Hon. Pamela Wallin moved the adoption of the report.

She said: Honourable senators, as per rule 12-23(4), I wish to provide brief remarks on the Banking, Trade and Commerce Committee’s report on Bill S-6, An Act respecting regulatory modernization.

Three changes were made to the bill. First, the committee voted against Part 6, which proposed amendments to the Pest Control Products Act. The government requested, and the Standing Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry agreed, that Part 6 should be removed from the bill as Health Canada is currently conducting consultations regarding the modernization of that statute.

Second, two amendments were made to Part 8, which proposed amendments to the Department of Citizenship and Immigration Act and the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. These amendments would incorporate suggestions made by the Privacy Commissioner to the Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology to clarify that there are written agreements in place that guide the exchange of information between Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada and other entities. Officials indicated that having a written agreement is currently a policy requirement, but amendments would codify this requirement in law.

Colleagues, overall, the committee found that our time to look at Bill S-6 was too short. During the Banking Committee’s pre‑study of the bill, our non-governmental witnesses were dissatisfied with the limited or non-existent consultation on the proposed regulatory changes directly affecting them.

During the Banking Committee’s study of the full bill, other committee chairs who were assigned pre-studies of the bill testified before the committee. They shared similar sentiments from their witnesses on the limited consultation process and on the short amount of time their committees were given to consider their divisions of the bill.

Overall, colleagues, we believe that the regulatory modernization review process must occur differently. That being said, based on the testimony heard, the committee still supports the overall intent of Bill S-6 and believes that regulatory modernization of legislation must occur more quickly and on a much wider scale than what was proposed in the bill.

Our committee suggests that the government consider the following measures in order to improve and accelerate federal regulatory modernization: introducing an economic and competitive lens for regulations; measuring the quantity and overall cost of regulations; setting targets for regulatory reduction that apply to all federal legislation, regulations and policies and examining whether certain streamlined measures that were introduced during COVID-19 should be continued.

We believe that these are important steps to undertake immediately, especially given that the government has signalled their intent to undertake this type of regulatory modernization on an annual basis. Thank you.

Hon. Pamela Wallin, Chair of the Standing Senate Committee on Banking, Trade and Commerce, presented the following report:

Tuesday, June 14, 2022

The Standing Senate Committee on Banking, Trade and Commerce has the honour to present its

THIRD REPORT

Your committee, to which was referred Bill S-6, An Act respecting regulatory modernization, has, in obedience to the order of reference of April 28, 2022, examined the said bill and now reports the same with the following amendments:

1.Delete clauses 132 to 152, pages 54 to 73.

2.Clause 159, page 76: Add the following after line 1:

“and under a written agreement or arrangement that defines the elements of personal information, the purpose for disclosure, any limits on secondary use and onward transfer of personal information, and other relevant details,”.

3.Clause 160, page 77: Replace line 8 with the following:

“for the purposes of cooperation, where such disclosure would be made under a written agreement or arrangement that defines the elements of personal information, the purpose for disclosure, any limits on secondary use and onward transfer of personal information, and other relevant details.”.

Your committee has also made certain observations, which are appended to this report.

Respectfully submitted,

PAMELA WALLIN

Chair

(For text of observations, see today’s Journals of the Senate, p. 712.)