Rework of Regulatory Accountability Act leads trio of new bills

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This article was published 12/03/2024 (584 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The NDP government is moving to repeal a Pallister-era law that was celebrated by Manitoba small businesses for slashing red tape, but created new burdens for the public service.

On Tuesday, Justice Minister Matt Wiebe introduced Bill 16 to repeal the Regulatory Accountability Act and replace it with new legislation the government says will make its processes more effective and efficient.

“This will, in fact, be less bureaucracy in order to deliver even better results,” Wiebe said.

The Regulatory Accountability Act became law in 2017, and was billed as a framework to manage regulatory requirements. It also mandated the government and Crown corporations to track and report on the number of regulations that exist and remove a regulation for every new requirement it introduced.

Then-premier Brian Pallister and finance minister Cameron Friesen were celebrated by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business and given its “Golden Scissors” award in 2018, for the PC government’s work to measure and reduce red tape.

Wiebe said the new framework proposed by the NDP will streamline government and make it more accessible, continue to reduce red tape and give the public opportunities to provide input on regulations.

“The former government had a convoluted system that forced our civil servants to simply count regulations rather than actually making meaningful changes to reduce red tape,” Wiebe said.

The Manitoba civil service will be empowered to make “smart decisions” about ways to reduce bureaucracy rather than mindless counting, Wiebe added. It will also free up government staff to better streamline the work they do and give substantive guidance on how to cut red tape, he said.

More than 300 government and Crown corporation employees are involved in counting regulations, the justice minister said; thousands of hours are devoted on tracking the number of requirements that are enacted or removed.

“This will be eliminating a huge burden on the public service and on the requirement to simply track one regulation in, one regulation out,” Wiebe said. “These simple number-counting exercises don’t actually deliver better government to Manitobans.”

The province will be mandated to report on initiatives to eliminate duplicate and inconsistent regulatory requirements, as well as evaluate the effectiveness of regulations. The public will also be given 30 days to provide comment on proposed regulations that introduce new requirements.

Bills to amend the Workplace Health and Safety Act and the Credit Unions and Caisses Popularies Act were also introduced Tuesday.

Bill 17 will also reverse legislative changes brought in by the Progressive Conservatives and re-establish the Advisory Council on Workplace Safety and Health. The minister-appointed, 13-person group was done away with in 2017.

The council can make recommendations to the minister and review the Workplace Safety and Health Act every five years.

“This aligns with a mandate commitment and ensures that worker and employer groups in Manitoba have a direct connection to the department on important workplace safety and health issues,” Labour Minister Malaya Marcelino said.

Finance Minister Adrien Sala introduced Bill 15, which will allow credit unions to terminate a member without a resolution of directors, if a member has engaged in abusive, discriminatory or threatening behaviour in their dealings with the credit union.

The bill also proposes other changes to credit union administration.

danielle.dasilva@freepress.mb.ca