On Tuesday, May 16th, Bill C-30 — the proposed legislation to implement the Canada-EU Comprehensive and Economic Trade Agreement (CETA) at the federal level — was granted Royal Assent by the Governor General (see Hansard No. 178 (may 16, 2017) at p. 1725). Bill C-30 is now law in Canada, although its provisions will not enter into force until a day (or days) to be fixed by order of the Governor in Council. The date(s) on which the provisions of Bill C-30 enter into force will coincide with the date on which the CETA enters into provisional application as between Canada and the European Union.

The next step for the federal implementation of the CETA in Canada is the process of making the necessary regulatory changes. This process is expected to proceed immediately.

Ordinarily, proposed regulatory changes are pre-published in the Canada Gazette – Part I for a period of public review. The regular edition of Part I is published every Saturday. It is possible, however, that an “extra edition” of Part I will be published before the end of the week in order to expedite the regulatory process.

Any regulatory changes for which an exemption to the pre-publication period has been granted by the Special Committee of Council will be published as law in the Canada Gazette – Part II, without any period for public review. The regular edition of Part II, which is published every other Wednesday, was published earlier today. It did not include any regulatory changes related to the CETA. As the next regular edition of Part II will be published on May 31st, it is reasonable to expect that an “extra edition” of Part II may be published in the meantime for the purposes of CETA implementation.

Tereposky & DeRose is closely monitoring all aspects of CETA implementation.  Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions relating to the matters raised in this article or the CETA more generally.