May 3, 2002

Results Based Regulations

The New Era government has a fascination with "results based regulations" motivated in part by their desire to arbitrarily reduce the number of regulatory requirements by one third. A freedom of information request revealed that every blank on a form counts as a regulatory requirement so it is safe to say that every effort was made to inflate the count of regulatory requirements.

The Campbell government introduced a white paper on a new results based Forest Practices Code on the same day that it tabled new legislation for results based food inspection. What does the New Era approach to outcomes in the forests have in common with the new approach to food inspection?

The new Food Safety Act will replace several existing statutes including the Meat Inspection Act. One of the regulations under the Meat Inspection Act requires that "Every practicable precaution, including vermin proofing of buildings, shall be taken to maintain establishments free of rats, mice, flies, cockroaches and other vermin, but only those poisons approved by the Chief Veterinary Inspector shall be used for their eradication." We have yet to see what regulations government will introduce under its Food Safety Act, but if its results based rhetoric is any indication it is possible that efforts to restrict vermin in meat processing establishments may be measured by how many people get sick and whether the government can build a case that will withstand litigation against an offending plant.

The Forest Practices Code includes a regulation with respect to road construction in community watersheds. It requires "Before a person required to prepare a road layout and design carries out road construction or modification within a community watershed, the person must carry out a soil erosion field assessment for all areas where road construction or modification is proposed, unless soil erosion potential mapping carried out under section 12 of the Operational Planning Regulation indicates that the area does not have a high or very high soil erosion potential." Most of us would like some assurance that landslides or increased erosion will not result from the construction of forest roads in our watersheds. We will have to wait and see what the new results based code will require, but if the rhetoric is any indication adequate protection for the watershed may not occur until an investigation after a landslide.

Whether it is a matter of protecting our food or our water, there are some issues that are too important for outcome based regulations. Companies can do anything and then hide under the protection of bankruptcy. That doesn't do any good for those who suffer in the wake of quick buck artists - just ask the residents of leaky condos who find themselves litigating numbered companies that have long since folded. We have seen rapid and sometimes foolish policy shifts by the Campbell government. The move to results based regulations has the potential to be extremely dangerous.