Canadians will be expected to make sacrifices to build up national defence, Prime Minister Mark Carney said yesterday. Carney reiterated a pledge he reneged on last year to spend 2 percent of GDP on military preparedness: “Can you outline what sacrifices?”
Pay and benefits averaged more than $143,000 per federal employee last year, the Budget Office said yesterday. It was “historically high,” wrote analysts: “An employee can have seven levels of management above them.”
Cabinet spent more than $18 million refitting an Italian office to showcase “Canada’s efforts to combat climate change,” Access To Information records show. The spending on a consulate in Milan was approved at the same time cabinet claimed to cut unnecessary spending: “How do you convince Canadians that you are serious about this?”
Buried in the federal government’s 600-page Bill C-15 is a provision that gives cabinet ministers discretionary power to exempt a company or individual from any act of Parliament for a three-year period, except for the Criminal Code, for the purposes of what’s called a “regulatory sandbox.”
The provision is proposed under amendments to the Red Tape Reduction Act, legislation that was first passed under the Stephen Harper government in 2015.
Regulatory sandboxes are a tool used by federal regulators that allow industry to demonstrate the real-life impacts of a new product or service in the marketplace under a temporary set of rules and controlled by regulatory supervision.
The exemptions in question could be given by a minister if they are within the public interest, the benefits outweigh the risks and “would enable the testing of, among other things, a product, service, process, procedure or regulatory measure with the aim of facilitating the design, modification or administration of a regulatory regime to encourage innovation, competitiveness or economic growth.”
The exemptions have been the subject of criticism from opposition parties and Canadian civil, legal, and environmental groups, who call the provision the “King Henry the VIII” clause, “draconian” and “offensive” to democratic institutions.
Earlier this month, Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne defended the measures, which he said were a key ask by innovators, particularly in the tech sector.
But the Canadian Civil Liberties Association said the original language in the bill suggests the powers would go beyond just regulatory sandboxes.
“It does not streamline regulation,” said Anaïs Bussières McNicoll, director of the fundamental freedoms program at CCLA. “It applies to almost every piece of federal legislation and regulation, and it truly dynamites the rule of law itself by creating a two-tier legislative system whereby laws debated and enacted by Parliament can be suspended for political convenience with little to no accountability or transparency.”
That's the plan.
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