Browse regulations

This regulation imposes a 25% surtax on steel and aluminum goods containing materials melted/poured or smelted/cast in China, with specific definitions for determining origin and exceptions for small-value goods, US-originating goods, and goods in transit.

Trade barriers distort markets, increase costs for Canadian consumers and businesses, and create inefficiencies. The surtax penalizes Canadian importers and consumers rather than Chinese producers, while the compliance burden (certificates, deeming provisions) creates administrative costs and uncertainty. These protectionist measures reduce competition, raise prices, and ultimately make Canadians poorer.

This regulation imposes surtaxes on steel imports from countries without trade agreements and from countries with trade agreements, with specific limits and quarterly periods, while providing exceptions for certain goods and countries.

Surtaxes distort market signals, raise prices for Canadian manufacturers and consumers, create inefficiencies, and protect domestic producers at the expense of broader economic welfare. They violate free trade principles and create unnecessary administrative burden.

Remission of surtaxes for essential goods imported by health, safety, and national security organizations, including medical supplies, emergency services, and critical manufacturing inputs

Creates complex administrative burdens and distorts market prices by granting special privileges to select organizations. The regulation determines which imports are 'essential,' creating rent-seeking opportunities and excluding equally worthy entities. Free markets would allocate goods efficiently without government intervention; private buyers would adjust purchasing decisions without needing tax exemptions. The temporary nature (expiring 2026) also introduces uncertainty for businesses.

This regulation grants remission of surtaxes paid under the China Surtax Order (2024) for specific goods listed in Schedule 1 and 2, subject to conditions including import timing, exclusion of goods under SIMA orders, non-export to US, and claims within two years.

This is a targeted tax relief measure that creates regulatory complexity, administrative burden, and market distortions by picking winners through selective surtax remission while leaving other businesses to bear full costs. It interferes with market pricing mechanisms and creates compliance costs for importers who must navigate complex conditions.

Imposes a 25% surtax on US-origin motor vehicles, with a reduced rate for those containing >15% Canadian/Mexican content, as a retaliatory trade measure.

This protectionist surtax directly harms Canadian consumers by inflating vehicle prices (up to 25% higher), distorts supply chains through content rules, escalates trade conflict, and enriches domestic producers at consumers' expense. The 'unseen' cost includes reduced purchasing power, suppressed competition, and the risk of broader trade retaliation that would hurt other Canadian export sectors.

The Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act Fuel Charge Regulations establish a carbon pricing system across Canada, defining exemptions and rebates for specific sectors (agriculture, remote communities, aviation) while implementing complex administrative rules for fuel charges and compliance.

This regulation imposes a costly bureaucratic carbon tax that distorts market signals, raises energy prices for consumers, reduces Canadian competitiveness, and creates regulatory complexity that diverts resources from productive enterprise. The system's exemptions and special interest provisions create arbitrary advantages while the compliance burden harms small businesses and rural communities. The supposed environmental benefits are outweighed by the economic damage and unintended consequences of government intervention in energy markets.

Selective remission of US surtaxes on motor vehicles for importers listed in a confidential schedule, with conditions including mandatory reporting to ministers and requirements for Canadian manufacturing restart. Applies to vehicles imported April 2025-April 2026.

Creates unequal treatment by secretly favoring specific importers, attaches industrial policy conditions (manufacturing requirements) to tax relief, expands ministerial discretionary power over private business decisions, and institutionalizes data collection that enables further intervention. The selective, non-transparent nature violates rule-of-law principles and distorts market competition. Better to eliminate the surtax entirely or apply uniform rules without ministerial discretion.

This Order grants temporary remission (cancellation) of government fees for passports, citizenship certificates, travel documents, and consular/immigration services for Canadian citizens and permanent residents who can demonstrate they were impacted by the Sudan crisis. It applies to applications submitted between April 24, 2023 and October 27, 2025, and requires a signed declaration linking the need for the document to the crisis. For certain immigration fees, remission is tied to processing under specific Sudan-related public policies.

It creates inequitable treatment by providing fee waivers only to those affected by the Sudan crisis, while all other Canadians pay full fees. Government should not engage in targeted redistribution or humanitarian favoritism; if fee relief is justified, it should be universal or the underlying fee structure reformed entirely. This arbitrary picking of winners and losers violates principles of equal treatment under law and represents mission creep of government authority.

This Order grants remission (refund) of various government fees for travel documents, citizenship certificates, and immigration services for individuals affected by the Haiti crisis. Specifically, it waives fees for Canadian citizens/permanent residents who were in Haiti between March 1-September 1, 2024 and needed urgent travel due to security conditions, and for their foreign national family members who left Haiti after March 1, 2024 and arrived in Canada by April 26, 2024.

This is not a restrictive regulation but a targeted, temporary humanitarian relief measure that removes financial barriers during a crisis. It doesn't create ongoing regulatory burden, distort markets, or restrict liberty—it reduces costs for a specific group in emergency circumstances. The remission addresses an exceptional situation where standard fee collection would impose undue hardship on people fleeing violence. Deleting it would harm vulnerable Canadians and their families by forcing them to pay for urgent documents during a humanitarian crisis, with no offsetting benefit to liberty or economic efficiency.

This regulation provides fee remission for Canadians and permanent residents in Iran who need urgent travel documents due to the deteriorating human rights situation, covering passport, citizenship certificate, travel document, and emergency travel document fees between February 2023 and February 2025.

Canadians trapped in Iran due to human rights crises need urgent travel documents without financial barriers. Removing this would force citizens to pay fees during emergencies when they're fleeing persecution, creating a dangerous obstacle to safe evacuation.

This regulation provides fee remission for Canadian citizens and permanent residents who were in earthquake-affected areas of Turkey or Syria and needed urgent travel documents following the February 6, 2023 earthquakes.

Canadians affected by natural disasters in foreign countries would face significant financial hardship if required to pay standard fees for emergency travel documents needed to return home or relocate. This targeted fee waiver addresses a specific humanitarian need without creating broader regulatory distortions.

This regulation provides fee remission for Canadian citizens and permanent residents who were in earthquake-affected areas of Morocco and needed urgent travel documents during the September 2023 earthquake emergency.

This is a targeted emergency relief measure that addresses a specific humanitarian need without creating systemic regulatory burden. The fees are waived for a limited time and specific geographic area to help Canadians affected by a natural disaster, which is a legitimate government function in crisis response.

Temporary fee waiver for replacing travel documents (passports, citizenship certificates, permanent resident cards, etc.) for individuals who had residence or presence in wildfire-affected areas of Canada between April 1 and November 30, 2025, and whose documents were lost, damaged, destroyed, or rendered inaccessible due to the wildfires.

Deleting this would impose unjust financial hardship on disaster victims needing to replace essential identification through no fault of their own. The targeted, time-limited remission provides necessary relief without market distortion or regulatory burden.

This Order grants remission of fees for replacing travel and identity documents (passport, citizenship certificate, permanent resident card, etc.) for individuals who were in or had residence in areas affected by 2023 wildfires in six provinces, provided the document was lost/damaged due to the wildfire and application was made during the specified period.

Obsolete (applies only to 2023 wildfires) and flawed: targeted fee waivers violate user-pay principle, create moral hazard, set precedent for ad hoc relief, and impose hidden costs and administrative burdens on taxpayers. Disaster relief is better handled by private insurance and charity.

Temporary fee remission for flood victims in Nova Scotia (July 22 - Nov 30, 2023) to replace lost/damaged passports, citizenship certificates, permanent resident cards, certificates of identity, or refugee travel documents. Requires proof of residence in affected area and declaration that loss was flood-related.

Canadians would be worse off without this targeted disaster relief, as flood victims would face financial hardship and bureaucratic barriers when replacing essential identity documents needed for travel, employment, and accessing services during recovery. The regulation addresses a market failure: private insurance and charity cannot reliably reach all affected individuals, and the government bears responsibility for issuing these documents in the first place. This minimal, time-limited intervention prevents further harm to citizens during an emergency.