Effective regulations promote social and economic well-being; protect health, safety, security and the environment and foster economic growth and innovation.

In recent years, the Government of Canada has undertaken a number of initiatives to modernize the Canadian regulatory system and improve its performance for Canadians and businesses.

In summer 2019, the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat (TBS) launched consultations on the following four regulatory modernization initiatives in the Canada Gazette:

• targeted Regulatory Reviews (round 2)
• review of the Red Tape Reduction Act
• options to legislate changes to regulator mandates
• suggestions for the next Annual Regulatory Modernization Bill

TBS received a total of 109 written responses from businesses, industry associations, academia and Canadians. What We Heard: Report on Regulatory Modernization provides a detailed summary of stakeholder feedback on the four regulatory modernization initiatives outlined above.

Stakeholders often commented on more than one regulatory modernization initiative and raised a number of horizontal issues, such as:

• the need to make regulations less prescriptive
• the need to limit regulatory overlap and cumulative burden
• the need to foster regulatory harmonization
• a desire for improved stakeholder engagement