Browse regulations

Establishes the exact boundaries of Long Point National Wildlife Area in Ontario via detailed parcel descriptions, creating a federally protected wildlife area.

Government land-use restrictions reduce property rights and economic flexibility, impose bureaucratic costs, and could be replaced by private conservation or provincial protections; the lost opportunity cost of forbidding productive land use outweighs the conservation benefits.

Grants remission of customs duties and associated sales tax on laminated glass dinnerware imported after Jan 1, 1988, with claims required within two years of importation.

Deleting this order would reinstate duties on laminated glass dinnerware, increasing costs for consumers and importers and reducing trade. It directly offsets existing tariffs; achieving the same relief would require eliminating the underlying tariff entirely, a broader change unlikely through other means.

Tax remission order providing exemptions for foreign organizations holding meetings/conventions in Canada, covering convention materials, advertising matter, souvenirs, equipment, and official paraphernalia with various conditions and security requirements.

Creates regulatory burden, tax distortion favoring foreign organizations over domestic ones, and compliance costs for narrow economic impact. Wealth creation requires neutral tax systems rather than special exemptions that misallocate resources and encourage lobbying for preferential treatment.

Comprehensive safety regulations for commercial fishing vessels over 24.4m/150 tons, prescribing detailed construction standards, equipment requirements, stability calculations, and inspection mandates to be approved by the Board of Steamship Inspection.

Prescriptive design mandates inflate vessel costs, restrict innovation, and create barriers to entry that reduce fishing fleet supply and competitiveness. Safety outcomes can be achieved more efficiently through market mechanisms: marine insurers already impose risk-based requirements, classification societies provide voluntary certification, and liability law aligns incentives. The unseen costs of keeping this regulation include higher fish prices for consumers, fewer vessels and jobs in Canadian fisheries, and technology stagnation as operators cannot experiment with alternative designs that may be safer or more productive.

Remission order providing tax relief on imported coffins/caskets for specific funeral arrangements involving non-residents or remains imported from abroad

Creates unnecessary tax complexity and administrative burden for a narrow scenario. Funeral directors can already handle cross-border arrangements through existing customs procedures. The administrative costs of processing remission claims likely exceed any tax revenue collected, and the regulation creates a compliance burden without meaningful consumer benefit.

Fixes the pari-mutuel betting commission/take rate at 0.8% under the Criminal Code, controlling the amount operators can retain from the betting pool.

Price control distorts market incentives, reduces operator profitability, and limits competition and innovation, likely decreasing supply and quality of betting services. Voluntary transactions between consenting adults should determine pricing, not government decree.

Provides tax remission for air transportation tax on international flights that stop in Canada (limited to technical landings or passenger transfer stops), effectively exempting international transit from Canadian aviation tax to encourage use of Canadian airports as transfer hubs.

It's a targeted tax subsidy that distorts airline routing decisions, creates inefficiencies by diverting flights for tax advantages rather than market demand, and increases the tax burden on other Canadians to benefit specific industries. The free market would allocate international transit optimally without this intervention.

Mandates free distribution of Canadian statutes to government officials, judiciary, legislators, and foreign entities with reciprocal arrangements or special recommendations.

Ensures transparency and access to the law for those who must interpret, enforce, and create it. Without this, legal professionals and government officials would face unnecessary costs to access the very laws they administer, creating inefficiency and potential inequality in legal knowledge access.

A 1983 Order granting remission of customs duties and sales tax on airline guide catalogues specifically for Professional Courier Limited of Mississauga, Ontario, with a two-year claim window from importation date.

This is a narrow, obsolete corporate welfare measure from 1983 that picks one company for special tax treatment, distorting competition and violating equal application of law. It serves no public purpose and should have been temporary, not permanent. The costs: unfair market advantage, regulatory capture precedent, and complexity in tax code for zero social benefit.

Bilateral social security agreement with Jamaica that coordinates pension systems by totalizing contribution periods for eligibility, prevents double contributions for cross-border workers, ensures benefit portability across borders, and establishes administrative cooperation between the countries' social security institutions.

Deleting this agreement would penalize Canadians who worked in Jamaica by denying them earned benefits or subjecting them to double contributions. It elegantly resolves a coordination problem between sovereign systems that would be costly and complex to address piecemeal, respecting contributors' property rights while reducing administrative burdens for mobile workers.

Grants remission of additional customs duty on imported spirits, wine, or flavouring materials used for blending in Canadian distilleries, subject to Ministerial approval and documentation requirements.

Keeping this regulation imposes compliance costs on businesses and bureaucracy, distorts trade by arbitrarily favoring distillers over other importers, perpetuates protectionist duty structures, and grants discretionary power to ministers that invites rent-seeking. The remission process wastes resources on paperwork and verification while undermining a level playing field.

A bilateral social security agreement between Canada and Greece to coordinate pension benefits, allowing totalization of contribution periods and ensuring benefit portability between the two countries.

This agreement prevents double taxation of social security contributions and ensures Canadians and Greeks working across borders receive fair pension benefits. Deleting it would create administrative chaos and leave many people without retirement security.

Designates Sea Wolf Island (Nova Scotia) and Spiers Lake (Alberta) parcels as National Wildlife Areas, restricting land use for conservation through precise metes-and-bounds descriptions.

Restricts land supply for productive uses like housing and development, imposing opportunity costs and violating property rights. Private conservation through market mechanisms would be more efficient and responsive to actual demand for wildlife preservation.

Remission of customs duties on imported goods (excluding specific tariff items) used exclusively in producing components for certain Boeing, Douglas, and Lockheed aircraft models, applicable only to imports made between 1983-1985, with claims required within three years of importation.

This expired, targeted duty exemption creates an arbitrary market distortion by picking winners in the aerospace manufacturing sector. Hidden costs include cronyism, regulatory complexity, and unfair competitive advantages that misallocate capital away from more productive uses.

This 1982 order granted remission of customs duties on goods imported between March 30, 1980 and December 31, 1987 for use in manufacturing satellites and satellite subsystems intended for export, with exclusions for specific tariff items and a requirement that claims be filed within three years of importation.

The regulation is obsolete—its temporal scope ended on December 31, 1987, over 38 years ago. It no longer has legal effect and is irrelevant to current policy. The original subsidy distorts manufacturing incentives by privileging specific export-oriented industries rather than allowing market-driven competitiveness.