Objective 4:
Support Law Reform To Promote Sustainable Development

The Department will support law reform in order to improve the overall effectiveness with which the federal government implements its sustainable development obligations.

As stated in section 1.3 of this Strategy, law reform can be an important method of promoting sustainable development. Through government, academic and international efforts and experience in Canada and other jurisdictions, the legal community at large is learning that there are ways to ensure that new legislation and regulation more effectively promote sustainable development. Where laws seek to regulate behaviour, for example, there is increasing awareness about opportunities to achieve the objective through innovative cost-effective mechanisms, such as economic incentives and self-management regimes. Where laws stipulate criteria for decision-makers, they can require consideration of sustainable development principles such as the precautionary principle. Laws can also ensure that a wide range of social perspectives are considered by mandating access to information and decision-making.

Law reform may also be appropriate to remove existing legislative barriers to sustainable development, which various studies have found in some government objectives, licensing criteria, and tax and regulatory incentives. The Final Report of the Federal Task Force on Economic Instruments and Disincentives to Sound Environmental Practice, for example, stated that "it is recognized that certain existing government policies and programs may inadvertently act as barriers or disincentives to sound environmental practices" (1995, p. 4).

Although the decisions to promote sustainable development through law reform will be made primarily by client departments and agencies, such initiatives often will require input and advice from Justice Canada.

4.1 Through the actions taken under Objectives #1 to #3, the Department will enhance its capacity to help client departments and agencies that wish to review their legislation and regulations to identify potential law reforms aimed at removing existing barriers to sustainable development.

4.2 As part of its work to improve access to the justice system, and as part of the Department's Program Review Phase II initiative to review statutes for inefficient, costly, 'red tape' procedures, the Department will seek to identify and correct barriers to access to administrative and judicial proceedings, particularly those concerning the environment. The Department will also assist when client departments conduct reviews of laws which they administer.

4.3 The Department will continue to promote the use of alternatives to, and new forms of, legislation and regulation. In particular, it will continue to discuss with client departments the appropriate mix of regulation, economic instruments, educational tools, moral suasion and voluntary measures needed to promote sustainable development effectively and efficiently.

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