Backgrounder
Clean technology
This roadmap advances regulatory modernization proposals related to clean technology, a sector that identifies solutions to help address climate change and other environmental challenges while contributing to Canada’s economy. The Roadmap includes actions to support regulatory readiness to facilitate adoption of new technologies, enhance regulatory coordination across jurisdictions, and support novel regulatory approaches, such as the Clean Technology Foresight Exercise, which enables organizations to anticipate and prepare for future challenges and problems. The Roadmap also contains initiatives that support COVID-19 recovery efforts by supporting innovation, reducing burden, and facilitating market access for new products.
Digitalization and technology neutral regulations
This roadmap proposes to make regulations more flexible and less prescriptive, and to leverage digital tools to improve interactions between businesses and regulators. The initiatives included in the Roadmap range from those for making regulations more technology neutral to those for removing manual and paper-based processes that create administrative burden. The Roadmap also responds to the importance of digital tools in the COVID-19 era by advancing actions to allow businesses to adopt such tools and help regulators interact virtually with industry.
International standards in regulations
This roadmap supports the development and use of international standards through targeted efforts, horizontal coordination, and both domestic and international engagement. The Roadmap also includes efforts to enhance Canadian leadership in standards development and support the use of standards in the regulatory environment, helping to support innovation and reduce barriers to international trade while ensuring Canada’s robust standards for health, safety, security, and environmental protection are maintained.
The Roadmaps from the first round of Regulatory Reviews are already making a tangible impact in modernizing and improving regulations. The three Roadmaps published in June 2019 proposed 72 initiatives put forward by five departments and agencies.
