according to the act, provide communications with the agency using paper-based transactions. That is right. In 2022, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency is administering and enforcing the act using paper. Luckily, Bill S-6 amends the Canadian Food Inspection Agency Act, eliminating the need for paper-based transactions and allowing the agency to administer and enforce the act electronically.

It is precisely these types of outdated and, frankly, slow regulatory processes that decrease the competitiveness of Canadian businesses but also make it harder for foreign companies to invest here.

Making regulation a competitive advantage, a 2019 Deloitte report on the state of regulations, underscored Canada’s regulatory environment as a core weakness. This sentiment was shared by the World Bank as it ranked Canada twenty-third on its ease of doing business index in 2019, having fallen 18 spots since 2006. Additionally, the World Economic Forum ranked Canada fifty-third out of 140 countries concerning the burden of government regulation.

Finally, according to the Organisation for Economic Co‑operation and Development’s product market regulation database, in 2019 Canada demonstrated a worse performance than its OECD and non-OECD peers respecting business operations regulations.

Canada was also reported to have been half as competitive as the OECD average with respect to the administrative burdens on start-up companies. Examples of this include the length of time as well as the costs associated with licences and permit application approvals.

Colleagues, given our regulatory track record, it is not hard to imagine that Canada is not the most attractive country for foreign investment.

The Foreign Direct Investment Regulatory Restrictiveness Index is an OECD database that measures the restrictiveness of government regulations relating to foreign investment across various sectors. According to this index, Canada measured more restrictive overall to foreign investment than all OECD countries except Mexico, Iceland and New Zealand in 2020.

Subsequent data from the World Bank suggests Canada’s net inflows of foreign direct investment as a per cent of GDP remained at 1.6% in 2020 — below countries like Sweden, Germany and Spain, which rank as less restrictive to foreign investment.

However, in my conversations with officials from the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat, and in listening to Senator Woo, I am encouraged to learn that there are supplementary regulatory revision exercises running in parallel to the legislative review in Bill S-6.

In addition to committing to tabling yearly legislative reviews like Bill S-6, there are regulatory reviews under way internally within the federal public service. According to the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat, departments and agencies have been mandated to develop road maps for reviewing, updating and cleaning up regulations that fall within their purview.

Additionally, the government made note of collaborations with provinces and territories under the Regulatory Reconciliation and Cooperation Table to harmonize regulations between the federal government and the provinces and territories.

Finally, there are several bilateral and multilateral forums on regulatory cooperation that the government is engaged in, committing to work on the very issues which obstruct investment.

Collectively, all of these initiatives set ambitious targets for the federal government. It is our job to ensure that the government is executing on these targets. We must, as a chamber of sober second thought, continually review and hold the government to account in this regard.

Bill S-6 is a small but positive step in the right direction, which is why I believe sending it to committee for further analysis will generate positive discussions and provide senators the opportunities to collaborate in addressing some of the regulatory processes which are holding back productivity, efficiency and economic growth.

Thank you, all.