Federal regulations

This regulation updates Canada's aircraft registration rules by clarifying and modernizing about 70 provisions in the Canadian Aviation Regulations (Part II), and raises aircraft registration service fees for the first time since 1996 to shift more of the program's costs from taxpayers onto aircraft owners and operators who benefit directly from the services.

These regulations extend mandatory International Polar Code navigation safety and voyage planning requirements to fishing vessels 24 metres or longer, pleasure craft of 300 gross tonnage or more not engaged in trade, and smaller cargo ships between 300 and 500 gross tonnage operating in Canadian Arctic waters, aligning Canada's domestic rules with 2023 amendments to the international SOLAS Convention.

This regulation designates 56.3 hectares of six Nova Scotia islands (Big Fish Island, Green Island, Guyon Island, Hog Island, Three Top Island, and Whitehead Island) as the Atlantic Archipelago National Wildlife Area, prohibiting entry and a broad range of activities without a permit to protect migratory birds, species at risk, and their habitats.

This regulation updates workplace noise exposure rules for federally regulated employers — covering sectors like transportation, banking, telecoms, postal services, and the federal public service — by lowering the maximum allowable noise limit to 85 dBA, requiring employers to set up formal hearing loss prevention programs, and mandating annual hearing tests for workers exposed to hazardous noise levels.

This regulation increases the minimum approach distance for Southern Resident killer whales (SRKW) in Canadian Pacific fisheries waters from 200 metres to 1,000 metres, and makes several technical clarifications to the Marine Mammal Regulations, including explicitly covering drones and making marine mammal transportation licences discretionary.

These regulations implement Canada's new foreign influence transparency system by requiring anyone who enters into an arrangement with a foreign government, state-linked entity, or their proxies to register that arrangement in a public registry overseen by an independent Commissioner. The rules set out exactly what information must be disclosed, how often it must be updated, what gets published publicly, and the penalties for failing to comply.

These regulations create an administrative monetary penalties (AMP) system allowing the Commissioner of Official Languages to fine Air Canada, VIA Rail, Marine Atlantic, and designated airport authorities up to $50,000 when they fail to provide services in both English and French as required under the Official Languages Act.

This regulation creates an automatic approval process for routine maintenance and repair work on classified municipal drains in Ontario, eliminating the need for municipalities to apply to Fisheries and Oceans Canada for project-specific review under the Fisheries Act, provided they follow prescribed conditions.

This Order allows Health Canada to accept drug approval decisions or review documents from trusted foreign regulatory authorities (such as those in Australia, the UK, or Switzerland) as satisfying part of its own review requirements, so that certain new drugs already approved abroad can reach the Canadian market faster without a full duplicate review.

This regulation updates Canada's Motor Vehicle Safety Regulations by replacing outdated vehicle anti-theft immobilization system standards with newer versions that address modern electronic theft tools, aligning Canadian requirements with the latest international standards.

These regulations update a series of existing federal regulations across the Food and Drugs Act, Patent Act, Tobacco and Vaping Products Act, and Cannabis Act to align them with a new standalone Clinical Trials Regulations framework, removing outdated clinical trial provisions and cross-referencing the new rules.

These new stand-alone Clinical Trials Regulations replace the existing drug clinical trial framework under the Food and Drug Regulations, directly regulating how clinical trials involving pharmaceutical and biologic drugs are conducted in Canada — not just the importation and sale of trial drugs — and introducing a flexible, risk-based authorization system that includes tools like terms and conditions, expanded investigator roles, and support for decentralized trials.

This regulation extends the temporary sulphur compliance unit (SCU) trading system for Canadian gasoline refiners and importers from 2026 to 2030, allowing them to generate, trade, and bank credits to help meet the 10 parts per million sulphur limit in gasoline rather than having to comply with that limit directly at all times.

This regulation removes the ban on manufacturing, importing, and selling six categories of single-use plastics (checkout bags, cutlery, certain foodservice ware, ring carriers, stir sticks, and straws) specifically for the purpose of export, while keeping all existing domestic market prohibitions in place.

These regulations modernize Canada's insolvency system by updating the Bankruptcy and Insolvency General Rules and the Companies' Creditors Arrangement Regulations to allow digital communications and recordkeeping, raise fee thresholds for Licensed Insolvency Trustees (LITs), and increase the asset and debt limits that qualify debtors for streamlined insolvency proceedings.

This regulation formalizes and expands a free-flow transit process for international travellers connecting through Canadian airports, eliminating the requirement for those passengers to interact with CBSA officers or kiosks as long as they remain in a designated transit area. It also requires airlines to provide additional passenger data identifying whether travellers are entering Canada or transiting through to another international destination.

This regulation amends Canada's immigration rules to clarify that international transit passengers who remain in 'designated holding areas' (in addition to existing sterile transit areas) at Canadian airports are exempt from normal immigration examination requirements, and updates data collection rules for transit passengers.

This regulation is the second of two major update packages to Canada's Explosives Regulations, 2013, modernizing safety and security rules for the explosives industry by introducing a mandatory transport permit for carriers hauling explosives by road, requiring propellant powder retailers to register with NRCan, updating fees across all licence and permit categories, and clarifying or streamlining dozens of existing requirements for manufacturers, storers, transporters, and sellers of explosives.

These regulations modernize Canada's Medical Device Establishment Licensing (MDEL) framework by removing the requirement for foreign distributors to hold their own MDEL when their Canadian importer already holds one, requiring all importers and distributors to mandatorily submit supplier information annually, and making explicit the obligation to establish, implement, and maintain documented safety procedures.

These amendments fix three gaps in the Aquatic Invasive Species Regulations: they explicitly authorize the use of companion substances (like deactivating agents) alongside pesticides used to control invasive species, make it an offence to violate conditions on authorizations, and allow regulators to amend, suspend, or cancel previously issued authorizations.