Time to reconsider Canada Gazette’s consultation window

The rules that govern food labelling, pipeline safety, drug approvals, and a thousand other things shaping daily life pass through the Gazette. The typical 30-day comment period is the public's most direct point of contact with the regulatory state, and one of the least examined.

Canada Gazette’s consultation window was built for a different speed, writes Callum Haney. The tempo of regulation is faster, files are more technically complex, the analytic tools are different, but the institution has not been recalibrated to match.The Hill Times photograph by Andrew Meade

Opinion

BY CALLUM HANEY

June 8, 2026

The Canada Gazette is not the most glamorous feature of Canadian democracy. It posts proposed regulations, opens a comment period of usually 30 days, and waits. Most Canadians have never read it. Most journalists do not cover it. The rules that govern food labelling...

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