Delegated Legislation

Concept of Delegated Legislation

A definition of Delegated Legislation may be the following: Legislation made not by Parliament but by persons or bodies on whom Parliament has conferred power to legislate on specified subjects (The Oxford Companion to Law by David M. Walker, 1982, p. 347). See also the entry about Subordinate Legislation.

General Overview

Some acts of Parliament delegate to Ministers, departments, agencies, boards or other authorities the power to make and apply subordinate legislation described only in general terms in the acts. Delegated legislation is a term used to describe these regulations, orders, rules, by‑laws and other instruments. Parliament scrutinizes most delegated legislation to ensure that their provisions do not exceed the powers approved by Parliament itself.

This responsibility to scrutinize delegated legislation has been assigned to the Standing Joint Committee for the Scrutiny of Regulations. In addition to the terms of reference set out by the House itself, this Committee’s mandate is in part described by an act of Parliament.[1] Its activities sometimes lead to the invocation of special procedures in the House when the Committee makes a report to the House advocating the revocation of a regulation.

Source: House of Commons Procedure and Practice, Second Edition, 2009

Historical Background

Systematic parliamentary scrutiny of delegated legislation is a relatively modern phenomenon. In the early years of Confederation, parliamentary scrutiny consisted of addresses for papers whereby Parliament obtained the information it desired, and on which it could act if it chose to.[2] Perhaps this lack of regularized oversight was understandable since, as one expert put it, “with the exception of the wartime period 1914‑19 it could not be said that before 1939 the scope of the activities of the federal government was such that Parliament lacked adequate time to act as a watch‑dog of the executive”.[3]

This is not to say that the quantity of delegated legislation was low. Indeed, the number of regulations and orders was sufficiently large to warrant the publication in 1889 of The Consolidated Orders in Council of Canada, which ran to two volumes and 1,126 pages.[4] In 1914, Parliament passed the War Measures Act, one of the most extreme examples of a statute delegating legislative authority to Cabinet.

This Act empowered the Governor in Council to proclaim a state of “real or apprehended war, invasion or insurrection” and “to make from time to time such orders and regulations, as he may by reason of the existence of real or apprehended war, invasion or insurrection, deem necessary or advisable for the security, defence, peace, order and welfare of Canada”.[5] At the outbreak of World War II, again the volume of decisions that had to be made in a timely manner was considerable and as a result, Ministers, government departments, boards and Crown agencies were given increasing authority to make regulatory decisions.[6] It was during this period that a suggestion was first made that, since the role of Parliament was to support and control the executive in order to keep it responsible, Orders in Council having a legislative effect should be regularly tabled in the House and referred to a parliamentary committee for scrutiny.[7]

The post‑war years saw a growth in government and a steady escalation in the use of Orders in Council to regulate public affairs. Although the practice of tabling regulations continued after the War, there was much criticism of “government by Order in Council”. In 1950, Parliament adopted the Regulations Act, which decreed that all orders, regulations and proclamations made or issued in the exercise of legislative powers delegated by Parliament would be systematically and uniformly published and tabled in the House.[8] While the Privy Council Office examined regulations and orders for uniformity and clarity, the Regulations Act did not contain any provision for holding the executive accountable to Parliament for the subordinate laws it had made.

In 1964, the Special Committee on Procedure and Organization recommended the establishment of a parliamentary committee to review regulations made as a result of delegated legislative power and to report to Parliament any regulations or instruments which the Committee believed exceeded the authority delegated by statute.[9] However, no action was taken on this recommendation. In 1968, the Special Committee on Statutory Instruments was mandated to “report on procedures for the review of this House of instruments made in virtue of any statute of the Parliament of Canada”.[10]

After an extensive examination of the Regulations Act and scrutiny procedures in other Commonwealth Parliaments, the Committee presented to the House its Third Report in October 1969.[11] Reiterating the recommendation that a parliamentary committee be established to scrutinize delegated legislation, it also advocated many amendments to the Regulations Act and new procedures for the drafting of powers and publication of regulations. In 1970, the government announced its proposed course of action to respond to the report: the replacement of the Regulations Act by the Statutory Instruments Act, new Cabinet directives for the drafting and publication of regulations, and amendments to the Standing Orders for the establishment of a scrutiny committee.[12]

Source: House of Commons Procedure and Practice, Second Edition, 2009

Mandate of the Standing Joint Committee for the Scrutiny of Regulations

In 1971, pursuant to the Statutory Instruments Act,[13] the House and the Senate established the Standing Joint Committee for the Scrutiny of Regulations.[14] It sat a few times between 1973 and 1974 for organizational purposes and began to scrutinize statutory instruments in earnest during the First Session of the Thirtieth Parliament (September 1974 to October 1976).[15]

This entry discusses the mandate of the Standing Joint Committee for the Scrutiny of Regulations.

Revocation of a Statutory Instrument

In 1985, the Committee approached the Special Committee on the Reform of the House of Commons with recommendations regarding the disallowance of statutory instruments.[50] The Committee proposed, among other matters, that all subordinate legislation not subject to a statutory affirmative procedure be subject to being disallowed on resolution of either House, and that the executive be barred from remaking any statutory instrument so disallowed for a period of six months from its disallowance.

This entry discusses the procedures the House of Commons follows to adopt or reject a resolution revoking a statutory instrument.

Source: House of Commons Procedure and Practice, Second Edition, 2009

Resources

See Also

• Parliamentary privilege.

Notes

1. Statutory Instruments Act, R.S. 1985, c. S‑22, s. 19.
2. Bourinot, J.G., Parliamentary Procedure and Practice in the Dominion of Canada, 2nd ed., rev. and enlarged, Montreal: Dawson Brothers, Publishers, 1892, pp. 332‑3, 808‑10.
3. Mallory, J.R., “Delegated Legislation in Canada: Recent Changes in Machinery”, Economics and Political Science: The Journal of the Canadian Political Science Association, Vol. XIX, No. 4, November 1953, p. 462.
4. Bligh, H.H., The Consolidated Orders in Council of Canada, 2 Vols., Ottawa: Brown Chamberlain, Printer to the Queen’s Most Excellent Majesty, 1889 (published under the authority and direction of the Governor General). See also the Orders in Council printed in the front of the statutes during this period.
5. War Measures Act, S.C. 1914, c. 2, s. 6.
6. Mallory, pp. 462‑3. See also Dawson, R.M., Dawson’s The Government of Canada, 6th ed., edited by N. Ward, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1987, p. 224.
7. Debates, February 9, 1943, p. 296.
8. Debates, May 31, 1950, p. 3039‑40. See also the Regulations Act, S.C. 1950, c. 50.
9. See the Fifteenth Report of the Special Committee on Procedure and Organization, presented to the House on December 14, 1964 (Journals, p. 988).
10. Journals, September 30, 1968, p. 82.
11. Journals, October 22, 1969, pp. 1411‑508.
12. Debates, June 16, 1970, pp. 8155‑6.
13. S.C. 1970‑71‑72, c. 38, s. 26.
14. Journals, October 14, 1971, p. 870. This Committee was originally called the Standing Joint Committee on Regulations and Other Statutory Instruments. Other name changes followed in December 1987 (Journals, December 7, 1987, p. 1934; December 18, 1987, p. 2017), in June 1988 (Journals, June 2, 1988, p. 2778) and in January 1994 (Journals, January 25, 1994, pp. 58‑61).
15. The Committee also dealt with other matters. On March 29, 1973, the House referred a document regarding guidelines for the production of papers to the Committee. The Committee was to determine if the guidelines were sound in principle and how they were to be administered (Journals, p. 226, Debates, pp. 2745‑50). This matter, along with the subject matter of a bill respecting access to information, was referred again to the Committee on December 19, 1974 (Journals, p. 231). The Committee reported back to the House on December 16, 1975 (Journals, p. 943).