Browse regulations

Regulation establishes two marine protected areas in Bonavista Bay, Newfoundland, prohibiting disturbance of marine organisms and their habitats with limited exceptions for Aboriginal fishing, public safety, and approved scientific/educational activities requiring environmental assessments.

The regulation imposes top-down restrictions on marine resource use that could be better achieved through property rights, voluntary conservation easements, or market-based fisheries management. The prohibition on activities that might disturb habitat creates regulatory uncertainty and prevents mutually beneficial uses that could be sustainable. The permit system for scientific research adds bureaucratic barriers to knowledge generation. Without clear evidence that command-and-control protection is superior to incentive-based approaches, this regulation likely destroys wealth and liberty while achieving conservation goals less efficiently.

The regulation establishes the Basin Head Marine Protected Area with three zones, broadly prohibiting activities that disturb marine organisms or their habitat, while permitting specific fishing, limited vessel transit, infrastructure maintenance, emergencies, and requiring ministerial approval for scientific/educational activities.

It imposes unnecessary restrictions on property rights and economic activity, creates bureaucratic hurdles for research, duplicates existing environmental laws, and its unseen consequences include reduced supply, higher costs, and stifled innovation, outweighing uncertain conservation benefits that could be achieved by less restrictive means.

A set of 27 regulatory sections (likely from the Canadian Environmental Protection Act or similar framework) that were repealed by SOR/2010-83, section 38. The original purpose and mechanisms are not provided in the document, but they have been officially removed from the regulations.

This regulation is already repealed and therefore obsolete. The repeal suggests these sections were either ineffective, unnecessary, or counterproductive. Keeping repealed sections on the books creates confusion, legal uncertainty, and wastes administrative resources. There is no public interest in resurrecting provisions that Parliament or the Governor in Council has already determined should be removed.

Regulates financial institution compliance with Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions Act, classifying violations and setting penalty tiers based on institution size

Creates compliance burdens that suppress private financial alternatives, increase costs for consumers, and distort market incentives without demonstrably improving financial stability beyond what market competition could achieve. The tiered penalty structure penalizes smaller institutions disproportionately, hindering their ability to compete and innovate, which contradicts principles of economic liberty and market-driven prosperity.

Order providing remission of customs duties, excise taxes, and GST for goods imported temporarily for the 2005 IAAF World Half Marathon Championships in Edmonton, applicable to athletes, officials, foreign corporate sponsors, and the organizing committee.

Obsolete: event-specific and time-limited to 2005. Keeping it would unnecessarily clutter statute books, risk misapplication, and waste administrative resources for a dead letter. Even if current, it would be flawed as a discriminatory tax subsidy that distorts competitive neutrality, encourages rent-seeking, and assumes improper government role in facilitating private events.

Defines 'settler' for customs tariff purposes, establishing residency criteria and exceptions for temporary workers, students, and preclearance personnel. Includes repeal provision and coming-into-force clause.

This regulation provides essential clarity for customs classification and tax treatment of imported goods by settlers. Without it, border officials would lack consistent criteria for determining who qualifies for duty-free entry, potentially creating arbitrary decisions and revenue loss. The exceptions for temporary workers, students, and preclearance personnel reflect practical realities of modern migration patterns while maintaining the core principle that permanent residents deserve different treatment than temporary visitors.

Regulation establishes advance ruling system for tariff classification of imported goods under the Customs Act. Specifies applicant qualifications (importers, authorized persons, foreign exporters/producers), 120-day application deadline, language requirements, officer discretion for supplementary information, consistency obligations, written decision requirements, effective dates, Ministerial binding conditions, postponement/declining grounds, modification/revocation procedures with retroactive effect in certain cases, notice requirements, and good faith reliance protections.

Canadians would be worse off without this regulation because advance rulings provide essential legal certainty for international trade. Businesses need to know tariff classifications before importing to budget duties, avoid border disruptions, and plan supply chains. The binding nature on the Minister and good faith reliance protections create predictable commercial environment. Deleting this would increase uncertainty, border delays, and disputes, raising costs for Canadian businesses and consumers. While the underlying tariff system itself may be suboptimal, this administrative mechanism reduces transaction costs and facilitates legitimate trade.

This regulation requires manufacturers and importers of microorganisms to provide advance notification (30-120 days) with extensive scientific data about the organism's characteristics, environmental fate, ecological effects, and human health impacts. Different information requirements apply based on containment level, whether the organism is indigenous to the target ecozone, and intended use (contained use, experimental field studies, etc.). It establishes assessment timelines for government review and maintains record-keeping requirements.

The regulation imposes certain, immediate costs through substantial compliance burdens, administrative delays that stifle innovation, and extensive data-gathering requirements that create formidable barriers to entry, particularly for smaller firms. These interventionist constraints distort incentives, reduce supply of beneficial microorganisms and research, and protect established incumbents at the expense of consumers and innovation. Genuine environmental and health risks can be adequately addressed through tort law, property rights enforcement, and market-based liability mechanisms—not preemptive bureaucratic permission. The speculative benefits of preventing rare catastrophic releases are outweighed by the certain, pervasive costs of regulating all activity, including the vast majority that would cause no harm.

This regulation requires manufacturers and importers to notify the Minister before exceeding quantity thresholds for new chemicals and polymers, submitting detailed toxicity testing data and other information to assess whether the substance is toxic under CEPA. Different thresholds trigger different information requirements (100kg, 1000kg, 10,000kg, 50,000kg), with assessment timelines of 30-75 days for the ministers. The regulation includes exemptions for research/development substances, site-limited intermediates, export-only substances, and reduced regulatory requirement polymers.

This regulation imposes significant compliance costs, delays market entry (30-75 days), and creates barriers to innovation, particularly for small businesses. The required toxicity testing (28-day repeated-dose studies, genotoxicity tests) is expensive and often uses animal testing, violating principles of liberty and property. The quantity thresholds create arbitrary distinctions and the complex reporting requirements add substantial administrative burden. Environmental protection can be achieved more efficiently through strong property rights, tort law, and post-market liability for actual harm, allowing innovation to flourish while holding polluters accountable without pre-approval regimes that assume guilt until proven safe.

Temporary order (90 days) that suspends Competition Act constraints for parties negotiating a settlement of a port trucking dispute. Mandates Vancouver and Fraser River Port Authorities to establish licensing systems requiring trucks to be signatories to a specific 2005 agreement and accept its arbitration process, effectively forcing all port-access truckers into that cartel arrangement.

This regulation sanctions anti-competitive collusion by suspending competition laws and using public port authorities to enforce a private cartel agreement. It excludes independent truckers from accessing ports unless they join the designated cartel, harming consumers through higher costs and reduced supply. The solution to a disruption should never be to legally empower industry collusion at the expense of competition and liberty.

Regulation establishes mandatory reporting requirements for goods exported from Canada. Exporters, carriers, and customs service providers must report exports in writing at designated customs offices with varying timelines based on transport method (48 hours for vessels, 2 hours for aircraft/mail/rail, immediate for other means). Certain goods are exempt (personal effects, low-value commercial goods under $2,000, specific conveyances, returned goods, etc.). Restricted goods require additional compliance evidence. Monthly reporting option available for authorized bulk/homogeneous goods. Officers can require reporting on suspicion of illegal export.

These reporting requirements enable legitimate government functions: customs enforcement, statistical data collection, compliance with export controls on restricted goods, and prevention of illicit trade. The burden appears minimal and proportionate, with reasonable timelines and sensible exemptions for low-value and routine shipments. Unlike regulations that restrict supply or create barriers, these are transparent administrative requirements that facilitate, rather than impede, international trade. Removing them would impair border security, trade statistics, and enforcement of existing export restrictions, harming Canadians through increased illicit trade and loss of trade data needed for policy decisions.

Regulation sections 1-3 are marked as repealed by SOR/2016-93, s. 2. The original text and purpose are not provided in the excerpt.

Already repealed; the regulation is obsolete. Original flaws likely included unnecessary regulatory burden with no current public benefit.

Regulation prescribes exact chemical formulations and mixing proportions for denatured alcohol and specially denatured alcohol, specifying denaturants like methanol, denatonium benzoate, and various essential oils; it references external standards for gasoline/naphtha characteristics and requires thorough mixing to render spirits unfit for human consumption for tax purposes.

Overly prescriptive chemical formulas stifle innovation and adaptability in denaturing methods, impose arbitrary compliance costs, and ignore that the tax base could be protected through a simple performance standard (e.g., 'alcohol must be rendered unfit for consumption') letting industry choose the safest, cheapest means; the regulation also entrenches specific chemical mixtures that may become outdated or hazardous without review.

Regulation governs snare permits for snowshoe hare in Gros Morne National Park, limiting eligibility to permanent residents of 14 specific Newfoundland communities who resided in the park/community on August 13, 1973, or their children. It requires permits, prescribes specific methods (wire snares only, natural bait, 7.5cm tree trunk limit), sets quotas and area restrictions, and includes extensive reporting, enforcement, suspension, and revocation provisions.

Imposes substantial unseen costs: exclusion of willing participants creates artificial scarcity; bureaucratic overhead of permits, detailed reporting, and inspections wastes resources; prescriptive method rules stifle innovation and may not be optimal; enforcement expenses burden taxpayers; prohibition on permit transfer eliminates market efficiency. Conservation goals could be achieved more efficiently with open, outcome-based rules (e.g., simple bag limits and area closures open to all), maintaining ecological integrity without exclusion or micromanagement.

This regulation governs timber harvesting in Gros Morne National Park, restricting it to a permit system limited to permanent residents of specific Newfoundland communities who meet 1973 residency/age criteria. Permits are non-transferable, limit timber use to personal dwellings/fishing or commercial boat-building in Rocky Harbour, and impose extensive operational restrictions including seasonal limitations, buffer zones, equipment requirements, and species protections.

This regulation creates an artificial monopoly by restricting participation to a grandfathered class based on an arbitrary 1973 cutoff, violating fundamental principles of economic liberty and equal treatment. It prevents willing buyers and sellers from engaging in mutually beneficial trade, artificially constrains supply, and entrenches incumbent interests at the expense of newcomers and park users who value timber resources. The preservation goals could be achieved more efficiently through market-based mechanisms like competitive permit auctions with sustainable yield limits, broader eligibility, and tradable rights that would internalize conservation costs while maximizing economic welfare.