How a Bill Fails to Become a Law - the Nova Scotia Police Identity Management Act

A CTV news report from earlier this week revealed that the legislation designed to keep police clothing and gear out of the hands of criminals has not yet been enacted. The Police Identity Management Act was drafted in response to the Nova Scotia mass casualty of April 18-19, 2020, where the killer was disguised as a police officer, and driving a replica RCMP car. I have reviewed the legislation, and have a sense of why it has not yet been enacted. The normal course of legislation development, or how a bill becomes a law, starts with the legislation going through three readings in the Provincial Legislature (where it is introduced, studied, potentially amended, and then passed in its final form), followed by receiving Royal Assent (meaning it is signed by the Lieutenant Governor). After that, the legislation comes into force either on a date specified in the legislation itself, or else when the Provincial Cabinet proclaims it. The Police Identity Management Act has gone through all of those steps except for the final one, where Cabinet needs to meet and proclaim it. The legislation received Royal Assent in April, 2021, under the previous Provincial government, but neither that Cabinet nor the current one has yet proclaimed the legislation, and until that happens, it is of no force or effect. The legislation is sufficiently detailed in its current form such that it could be enacted at any time without the need for any supporting Regulations. I suspect what is really holding things up this the bureaucratic requirement that police agencies have these inventory management systems in place, as required by the legislation, prior to its enactment. Instead of waiting for that to happen, an alternate approach would be for the current government to remove those sections from the legislation itself, and allow the Minister to add the inventory management provisions as later Regulations, once consultations with the various police agencies have been conducted. Should the government take that route, they may also wish to review and improve the design of the parts of the legislation that allow a perpetrator to avoid all prosecution by simply forfeiting the articles in their possession. Those changes could take place in the spring sitting of the Legislature, if the government chose that option, and this important legislation could be in place within 2-3 months. In the meantime, we still have the Police Act and Criminal Code prohibitions should anyone be sufficiently foolish and insensitive so as to impersonate a police officer in Nova Scotia in our current climate.