CONTENTS
Standing Committee on
Intergovernmental Affairs and Justice
Bill No. 26 — The Miscellaneous Statutes Repeal
Act, 2025
Bill No. 27 — The Statute Law Amendment Act,
2025/Loi de 2025 modifiant le droit législatif
THIRTIETH
LEGISLATURE
of
the
Legislative Assembly of Saskatchewan
STANDING
COMMITTEE ON
INTERGOVERNMENTAL
AFFAIRS AND JUSTICE
Hansard Verbatim Report
No.
8 — Wednesday, November 26, 2025
Chair
B. McLeod: — Welcome to the Standing Committee on
Intergovernmental Affairs and Justice. My name is Blaine McLeod, the Chair of this
committee, and today we have with us the following members: Racquel Hilbert;
Leroy Laliberte; the Hon. Jamie Martens; chitting in for Betty Nippi-Albright
will be Nicole Sarauer; Megan Patterson; and Jacqueline Roy.
Bill No. 26 — The Miscellaneous
Statutes Repeal Act, 2025
Clause 1
Chair
B. McLeod: — So consideration of Bill
No. 26. Today we are going to be considering two bills, and we will first
consider Bill No. 26, The Miscellaneous Statutes Repeal Act, 2025
beginning with the consideration of clause 1, short title.
Minister McLeod is here with his
officials, and I’d ask first of all that you please introduce them. And before
they speak the first time, and when they speak to be introduced, please do not
touch the microphones, as is usual. Hansard is going to look after that
for you.
So, Minister, please introduce your
officials and make your opening comments, please.
Hon. Tim
McLeod: —
Very good. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Joining me today I have Darca Tkach,
Crown counsel, legislative services to my right, and Jared Pashovitz, acting
registrar of corporations, office of public registry administration to my left.
Mr. Chair, I would now offer opening
remarks for Bill 26, The Miscellaneous
Statutes Repeal Act, 2025. As part of the Ministry of Justice and Attorney
General’s red-tape reduction commitment, this bill will repeal many outdated
Acts that no longer serve any purpose.
Two public Acts that are no longer
needed will be repealed: The Companies Winding Up Act and The
Saskatchewan Opportunities Corporation Act. The office of public registry
administration has found over 114 private Acts related to organizations that
are no longer carrying on business or activities or continued under current
legislation. In addition, 84 older private Acts related to municipalities have
been identified as no longer necessary.
Research and consultations were carried
out to ensure that these repeals will have no substantive impact on
stakeholders or government. Relevant municipalities were all notified of the
proposed repeals.
Mr. Chair, with those opening remarks, I
welcome questions respecting Bill 26, The Miscellaneous Statutes Repeal Act,
2025.
Chair
B. McLeod: — Thank you, Minister. I will now open
the floor to any questions. MLA [Member of the Legislative Assembly] Sarauer.
Nicole Sarauer: — Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you,
Minister, for your opening comments. I just have a few questions with respect
to this bill.
Minister, you
had mentioned that there had been research and consultation regarding the
repeal of these pieces of legislation. Could you provide some further
information as to the work that happened and the feedback that was received?
Hon. Tim
McLeod: — Certainly.
I’ll start maybe with the private Acts. The office of public registry
administration did the consultation and investigation on that, so perhaps I’ll
let Jared speak to that.
Jared
Pashovitz: — Sure. So
yeah, there were significant consultations that occurred for this matter. And
sorry, I should follow the protocol. I’m Jared Pashovitz and I’m the acting
registrar of corporations.
And so
essentially what happened was OPRA [office of public
registry administration] identified
the entities and the legislation that created these entities that, you know, we
felt were subject to this. And so the first step was for OPRA to actually look
into the corporate registry and determine if these entities were active or not.
And if they weren’t, we’d follow up with further research, involving archival
work, you know, looking at the historicals, like seeing if there were any
entities that they had subsequently . . . Sorry, I’ve lost my train
of thought here. Let me restart.
Darca Tkach:
— I could make some comments on it.
Jared Pashovitz:
— Sure. No, I’ll be . . . I’m fine. But maybe start and I can fill in
with some of them. Sorry, Darca.
Darca Tkach:
— I’m Darca Tkach, Crown counsel at legislative services. So OPRA conducted
quite a bit of research to find out if there was still any representative of an
entity who could give instructions to repeal the Act. And in some cases, we
were able to find a representative who could give instructions.
In other cases, in the absence of a
representative who could give instructions, OPRA conducted research. For
example, they looked to see if the entity had continued under modern
legislation, which in some cases, it had. They looked at online historical sources
or documents to see if there was a reference to the entity still being active
or any membership in the entity.
They checked to see if the entity was
licensed or registered with FCAA [Financial and Consumer Affairs Authority of
Saskatchewan] or if it was a registered charity still with Canada Revenue
Agency, and if the entity was active in the Information Services Corporation.
And if they could not find many references, the list of Acts to be repealed was
posted in The Saskatchewan Gazette, and anyone associated with those
Acts and entities was encouraged to contact OPRA. And no objections were made.
Nicole Sarauer: — Thank you. For the
entities that you were able to get in contact with, did you have any entities
express a desire to keep their private Act alive?
Darca Tkach:
— There were some entities, I believe, that we needed to have further
discussion with them about whether or not they wished to have the Act repealed.
But if there were any concerns, we left it for now and we could return to those
later.
Nicole Sarauer: — So just for
clarification, to reiterate what you just said, any entities that you were able
to speak with who were comfortable having their Acts repealed are included; any
ones who had concerns are not included in this legislation?
Darca Tkach:
— Yes, any entities with whom we had to have further discussion were not
included.
Nicole Sarauer: — Could you explain
for the committee why it may be necessary or not to maintain private Acts for
entities when they could theoretically easily file under The Non-profit
Corporations Act or The Business Corporations Act?
Darca Tkach:
— Well usually the reduction of private Act entities is beneficial because
private Act entities are not held to the same standard as entities created
under public Acts. For example, there is no requirement for them to keep their
information up to date or to do financial reporting. And also I should say
having out-of-date information in the corporate registry means that people
relying on the corporate registry could have incorrect information there, and
bad actors could use the identities for fraudulent purposes. So it is
beneficial to reduce the number of private Acts.
Nicole Sarauer: — Is it the
ministry’s goal to reduce the amount of private Acts to zero?
Darca Tkach:
— Well there are a couple of options for further reducing the number of Acts.
Right now OPRA has taken a research-based approach to determining if a private
Act should be repealed. But another option would be for the government to set a
deadline and say that any entities still affected would need to continue as a
non-profit or continue as a business corporation and set a deadline for that to
happen.
Hon. Tim
McLeod: —
If I could, just on that point, I would say that it’s the government’s intent
to reduce red tape and to clean up old, archaic Acts that are no longer being
used, not to address ones that are simply because they’re a private Act. I
would say that, as Darca outlined, any entity that even needed a further
conversation isn’t included in the legislation. These are all pieces of
legislation that are archaic and unnecessary, and it’s simply a red-tape
reduction exercise.
Nicole Sarauer: — Could you speak a
little bit further about next steps? You’ve indicated that there are some
entities where further consultation is required. Could you talk about what the
next steps are with respect to those entities and perhaps if there are any
others that need to be addressed?
Darca Tkach:
— Well currently there’s about 300 private Acts on the King’s Printer website.
This bill would repeal about 198 of them, and that leaves about slightly over
100 private Acts still in existence. And we would need to do further research
on those, have further discussions with the entities.
Private Act entities sort of are
considered other legislative entities and occupy a bit of a unique position. As
I outlined, private Act entities are not subject to the same regulatory
oversight as public Acts. So we would need to do some further work into the
remaining Acts.
Nicole Sarauer: — I’m wondering, Mr.
Pashovitz or anybody else, if you could speak to the benefit that this red-tape
reduction will have for the corporate registry?
Jared Pashovitz:
— So the corporate registry, it’s relied upon to be accurate, right. As a
registry officer, we want the most accurate information in that registry. The
importance of bringing in some of these Acts into our modern legislation, our
modern business corporations Act and modern non-profit corporations Act,
there are mechanisms in that legislation that require those entities to file
regularly. So file updated corporate information, addresses, you know, that
type of information. So from an integrity of the registry perspective, this is
a great initiative. And the people of Saskatchewan rely on that information
being accurate in the registries.
Nicole Sarauer: — Thank you. No
further questions.
Chair
B. McLeod: — Seeing no more questions, and thank
you. We will proceed to vote on the clauses. Now the bit of the fun part. This
bill has over 200 clauses — 202 to be exact. And if the committee is in
agreement, we’re going to review the bill by parts. So if that agreement is
there? Agreed.
We’re in agreement. That still means
that I have to initial each clause, all 202 of them, so it’s going to take some
time. But we have four parts and the first three will go rather quickly, but
that will save me from saying “agreed” and “carried” 198 times. So I appreciate
that indulgence.
So we’ll get started here. And you’ll
have to be patient with me as I initial. I do have to initial as we go. And
we’ll get started right away here then.
So part 1 is the preliminary matters.
And clause 1, short title is that agreed?
Some
Hon. Members: — Agreed.
Chair
B. McLeod: — Carried. And I will start my
initialling.
[Clause 1 agreed to.]
[Clauses 2 to
201 inclusive agreed to.]
Chair B. McLeod: — Now the fun part, where you get to watch me
initial all these pages. And I’ll start here. And I’m not sure what you’re
going to do for entertainment while I do this, but you go ahead.
[16:15]
And so part 4, coming into force. Clause
202, coming into force, is that agreed?
Some
Hon. Members: — Agreed.
Chair
B. McLeod: — Carried.
[Clause 202 agreed to.]
Chair B. McLeod:
— His Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Legislative Assembly
of Saskatchewan, enacts as follows: The Miscellaneous Statutes Repeal Act,
2025.
I would ask a member to move that we
report Bill No. 26, The Miscellaneous Statutes Repeal Act, 2025
without amendment. MLA Jamie Martens moves. Hon. Jamie Martens moves. Is that
agreed?
Some
Hon. Members: — Agreed.
Chair
B. McLeod: — Carried. Any closing comments by the
minister or members?
Hon. Tim
McLeod: —
No, I would just thank the committee for their consideration and the Chair for
his initialling exercise.
Chair
B. McLeod: — Thank you very much. Any closing
comments?
Nicole Sarauer: — Other than echoing
the minister’s comments in thanking the committee as well as yourself, Mr.
Chair, and the officials for their thoughtful responses to my questions today.
Chair
B. McLeod: — Thank you so much. I note with
interest in the ones that I initialled that my town of Caron, incorporated as a
town, was repealed. I’m happy that we’re still an organized hamlet, but I saw
with interest that one as I was looking at the bill earlier today.
Bill No. 27 — The Statute Law
Amendment Act, 2025/Loi de 2025 modifiant le droit législatif
Clause 1
Chair
B. McLeod: — So we’re going to have consideration
now of Bill No. 27, The Statute Law Amendment Act, 2025, a
bilingual bill. Clause 1, short title. Is there any new officials coming today?
Okay. Then, Minister McLeod, please make your opening comments in regards to
this bill, Bill No. 27.
Hon. Tim
McLeod: —
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would just say that staying with me at the table is
Darca Tkach. And I will keep my opening remarks for Bill 27 brief. This bill
simply makes housekeeping amendments to multiple bilingual Acts as part of the
government’s ongoing commitment to review and update our legislation.
This bill updates references to repealed
legislation in The Constitutional Questions Act, 2012 and The Small
Claims Act, 2016.
Terminology will be updated and spelling
errors corrected in the following: The Alcohol and Gaming Regulation Act,
1997; The Enforcement of Maintenance Orders Act, 1997; The Family
Maintenance Act, 1997; The International Child Abduction Act, 1996; The
King’s Bench Act; and The Vital Statistics Act, 2009.
Section cross-references will be
corrected in The Legislation Act and The Non-profit Corporations Act,
2022.
I would note, Mr. Chair, that none of
the proposed amendments are substantive. All are purely housekeeping in nature.
With those opening remarks I welcome any questions respecting Bill 27, The
Statute Law Amendment Act, 2025.
Chair
B. McLeod: — Thank you, Minister. I will now open
the floor to questions. I recognize MLA Sarauer.
Nicole Sarauer: — Thank you, Mr.
Chair. And thank you, Minister, for your opening remarks. Since you have
already noted that there is nothing in the legislation that is creating any
substantive changes and all of this is housekeeping, my only question is what
the ministry has planned for future housekeeping legislative amendments.
Hon. Tim
McLeod: —
In this session or broadly as a government?
Nicole Sarauer: — Broadly.
Hon. Tim
McLeod: —
I would say that we do have a commitment to continue to reduce red tape and
update legislation. I don’t know if Darca wants to add any greater detail than
that, but this is, as I indicated, largely just housekeeping, cleaning up
legislation. And we have some incredible folks in the Justice ministry that go
through what many would consider quite tedious work, but it is very important
work nonetheless. Darca, did you want to add anything?
Darca Tkach:
— Just that it was nice to have an opportunity to have a bilingual statutes
amendment Act this time.
Nicole Sarauer: — Yeah, I understand
this is work that happens I believe annually, or there’s some sort of rotating
list that the ministry goes through to ensure that there are housekeeping
updates needed throughout. Is that correct?
Darca Tkach:
— Yes, as amendments are identified, we have a list and we continually update
it.
Nicole Sarauer: — No further
questions.
Chair
B. McLeod: — Seeing no more questions, we will
proceed to vote on the clauses. And this is a bilingual Act. I’ll be signing on
both sides of the pages here.
So clause 1, short title, is that
agreed?
Some
Hon. Members: — Agreed.
Chair
B. McLeod: — Carried.
[Clause 1 agreed to.]
[Clauses 2 to 12 inclusive agreed to.]
Chair B. McLeod:
— His Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Legislative Assembly
of Saskatchewan, enacts as follows: The Statute Law Amendment Act, 2025,
a bilingual bill.
I would ask a member to move that we
report Bill No. 27, The Statute Law Amendment Act, 2025, a
bilingual bill, without amendment. MLA, the Hon. Jamie Martens moves. Is that agreed?
Some Hon. Members: — Agreed.
Chair B. McLeod: — Carried. Thank you, Minister, and the
officials that were here today. Do we have any closing comments?
[16:30]
Hon. Tim
McLeod: — I would
just like to thank Ms. Tkach for joining me at the table. Thank again the
committee; yourself, Mr. Chair; the Table Officers; and Hansard for everybody’s
co-operation and participation today.
Chair
B. McLeod: — And MLA Sarauer, any closing
comments?
Nicole Sarauer: — I would like to
echo the minister’s thanks, first to yourself, Mr. Chair; all the committee
members for their participation; Hansard for their help today; and as well as
yourself, Minister, and all of your officials for your thoughtful responses to
my questions today.
Chair
B. McLeod: — Super. Thank you, everyone, for such
a concise . . . and we took exactly half an hour. So that concludes
our business for today. I would ask a member to move a motion of adjournment.
MLA Patterson has moved. All agreed? Carried. This committee stands adjourned
to the call of the Chair. Thank you, everyone.
[The Committee adjourned at 16:30.]
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