Canada will share slashing lessons

Tories chopped regulations before Trump; now Liberals aim to tell U.S. what worked, what didn’t

WASHINGTON — Donald Trump has ordered his bureaucrats to slash regulations — for every one created, the U.S. president wants them to eliminate two. Now comes the hard part of actually implementing the campaign promise.

Enter Canada. The Canadian government intends to share lessons it has learned after years of experience with a related policy. It’s among the topics of conversation as Treasury Board President Scott Brison arrives Friday for a two-day visit to Washington.

Trump has explained his plan as an important signal to businesses: “For every one regulation, two are out. So we knock out two,” the president said during a meeting with the retail industry this month.

Now it’s Mick Mulvaney’s job to make it work. He’s the cabinet member for the Office of Management and Budget, tasked in Trump’s executive order to design the policy. Brison will meet him during a visit that will also include meetings with state governors.

A pair of circumstances has nudged Canada into the conversation. Both date back several years, predating the Trump and Trudeau governments. The first: the countries already discuss regulations all the time. Ex-leaders Barack Obama and Stephen Harper created a binational body in 2011 to try whittling down burdensome rules, and it has held meetings ever since. Canada also has experience with deregulation-by-formula. The Canadian equivalent is less aggressive than what Trump has ordered but it’s similar in spirit.

The Harper Conservatives created a one-for-one requirement: if one new regulation comes in, one has to go.

“There has been significant experience here with a legislated regulatory review system,” said Brison spokesman Jean-Luc Ferland.