Browse regulations

A technical regulation that defines 'prescribed purpose' for GST/HST purposes in the context of corporate amalgamations and windings-up, referencing numerous sections of the Excise Tax Act that the regulation applies to.

Provides necessary legal clarity for GST/HST treatment during corporate reorganizations; deleting would create uncertainty and disputes in routine business amalgamations and windings-up, increasing compliance costs without any benefit.

Regulation prescribes special GST/HST rules for provincial lottery and gaming authorities (crown corporations), establishing complex net tax calculations that separate gaming from non-gaming activities and provide imputed tax credits and preferential treatment.

Entrenches government gaming monopolies with preferential tax treatment, distorting markets and blocking private competition. Adds tax code complexity that increases compliance costs. Unseen costs: lost innovation, higher prices, and misallocation of capital toward maintaining monopolies rather than productive enterprise.

This regulation lists copyright collectives and licensing agencies that are prescribed for GST/HST purposes under the Excise Tax Act, allowing them to collect and remit taxes on behalf of their members for copyright royalties and licensing fees.

This regulation creates unnecessary bureaucratic overhead by mandating specific copyright collectives for tax purposes, which distorts the market for copyright licensing and creates artificial barriers to entry for new licensing organizations. The market for copyright licensing would function more efficiently without government-mandated tax collection intermediaries.

Regulation restricts phosphorus content in cleaning products to prevent water pollution, requires laboratory testing accreditation, and mandates record-keeping for manufacturers and importers of phosphorus-containing cleaning products.

Phosphorus restrictions create unnecessary compliance costs and market distortions while the environmental benefits are questionable given modern wastewater treatment. The regulation suppresses consumer choice, increases prices, and imposes bureaucratic burdens on businesses without clear evidence of significant environmental improvement over alternative approaches.

Specifies that Bank of Canada banknotes must be issued in denominations of $5, $10, $20, $50, and $100, and must bear facsimile signatures of the Governor and Deputy Governor (or another Deputy Governor if the primary is unavailable).

Deletion risks arbitrary denomination changes and weaker authentication, increasing transaction confusion and counterfeiting. The regulation achieves stability through legally binding standards that internal processes cannot guarantee.

Railway interswitching regulations that mandate terminal carriers provide service equal to their own line-haul traffic, prohibit charges for empty car movements to/from sidings, establish distance-based zones, and include revenue-based exemptions. Many sections already repealed.

Price controls and service mandates distort market signals, reduce efficiency, and increase systemic costs. Prohibiting charges for empty car movements forces cross-subsidization, while service parity requirements prevent flexible contracting. These interventions create inefficiencies, reduce supply responsiveness, and ultimately harm Canadian competitiveness in freight transportation.

Regulation requiring Ministerial approval before installing/maintaining ferry cables across navigable waters, with mandatory safety requirements including 24-hour red/green lighting indicating cable position, maintaining cables down when not in use, keeping a responsible operator on duty, and prohibiting vessel crossing when red lights are illuminated.

This preventive regulation substitutes bureaucratic prior approval for private liability and property rights. The safety goals (navigation safety) could be achieved more efficiently through tort law: ferry operators would face full liability for collisions/accidents, creating strong market incentives to adopt appropriate safety measures (lighting, staffing, procedures) without one-size-fits-all mandates. The approval process creates barriers to entry, delays infrastructure, and centralizes knowledge about optimal safety configurations—exactly the dispersed knowledge problem Hayek identified. Repealing would allow competitive discovery of safer, cheaper ferry cable operations while courts adjudicate negligence when accidents occur.

Regulation prescribes detailed safety requirements for corded window coverings to prevent child strangulation, including strict cord length limits (≤22cm), loop perimeter limits (≤44cm), lead content caps (90 mg/kg), mandatory bilingual warning labels, and permanent identification markings that must remain throughout product life.

The regulation imposes substantial compliance costs on manufacturers, stifles product innovation with prescriptive one-size-fits-all mandates, reduces consumer choice, and creates barriers to market entry—particularly for small producers. The same safety outcomes can be achieved more efficiently through voluntary industry standards (like ANSI/WCMA), product liability law, and informed consumer decisions, allowing market forces to balance safety with affordability and design freedom without regulatory coercion.

This regulation establishes fees for air carrier arrangements involving level I air carriers under the Canada Transportation Act. It creates a two-stage fee structure: $28,000 or $36,000 for initial notice filing, and $252,000 or $304,000 if the arrangement triggers a public interest review process. Fees are paid by certified cheque to the Receiver General for Canada, with specific timing requirements for each stage.

These regulatory fees create significant barriers to entry and consolidation in the airline industry, reducing competition and consumer choice. The $252,000-$304,000 review fees particularly discourage beneficial mergers and partnerships that could improve service and efficiency. The certified cheque requirement adds unnecessary administrative burden. These fees represent regulatory capture that protects incumbent carriers while raising costs for consumers through reduced competition.

This regulation establishes a complex excise duty framework for cannabis products, imposing different tax rates and calculation methods across Canadian provinces and territories. It defines dutiable amounts, prescribed percentages, and circumstances for taxation on both domestic production and imports, with varying formulas for different product types and jurisdictions.

This excise duty creates significant market distortions, compliance burdens, and interprovincial complexity that suppress competition and increase consumer costs. The layered tax structure artificially inflates prices, sustaining black market incentives while imposing bureaucratic overhead that disproportionately harms small producers. The regulation achieves no essential public good that cannot be accomplished through simpler, less distortionary revenue collection mechanisms. Its elimination would reduce prices, increase legal market participation, and eliminate unnecessary administrative barriers to entry in the cannabis industry.

Mandatory levy order requiring turkey producers and processors to pay fees on inter-provincial and export trade, collected by provincial Commodity Boards and remitted to the Canadian Turkey Marketing Agency. The levy applies per kilogram live weight and includes both production and marketing components with staggered expiry dates (production levy ends 2026, marketing levy ends 2028).

This regulation imposes discriminatory costs on inter-provincial trade, creating a barrier that violates the fundamental economic principle of free trade among Canadians. The levy extracts resources from a specific agricultural sector without clear justification, raising production costs that ultimately increase consumer prices and reduce competitiveness. Provincial Commodity Boards serve as government-sanctioned collection agencies, expanding bureaucratic overhead. The regulation distorts market incentives by taxing cross-border commerce within Canada's own borders—precisely the reverse of what economic freedom requires. Canadians would be better off with completely free internal trade, allowing turkey producers and processors to compete and innovate without artificial cost penalties.

The Environmental Emergency Regulations require facilities storing listed hazardous substances above threshold quantities to notify the Minister, prepare detailed emergency response plans, conduct regular simulation exercises, maintain records, and report changes. The regulation aims to prevent, prepare for, respond to, and recover from environmental emergencies involving substance releases.

The regulation imposes substantial compliance costs—notice submissions, mandatory plans, regular drills, record-keeping, and ongoing reporting—that divert resources from productive use regardless of actual risk. Unseen effects include reduced innovation due to regulatory chilling, disproportionate burden on small facilities, and complacency from box-ticking compliance. The knowledge problem makes centralized mandates poorly tailored. Liability rules and insurance markets would align incentives with risk more efficiently and effectively.

This regulation designates the Banc-des-Américains Marine Protected Area, establishing boundaries, management zones, prohibited activities, and a permitting system for scientific, educational, and commercial activities. It aims to protect marine ecosystems while allowing limited fishing and navigation in designated zones.

Creates costly regulatory bureaucracy that restricts economic activity and property rights without clear evidence of net benefit. The permitting system imposes significant compliance costs on legitimate activities while the vague 'adverse environmental effects' criteria enable arbitrary enforcement. These restrictions reduce fishing opportunities, increase navigation costs, and suppress marine economic development without demonstrated necessity.

Remission of surtax on steel imports from Mexico for specific classes of goods imported during a defined period, subject to valid import permits and timely claims.

This is a narrow, time-limited administrative remission that creates temporary regulatory complexity without addressing underlying trade barriers. It benefits specific importers while adding compliance costs and paperwork requirements, and its limited scope means it doesn't solve the broader problem of protectionist steel tariffs.

Regulation mandates extensive labeling and packaging requirements for all vaping products in Canada: nicotine concentration statements, government-approved health warnings covering minimum display area (35% for larger panels), bilingual ingredient lists, child-resistant containers for nicotine products ≥0.1 mg/mL, and strict specifications on font, size, placement, and visibility. Applies to retail and point-of-sale distribution, excluding products under Food and Drugs Act.

Imposes heavy compliance costs that reduce competition, raise consumer prices, and stifle innovation; treats adults as incapable of processing information without government coercion; violates commercial speech and property rights by dictating packaging design; creates barriers to entry that disproportionately harm small manufacturers. Market mechanisms like liability and reputation would provide more efficient, flexible labeling solutions. The unseen costs—black market growth, reduced product variety, and diverted entrepreneurial resources—far outweigh any benefits of mandatory warnings.