Expired regulations

Jane Symons expressed an interesting event this week as a mystery rolled up in a conundrum.

She provided a regulation to somone and it was later discovered that the regulation expired. Jane's search was appropriate - she had the cite and was looking for a specific document which she found. Regulations in Alberta frequently have expiry clauses in order to fulfill Premier Ralph Kleins promise, I believe in the 90s, that government red tape would be reduced and government policies would be regularly reviewed. At least that is what my memory of the time is telling me.

Regardless, when you are looking at a regulation, check for an expiry date clause. These should be at the end, where you would otherwise find special in force dates (other than the usual "when filed with the registrar of regulations" silent default).

In this case, the regulation was the Surface Rights Act Rules of Procedure and Practice Alta. Reg. 190/2001. after investigating the expiry of this regulation, Jane determined that there is a new procedure on the boards website that takes over after the expiry of the regulation.

There is a legislative trail for this in the act where the board was given the power to make its own rules (section 8, Surfact Rights Act, RSA 2000 - amended by SA 2009, c.31, s.5). Another clue is the list of regulations made under the act in the most recent Index of Regulations - this old regulation is no longer listed there.

These tricky bits of legislative research are always interesting to share