Hon. Marty Klyne: Senator Moreau, I’m hearing questions in Saskatchewan about the government’s proposal to expand executive powers in Bill C-15. This proposal is in the budget bill, currently in Senate pre-study.

The questions concern Division 5 of Part 5 of the bill being studied by our Finance Committee. This measure would empower ministers to grant exemptions to any federal regulation or act of Parliament — except the Criminal Code — to individuals or organizations to test new ways to “. . . encourage innovation, competitiveness or economic growth.” Althia Raj raised questions about this measure in the Toronto Star on December 6.

Senator, this seems like a very broad application of executive power in terms of overriding laws for anything innovative. Could you please comment on the thinking behind and goals of this measure?

Hon. Pierre Moreau (Government Representative in the Senate): Yes. The measure concerns what we call sandboxes. Regulatory sandboxes are spaces where the government allows innovative ideas or technologies to be safely tested for a limited time — I underline “limited time” — without applying all the usual rules. This helps the government see how these innovations work in practice and identify obstacles to their adoption.

Bill C-15 would make the development of sandboxes simpler and more uniform by giving ministers the power to grant exemptions without having to change each law separately until we know if innovations are properly working.

Senator Klyne: Thank you. There seems to be some reasonableness behind what you said, but this proposal is similar to a change made in Bill C-5, a government bill, to allow executive overrides of many federal laws for major projects. In that case, the House of Commons made amendments to reduce the number of laws that can be overridden. If senators have such amendments in this case, would the government be open to seriously considering these suggestions?

Senator Moreau: I must mention that the government also published a new policy on regulatory sandboxes that specifies the conditions for using sandboxes, namely consultation to increase transparency.

Of course, the government is always open to good suggestions. If you have some, you can count on me to relay those suggestions to the minister responsible.