Delegated legislation and the Standing Joint Committee on Regulations and Other Statutory Instruments

Abstract. Since 1972 most orders-in-council, regulations and other statutory instruments of federal departments, boards, agencies and commissions stand referred to a permanent joint parliamentary committee. The committee's task is to scrutinize each instrument according to fifteen criteria it has established. Although the committee has no power to make departments change regulations, it can and does present reports to Parliament indicating which regulations violate its criteria. The study outlines the origins of the committee and the way it went about establishing its procedures. In February 1977 the committee made its first substantive report. This was a thorough examination of the problems of delegated legislation and it contained recommendations to resolve some difficulties encountered by the committee in its first five years of existence. One such problem concerns the definition of ‘statutory instrument’ used in the Statutory Instruments Act. Another relates to the nature of the working relationship between the committee and the departmental officials who draft regulations. Since 1977 the committee has presented several shorter reports each dealing with a particular regulation. The article examines these reports and government reaction to them up to the 30th Parliament. The study concludes that while effective scrutiny is still in the embryonic stage in Canada, much progress has been made since the establishment of the joint committee.