CBA Influence - Public Policy and Advocacy

Form may follow function, but if so the CBA’s Competition Law Section would like to know what function is being served by questions asked on forms investors are required to fill out under the Investment Canada Act. The Section says some of the information is being collected contrary to the Privacy Act.

It’s not a full system failure, but there are enough problems with Immigration, Refugee and Citizenship Canada’s online services and portals that the CBA’s Immigration Law Section has requested an emergency meeting with department officials to discuss the situation and what the Section can do to help solve the problems.

Following up on a promise made during last fall’s election campaign, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has instructed the ministers of Small Business and Finance to work together to ensure the small business tax rate is used to support small businesses. CBA President Janet Fuhrer has written to Bardish Chagger and Bill Morneau encouraging them not to throw the baby out with the bathwater when it comes to the preferential tax rate.

Veteran Liberal MP Ralph Goodale took on a hefty portfolio when he accepted the job of Public Safety Minister. In his mandate letter to Goodale, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau outlined a number of top priorities for the department, a number of are areas of mutual concern for the CBA, including revising the controversial Anti-Terrorism Act, passed last year.

A major promise in the Liberal election platform, and repeated in ministerial mandate letters and the throne speech, was to “repair” the relationship between the federal government and the Aboriginal Peoples of Canada. In December, the government laid out a plan to start making good on that promise.

The CBA welcomes the Liberals’ plan to tackle transgender rights. It has long been a concern for the CBA’s Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Community Forum, which has sponsored resolutions and made submissions on issues such as homophobic and transphobic bullying, gender recognition on ID for trans people and restrictions on trans travellers.

One of the 15 top priorities laid out for Canada’s new Justice Minister in her mandate letter is a directive to bring back the Court Challenges Program. We could maybe have seen this coming.

Days after a throne speech heralding a more transparent and responsive government, the Liberals made good on their election promise to hold an inquiry into the issue of missing and murdered indigenous women.

The first throne speech from Canada’s new Liberal government was short and to the point, and didn’t contain much in the way of surprises for anyone who followed the 11-week election campaign.

In January, the Chair of the National Privacy and Access Law Section wrote to the deputy minister of Justice, the deputy secretary to the cabinet and the secretary of the Treasury Board urging the government “to introduce legislation to repeal the retroactive provisions introduced by Bill C-59, the Economic Action Plan 2015 Act, No. 1.