I'm reading the BIA Part 1. What, you're not?

FML - It's Saturday night and here I am...

A smart and wise friend sent over a link to Althia Raj’s piece in the Toronto Star and it’s a Saturday night, and while I got alotta’ people (thanks Sam Cooke), now here I am reading legislation... Where did I go wrong in life???

This time it’s the Budget Implementation Act, Part 1. Welcome, fellow nerds!

This bill is not a total waste. But it has problems. I give it a maybe 6…7…

The bill does revive the provisions of the Fall Economic Statement in 2024 that would have made the new Canada Disability Benefit exempt from taxation. This is important. As some of us argued at the time, taxing an income-tested benefit payable to some of our most vulnerable neighbours makes no sense, and would lead to a Kafkaesque spiral in which benefits paid are taxable and reduce eligibility for the program next year.

The bill also does impose new requirements on Canadian financial institutions (FIs) to develop, communicate and implement policies regarding fraud against their clients. The legislation also touches on the responsibilities of FI’s to get client consent before extending new services or credit, and I have to hope that this would mean BOTH accountholders in cases of joint accounts. Dear reader, maybe in some future post I will be able to explain to you the depths of how personally those issues are currently hitting home. In my private and offline life, I am learning so much more than I ever wanted to about the limits of our financial services system when it comes to dealings with clients in cognitive decline. Boomers, and Boomer men very specifically, I hold you responsible for a massive failure of imagination, anticipation and action to plan ahead for the system-wide gaps in meeting your own needs through the caregivers you take for granted. But that is a future post.

There is a key section in the Act that I would like to highlight, with big a hat-tip to Raj. I can’t keep up with it all, but TorStar caught this one, which it seems Parliamentarians haven’t, and that should matter in reminding us of the important role of journalists in a democratic society.

Raj is right to warn Canadians about the potential impacts of a particular provision of the Implementation Act.

Specifically, Division 5 makes amendments to the Red Tape Reduction Act, a Harper-era piece of legislation that introduced a “one-for-one” requirement to reduce federal regulation. It’s been on the books since April 2015. Some of us have written about the rather mixed effects of that legislation and the conclusion, by federal reviewers, that the biggest gains for red tape reduction might be in the administrative burdens faced by private citizens, not businesses. The Budget legislation (C-15) adds a whole new section to that Act.

C-15 would amend the Red Tape Reduction Act to introduce a section premised on “Exemptions to to Encourage Innovation, Competitiveness or Economic Growth” (see C-15, Div 5, Part 2). The main thrust of these changes piggy-back on the existing legislative authorities of Cabinet (Governor in Council) to issue general directives on red tape reduction on regulations (ministerial, Treasury Board, or Cabinet) under the Red Tape Reduction Act, to exempt an entitity (defined in the bill as “an individual, a corporation, a partnership, an unincorporated association or organization and His Majesty in right of Canada or of a province”), from:

so long as “the minister is of the opinion that”:

But, a minister exercising this power must publish their decision and reasons, unless they don’t.

And, don’t worry, once a year, the President of the Treasury Board will table an annual report to Parliament to summarize who has been exempted from what and for how long:

Which the OGGO Committee (or other) will of course review after the fact and without any power to reverse a ministerial order, AFAICT.

The initial exemption order (under 12(1) of the Act) can be for a period of “not more than three years”, but can be extended (under 12(5)) for a “total period not exceeding six years”. Also, an initial order remains in place even if a testing period used to justify the exemption is wrapped up before the end of the initial order. For example, a clinical trial for a new drug is over, but the company running it maintains their ministerial exemption for the duration of the order.

Look, as I will say over and over and over again, we’re at economic war. We do need to do hard things and quickly. Others are saying the very same thing. At least the Build Canada Act had the transparency to offer greater clarity on the legislative intent and context for that intent. The proposed amendments to the Red Tape Reduction Act do no such thing. The government should be far more clear with Canadians in stating the risks it sees and the imperatives behind the legislative changes it is seeking.

I am writing this soon after watching the Canadian masterpiece Les Ordres, a fictionalized portrayal of the experiences of innocent residents in Montreal who were scooped up, detained and traumatized during police raids against the FLQ in 1970. The film was part of the REELPolitics Film Series (you should really check it out) and it closes with a scene over the snow-covered roofs of Montreal, warning that even small injuries to democratic norms can easily spread.

The threat is real. The full text of the budget bill isn’t terrible. And yet, there seems to be a poisoned pill that, once ingested, might affect many more organs of our democratic system.

As Raj points out, this seems at least something worth more parliamentary scrutiny than it has received.