The corporate sector has worked tirelessly to give regulations a bad name: Red Tape. Regulations are powerful legal tools that create a framework of behavior of citizens or businesses. Regulation in the public interest promotes safety, transparency and fairness. But regulations can be barriers for small businesses and individuals when it is costly to comply. Governments have an easy sell when they promote red tape reduction – but when governments invite corporations to the table, the results are regulations that tip the scales in favour of big business. Bruce Campbell will speak about how corporations gain influence over government regulators, what this means for democracy and the public interest, and how we can change the situation and ensure the public interest is protected.
Bruce Campbell is an adjunct professor at York University’s faculty of environmental and urban change, senior fellow at Ryerson University’s Centre for Free Expression, and former executive director of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. He is the author of The Lac-Mégantic Rail Disaster: Public Betrayal, Justice Denied, 2018; and author and editor of Corporate Rules: The real world of business regulation in Canada: How government regulators are failing the public interest, forthcoming April 2022.
View Bruce Campbell’s PowerPoint presentation: REGULATORY CAPTURE-GOVERNMENT COMPLICITY
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