Browse regulations

The Steel Derivative Goods Remission Order grants relief of surtaxes imposed under the Steel Derivative Goods Surtax Order for specific steel import categories. It provides remission for: (1) goods imported by healthcare, public health, public safety, and national security entities; (2) goods for medically necessary health care services; (3) specific goods listed in a detailed schedule; and (4) wind towers for offshore energy projects. Conditions include no other relief claim and a two-year limitation for claims. The schedule enumerates hundreds of specific steel products including cable-barrier components, bolts, studs, panels, grinding balls, and couplings.

This regulation perpetuates a flawed protectionist mechanism. The surtax itself distorts trade; creating targeted exemptions merely layers political favoritism onto a market distortion. Administrative complexity increases as officials must verify claimed uses. The government picking winners (healthcare users, defense contractors) over others (manufacturers, construction firms) via differential tax treatment undermines economic neutrality. While health and safety exemptions may seem compassionate, they cement a system where politically connected entities receive preferential treatment. Canadians would be better off with a genuinely free market in steel — no surtax and no exemptions — rather than this patchwork of targeted relief that rewards lobbying over efficiency.

These regulations establish a comprehensive pre-market approval and ongoing compliance framework for medical devices in Canada. They classify devices into Classes I-IV based on risk, require licensing for Classes II-IV (with extensive documentation and quality management system certifications), mandate detailed labeling in English and French, and grant the Minister broad powers to request information and order sales to stop. The system creates significant barriers to entry through complex application requirements, mandatory certifications, and pre-market approval processes.

The regulatory burden creates substantial barriers to entry, reduces competition, delays innovation, and increases costs without proportionate benefits. Pre-market approval and licensing presume government knows better than healthcare providers and patients what devices are safe and effective. Private standards, liability law, and professional oversight can achieve safety more efficiently. The compliance costs, particularly quality system certifications and extensive documentation, disproportionately harm smaller manufacturers and startups. The Minister's discretionary power to stop sales creates uncertainty and potential for regulatory capture. The 'unseen' costs are the beneficial devices never developed or reaching market due to regulatory delays and expenses, and the patients suffering from reduced access to innovative treatments. Canada's medical device sector would be more competitive and innovative under a simpler, post-market surveillance system focused on fraud and actual harm rather than pre-emptive approval.

The Canadian Aviation Regulations (CARs) govern all aspects of civil aviation in Canada, including aircraft airworthiness, pilot licensing, commercial air operations, air traffic control, and aerodrome standards. They implement the Aeronautics Act and fulfill international obligations under the Chicago Convention. Key mechanisms include certification requirements, operational rules, and safety standards.

Deletion would lead to unsafe skies, increased accidents, loss of international flight rights, and market collapse; the regulation achieves safety through enforceable, uniform standards that internalize externalities and coordinate complex airspace use in a way private governance cannot.

Defines terms and rules for Employment Insurance coverage, including which employments are insurable, how to calculate insurable hours, and when benefit eligibility begins.

Payroll taxes reduce employment and wages, create moral hazard by subsidizing unemployment, and impose bureaucratic compliance costs. The system replaces voluntary private arrangements with compulsory insurance, distorting labor market incentives and reducing economic dynamism.

Contraventions Act regulations establishing minor offence ticketing system for various federal regulations, with fine amounts and procedures for port authorities, national parks, wildlife, boating, and other federal jurisdictions.

Creates bureaucratic overhead and enforcement costs while duplicating existing criminal law. The fine-based ticketing system adds administrative complexity without addressing underlying issues, and many listed offences are trivial violations that don't warrant criminal-style enforcement.

Establishes a centrally planned quota system controlling turkey production and interprovincial/export trade. Provincial Commodity Boards assign federal quotas and specific allotments (breeder, broiler, hen, tom) to producers, capping total production based on schedule limits. Producers cannot market turkey across provinces or for export without a quota, and face reductions for exceeding allotments.

Artificially restricts supply, raising consumer prices and creating interprovincial trade barriers. The quota system acts as a licensing barrier to entry, concentrates economic rents among existing producers, and replaces the price mechanism with central planning—the classic knowledge problem Hayek warned of. This regulatory burden reduces competitiveness, distorts resource allocation, and contributes to the brain drain by protecting incumbents at the expense of market dynamism and affordability.

Comprehensive workplace safety regulations for oil and gas exploration, drilling, production, and transportation in Canada lands, covering structural safety, equipment standards, first aid, fire prevention, hazardous materials handling, and emergency procedures.

These regulations protect workers in high-risk oil and gas operations where accidents can cause catastrophic injuries, environmental damage, and loss of life. The safety standards prevent fires, explosions, structural failures, and other hazards specific to this industry. Repealing them would leave workers vulnerable to preventable workplace deaths and injuries in an inherently dangerous sector.

This regulation establishes quota systems for broiler hatching egg producers in signatory provinces, controlling interprovincial and export trade through allocated quotas administered by provincial commodity boards on behalf of a federal agency. It creates a supply management system that limits how many eggs producers can market in different trade channels.

This quota system creates artificial scarcity, raises prices for consumers, reduces competition, and prevents efficient market allocation of hatching eggs. The supply management approach distorts incentives, creates barriers to entry for new producers, and benefits incumbent producers at the expense of consumers and potential market entrants.

Regulation governing use of scheduled fishing/recreational harbours under the Fishing and Recreational Harbours Act. Establishes lease/licence terms (max 20 years), public access requirements, safety rules (dangerous goods, fires, vessel movement), infrastructure use controls, waste disposal, fee structures with exemptions for small fishing and government vessels, and enforcement via ticketing.

Without these rules, public harbour infrastructure would suffer from tragedies of the commons: unsafe conditions from unregulated dangerous goods and fires, navigation obstructions, property damage without accountability, inequitable access monopolization, and free-rider evasion of maintenance fees. The regulation provides proportional, property-rights-based management necessary for safe, orderly, and sustainable use of federal harbour assets.

This Order applies subsection 58(1) of the Species at Risk Act to the critical habitat of the Silver Chub (Macrhybopsis storeriana) in the Great Lakes – Upper St. Lawrence Populations, as identified in the recovery strategy. It extends habitat protection provisions of SARA to this endangered fish species' critical habitat.

This regulation imposes land-use restrictions on private property owners without compensation, creating barriers to productive use and development. It substitutes government decree for market-based conservation incentives, likely generating perverse outcomes such as reduced voluntary conservation and resource misallocation. The unintended costs include depressed property values, regulatory uncertainty, and potential hostility toward conservation goals rather than fostering them.

Grants remission of consular travel document fees for individuals who already received 100% fee remission under passport services fees regulations, creating a fee waiver for certain travel document applicants.

Creates unnecessary administrative complexity and fee tracking requirements without clear benefit. The fee remission system adds bureaucratic overhead for both applicants and government, while the cost of processing these fee waivers likely exceeds any revenue collected. Simplifies by eliminating redundant fee structures.

Temporary two-year fee remission for passport services, waiving adjustments made under specific sections of the Passport and Other Travel Document Services Fees Regulations as they read on April 1, 2023.

Creates unnecessary regulatory complexity for a temporary measure that could be administered through simpler executive action; distorts transparent pricing signals and sets precedent for ad-hoc fee interventions that bypass proper fee-setting processes.

The Canada Pension Plan (CPP) Regulations define terms and establish administrative procedures for the CPP, including contribution calculations, payment schedules, and reporting requirements for employers and employees.

The CPP provides retirement, disability, and survivor benefits to millions of Canadians. Without this regulation, there would be no standardized system for collecting contributions or administering these essential social insurance programs that many Canadians rely on for financial security.

Comprehensive federal regulations governing Old Age Security benefits including eligibility, application procedures, payment calculations, residency requirements, and administrative processes for Canada's pension system.

Creates complex administrative bureaucracy, imposes costly compliance requirements on beneficiaries, restricts private retirement alternatives, and distorts market incentives for retirement savings - all while failing to account for unintended consequences of centralized pension planning.

Regulations governing advance payments under the Agricultural Marketing Programs Act, including definitions, criteria for related producers, prescribed product values and processing standards, security requirements, default procedures, and monetary limits for guarantees and advances.

This subsidy program uses taxpayer funds to distort agricultural markets, creates moral hazard by socializing losses, and undermines private credit markets. The benefits accrue to specific producers while costs are diffused, violating principles of limited government and voluntary exchange. Private insurance and banking arrangements can replace these guarantees without regulatory burden.