Miscellaneous Statute Law Amendment Act, 2023

Moved third reading of Bill S-17, An Act to correct certain anomalies, inconsistencies, outdated terminology and errors and to deal with other matters of a non‑controversial and uncomplicated nature in the Statutes and Regulations of Canada and to repeal certain provisions that have expired, lapsed or otherwise ceased to have effect, as amended.

He said: Honourable senators, I rise to speak to Bill S-17. I realize and I appreciate so many of you staying here this late in the evening, struggling through a series of minor bills — $500 billion-plus in spending; some budget implementation bill, I think; and some minor issue regarding foreign interference — as you waited breathlessly to consider the miscellaneous statute law amendment act, 2023.

As you will remember — acutely, I hope — when I spoke to this bill a few months ago, I noted that the bill makes 543 amendments to federal legislation. I spoke to 43 of them at that time, and I have 500 to go. I’m not sure of the protocol, Your Honour, as to whether I should ask now for extra time, or begin my 45 minutes and ask at the end.

More seriously, I want to thank Senator Carignan, the bill’s critic, and my colleagues on the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee for all the work they’ve done during the study of this bill, both when it was at the proposal stage in October 2023 and then more recently when studying the text of the bill in June 2024.

This Miscellaneous Statute Law Amendment Program allows for the use of a special legislative process for expeditious consideration of bills of a corrective nature without putting undue pressure on Parliament’s time. The bill is significant in its technical nature. It is important that Canada’s legislation meet not only high standards of legislative drafting, but also high standards of bilingualism, equity, fairness and respect for the rule of law.

In this regard, the bill ensures certain anomalies, inconsistencies, outdated terminology and errors are removed from the statute book. This results in a statute book that is clear, precise and up to date, and benefits Canadians and their access to justice.

The bill before us is the thirteenth of a series of bills introduced through this program, which first began in 1975 with the approval of cabinet and led by then-Minister of Justice Otto Lang — the predecessor Minister of Justice and former Dean of Law at the University of Saskatchewan, for those of you who might be interested.

The program was designed to correct with a series of minor, non-controversial amendments; it’s an all-in-one bill, hence the 543 amendments in one bill. Without the program, there would have to be a series of separate bills with all of these minor changes — a burden to the other place and to here in the correction of minor errors in federal statutes.

With respect to this bill, in order to be included in the Miscellaneous Statute Law Amendment Program and subsequently, therefore, in this bill, a proposed amendment must meet five criteria. First, it must not be controversial. Second, it must not involve the spending of public funds. Third, it must not prejudicially affect the rights of persons. Fourth, it must not create new offences or subject a new class of person to an existing offence. Fifth, despite a groundswell of support, it must not amend the Constitution of Canada to raise the Senate retirement age to 80. I keep trying.

The proposed amendments are then consolidated into one document known as a proposals document, which is what happened last fall. It’s tabled in the Senate and the other place.

The proposed amendments must then pass the scrutiny of the Standing Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs and the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights in the other place. Both study the proposals document. The approval of the proposed amendments requires the consensus of both committees in order to ensure that the bill is non-controversial and meets those other criteria.

In the course of this, if any member of either of those committees objects to a proposed amendment, it is removed and the proposals document proceeds from there.

I want to thank the members of the Senate committee for their perseverance in this work, particularly Senator Dalphond — who appears not to have stayed for my speech — for proposing a very disciplined approach to our study, and also the many officials from many government departments who attended our meetings and assisted us in our deliberations. When I say “many,” I mean dozens. I should also say that our clerk had to make so many of those little white name cards for the witnesses that our committee budget has been ruined and we won’t be able to have coffee for another couple of years.

More seriously, though, the contents of the bill before us today have followed this process to ensure that the proposed amendments meet those non-controversial criteria.

They then appeared in a proposals document that the Department of Justice considered and placed into the actual piece of legislation that was tabled in the other place on June 16, 2023, and in the Senate on June 20, 2023. It was then, as I said, referred to the committees.

We’ve gone through this study. In that exercise, four proposed amendments were withdrawn by the committees. Three others were withdrawn as they were contained in other legislative initiatives. None of those appear in the proposals today.

During the most recent study of the bill, conducted by our committee after second reading, two other clauses were removed as they are contained in another legislative initiative, more specifically, the budget implementation bill, which overtook two of the amendments and, to the credit of the officials, those were identified. Indeed, Senator Carignan noted these changes in his very wise celebration of the bill returning to the committee. These two clauses were essentially, as I say, overtaken, and officials had wisely noted the redundancies.

I should also say that further consideration by the committee in recent weeks enabled Senator Carignan and Senator Oudar to examine a series of provisions that they wanted to discuss with officials, and I think it produced a healthy debate and consideration of even modest amendments.

In total, 57 acts are amended — 543 provisions — most of them as a result of the quality of the process I have described. I previously described various categories of amendments; I’ll just highlight a couple. You’ll see how minor but not insignificant the changes are. There was a change to the name of the Canada Agricultural Review Tribunal, which appeared in a number of locations in statutes. Others relate to the official names of superior courts. For example, Newfoundland and Labrador and Prince Edward Island changed the names of their most senior courts. Those are often referenced in federal laws, so it was necessary to realign the federal laws with those renamed courts. There were also some changes to update the gendered references in our laws.

The bill also contains some changes having to do with the terminology used in French in some of the acts. For example, several provisions replace the words “vérificateur” and “vérification” with “auditeur” and “audit”. The objective here is to standardize references in federal legislation to reflect international standards.

All the amendments, as I said, align with the four criteria identified in the program. I would say the bill is not life changing, but it is a necessary exercise. We will undertake, under any parliamentary regime, a similar exercise over a number of years to come. For those of you who won’t be over the age of 80 by then, you’ll be here to give further consideration to a bill in the coming years.

As I say, we’re a country governed by laws and the rule of law, so it’s exceedingly helpful that the laws are correct, clear, up to date and align with the French and English versions, as parliamentarians and Canadians expect.

Honourable senators, thank you for the opportunity to speak to this bill. I urge colleagues to support the legislation. It seems that I won’t need to ask for extra time after all. Thank you. Hiy hiy.