I am thinking about small business as well in the context of this act. Some commentators have noted that will be difficult for people who are affected by regulations to stay on top of those regulations with the ease with which things can be incorporated by reference. There will be less scrutiny and, while things may be in legislation described as “accessible”, we have seen the Conservative government take labels off cans and say that they are now accessible on a website. We have already seen that under Bill C-38 pharmaceutical drugs will be maintained on a list as opposed to posted in the Canada Gazette for full regulation.

Is the member not just a little troubled that some of the people in business with whom he empathizes, and rightly so, could find themselves on the wrong side of a regulation about which they had much less notice because of Bill S-12?

Chris Warkentin: Mr. Speaker, Bill S-12 does exactly the opposite of what the member describes. In fact, the referencing of regulation happens as a normal practice within much legislation. It is a modern practice. It has been going on for years and years and it has become the regular practice.

What has not been codified within legislation is that it be accessible to those people who are regulated. Now there will be a requirement to do exactly what the hon. member is looking for,

which is first and foremost, and that it be understandable so it not be written in some format that is foreign to those people who are being regulated.

I can assure members that in this bill we go to great lengths to ensure those issues that the hon. member brings to the attention of the House as they relate to small business and those people being regulated.

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At that time the members of the joint committee said, “What this really means is that it allows rules to be imposed without having to go through the regulatory process”.

This is part and parcel of a number of changes we have seen happening, including in Bill C-60, where there would be intervention at the political level over collective bargaining by crown corporations or through more discretionary powers at the hands of ministers. Slowly but surely, the executive in this country—the Prime Minister’s Office, which is subservient to the will of Parliament—will have all the levers of power it needs to rule, with Parliament merely an anachronism.

Jinny Jogindera Sims: Mr. Speaker, that is the reason we are prepared to go to committee: to ask those tough questions and get the kind of clarification and put checks and balances in place so that government does not ram through a bill just because it has a majority, which the Conservatives will probably do anyway.

However, I believe it is our responsibility to go there, get the clarification for ourselves and try to limit the power of the executive so the Conservatives do not keep expanding that power.

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Unfortunately, I have no enthusiasm whatsoever, but great trepidation and concern that what appears to be innocent—incorporation by reference—will do serious damage to the scrutiny of regulations in this place.

There is a reason we do not say a law is passed and then incorporate by reference large swathes of changes that do not allow the average citizen to stay on top of what is happening to laws that affect them. On the contrary, this kind of change will undermine the ability of Canadian business to know what regulations apply to them and when they have been changed.

Yes, it is true that there are systems of government that are far more efficient than democracy, but the rule of law matters in democracies, and as benign as this bill sounds, it is a dangerous move.

I cannot support Bill S-12.

Dan Albas: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the member’s previous support of my changes to the Importation of Intoxicating Liquors Act.

One of the challenges we have is there is a not very well understood point that the House, Parliament, has sovereignty over what treaties it becomes part of to what standards are chosen.

As I said to the member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley, we have the choice, as legislators, to choose static or dynamic, depending upon what is in our best interest.

I would ask the member to keep an open mind and to visit the scrutiny of regulations committee to listen in. That committee does a very noble service by ensuring that when those statutes are translated into regulations, parliamentarians continue to scrutinize to ensure that not only are the regulations bona fide as per the statute, but that they are not unreasonably burdensome.

I would encourage the member to look at Bill S-12 as being more tools in the toolbox that would allow legislators like ourselves to decide what is in our national interest.

Bill S-12 is in our national interest based on those points.

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I also have this one concern. We accepted changes to pharmaceutical drug regulations in Bill C-38, which stated that pharmaceutical drugs were no longer added by regulation but could just be added by Health Canada through a list process, not through the Canada Gazette and not through routine regulations. We have to protect some of the more boring aspects of making laws in this place to protect the rights of Canadians.

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