Government Operations Committee on Dec. 2nd, 2014

[Anne-Marie Day, NDP, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Thank you.

My second question is for Ms. Coombs, Ms. Jones or Ms. Moreau, as the case may be.

Red tape is the hobby horse of all small and medium-sized businesses. Clearly, it's both popular and populist given that any business would like to avoid it as much as possible. It takes time, and time is money. Sometimes, a business grows and has to hire more people to deal with the paperwork.

On the other hand, we know quite well that had we not adopted regulations, for example for car seats for babies, they would not exist or would not be mandatory. Therefore, the regulations can also serve the business that develop the products.

When we will be faced with new products or events like those that took place in Lac-Mégantic, which required new regulations, don't you think the one-for-one rule will pose a problem?

[Shannon Coombs]

Thank you for question, Mr. Chair.

As I said earlier, I don't see there's a compromise being made. I think we're able to ensure that the health and safety of Canadians, and our environment are protected, but also keep business competitive. I think that earlier, what Ms. Jones had said with respect to this as one tool, I mean, there's a lot of things that are going on within the government, looking at the Regulatory Cooperation Council, looking at all the different things under the red tape reduction plan, such as the joint forward plan, is all part of a tool kit to help businesses, and I see this legislation as putting that into effect and being able to solidify that so that the policy is now law. I think that we're able to do that quite successfully.

[Anne-Marie Day, NDP, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

My last question is for the Public Service Alliance of Canada.

When Minister Clement appeared before the committee, he spoke about economies of scale with respect to deregulation or the one-for-one project, which was implemented on an experimental basis in 2012.

In your opinion, where were such economies realized? Are they attributable to a reduction in staff or is it truly because there are fewer regulations?

[Chris Aylward]

No. I mean, you've certainly seen the cuts in resources. That's where we have certainly seen the cuts, especially in the last two years. The government cut food inspectors, and we've seen the result of that. Canadians have seen the results of that. The world has seen the results of the cuts to food inspection. We're very concerned about that.

In respect to the regulations, as I said, we are of the position that the regulations can be reviewed in a systematic way, so that the right ones can be deleted by the regulators.

[Anne-Marie Day, NDP, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

The bill takes health and safety into account. That was the case, for example, in the tainted meat mini-scandals. How can we ensure we are cutting in the right place? Is there any way to monitor that?

[Chris Aylward]

There is, but you need the resources to do that. If you don't have the capacity to do that, then everything gets eroded. That's when we've seen, as you referred to, the many scandals. I can't understand how you can say that there's no compromise between business competitiveness and the health and safety of Canadians, because you are certainly compromising the health and safety of Canadians. Canadians realize, because they said in a focus group report that was produced in 2011, they believe that well over 85% of businesses care more about the bottom line than they do about the health and safety of Canadians, and that is of major concern to all of our citizens.

[The Chair, NDP, Pierre-Luc Dusseault]

Thank you very much, sir.

Thank you, Ms. Day; your time is now up.

We are moving on to Mr. Trottier, who has five minutes.

[Bernard Trottier, Conservative, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

I want to pursue this notion of health and safety, and perhaps get a perspective from Ms. Jones and Ms. Coombs.

The preamble of the bill reads, “Whereas the one-for-one rule must not compromise public health, public safety or the Canadian economy”.

When you look at the regulations currently in effect around the one-for-one rule and then enshrining this into law, from a small business perspective, how do you separate things that might have to do with health and safety from all of the other things you're doing as small business operators?

[Laura Jones]

I think it's important to understand, first of all, that the vast majority of small business owners care deeply about health and safety. Their employees are like family. You have fewer than five employees. During the recession, one of the things that really struck us was how many calls we got from small business owners who were doing everything they could to try to save the jobs of their employees, even when the bottom line didn't justify saving those jobs. So they do care deeply about those things.

One of the things we hear from small business owners is that if you load them down with too many complicated rules, or if they have to phone three times to get an answer to a straightforward question, that actually stops them from focusing on the most important rules.

It's always going to be challenging, you know, where that line is drawn, because to get a bit more safety sometimes can be very costly, and different people will draw that line in different places.

I don't think there is an easy answer to your question, other than to say that it is very important to small businesses. That's why, when you ask them how much of the burden of regulation could be cut without harming the legitimate objectives, they're not saying 100% or 50%; they're saying it's more like 25% to 30%, which I think is pretty reasonable.

[Bernard Trottier, Conservative, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

Ms. Coombs, can you comment on that?

Obviously, we're not trying to do anything that might compromise health and safety. What are some examples from your members who are dealing with chemicals that could be dangerous, making sure that nothing that's being done to reduce administrative burden compromises health and safety?

[Shannon Coombs]

Mr. Chair, I think one of the best examples we have is the GHS, even though the one-for-one rule doesn't apply to it. That is where we are changing all of the safety data sheets and the labels on our products for chemicals that are used in the workplace.

Through that process, we are ensuring that we can facilitate trade on a North American basis, but we are also enhancing worker safety. The U.S. has adopted this UN model, and I see that as being a really good example of where we've been able to reconcile the two. We can trade with our major trading partner, but we also protect workers and ensure their safety in the workplace.

As I said before, I don't see it as being something that we're compromising. I see it as being something where we can work together with the government to ensure we are bringing safe chemicals into the workplace.

[Bernard Trottier, Conservative, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

Thank you.

One of the examples that was given in one of the submissions was about pharmacists, drugstores all across Canada. There was a regulation that only the pharmacist himself or herself could actually transfer prescription information from one pharmacy to another. It was an administrative burden. Most of the time a pharmacist is a small business owner, and it was illegal for a pharmacy technician, for example, to do some of that work. Pharmacists got behind at times, just by having to transfer prescription information. This was something that relieved some administrative burden on the neighbourhood pharmacy.

Are there other examples like that? The pharmacy technician is fully capable of transmitting that information safely and just had to be given the green light to do this in a more efficient manner for that business. Are there examples like that, where it's who can actually do it, just a tweaking of the rule to relieve some of the administrative burden?

[Shannon Coombs]

I'm more on the up end, and I can't speak to an example of someone who interacts with a pharmacist. I could give you an example on the pre-end.

[Laura Jones]

I think there has been a lot of good work to reduce red tape, and it doesn't all fit neatly into the one-for-one bucket.

A couple of the recent things that have been very meaningful for our members have come from the Canada Revenue Agency. One important change that was made is that the CRA will respect written advice through the My Business Account, even if it's wrong. That's huge for small business owners. It gives them the comfort that if they have taken the time to get the advice in writing from the CRA, an auditor can't come in and say that the advice was wrong. This was happening before. Auditors were coming in and saying, “Well, you got that advice from CRA, but it's wrong, so too bad, and you owe us $80,000 or $20,000”, or whatever it was.

There are a lot of changes going through the system as a result of the red tape action plan and the focus on red tape that are important. It doesn't all fall neatly into the one-for-one bucket. It's probably CRA where I can give you most of the good examples right now.

[The Chair, NDP, Pierre-Luc Dusseault]

Thank you.

Mr. Trottier, you time is up.

I now give the floor to Mr. Byrne, who has five minutes.

[Gerry Byrne, Liberal, Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL]

Thank you to our witnesses for some excellent presentations, a little polarized, but I think that's to be expected. It allows the committee to get to the heart of the matter.

One of the things that I think we all support—I know that we in the Liberal Party of Canada do—are initiatives to reduce unnecessary red tape. We also feel that this exercise is incredibly important, because if we get this wrong, if there's an error in how this is administered, we lose momentum on the initiative. That's why I think we really want to dig down into whether or not the law of unforeseen consequences may come into play here. It sounds pretty simple and straightforward—reduce red tape; if you want to introduce a regulation, you've got to eliminate a regulation—but it can indeed potentially invoke the law of unintended consequences.

Let me ask a question of our witness from the Canadian Federation of Independent Business.

Have you identified any regulations that impose an administrative burden on a business—potentially a large corporation or a small corporation—which you like, and which you feel are necessary, valuable, and help in the administration of a fair and even playing field in the free market?

[Laura Jones]

I think in general, our members are not saying that you should cut all of the regulations. We haven't specifically surveyed and said, “which regulations do you like?” but when we talk to our members, they're generally quite supportive of rules that are fairly straightforward on the tax side. For example, they support the idea of paying their taxes. They support the idea of protecting their employees. They support the common sense environmental rules and regulations.

Really, what they don't support is when it's difficult to understand, when there's poor government customer service around it. For example, when you're trying to do your best to comply with tax rules, and you have to phone CRA five times, and you get three different answers on those five calls, and you're deciding to take the one that you hear the most, those are the things that really do frustrate small business.

We do appreciate that the Liberals, going back to the advisory committee on paper burden reduction which was a Liberal initiative, have supported red tape reduction.

In response to your comment about risks, I think the biggest risk of this is that we see the one-for-one rule as somehow accomplishing everything. It's a very powerful and important tool in the tool kit, but in order to make a difference on the ground, we have to complement that with the other initiatives that address some of the things that are outside of the one-for-one rule. That's really critical, that we not mistake the one-for-one rule....

Businesses get very nervous when governments think, “Okay, we've done that.” That's been the history of red tape reform in other jurisdictions in some provinces. I think that's the biggest risk here.

[Gerry Byrne, Liberal, Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL]

Thanks very much. That's a very thoughtful answer.

One of the things that I think I'm hearing from you is that while the initiative is generally good, there needs to be some oversight into how it's implemented, so that you are aware of what's being taken away versus what's added. Are you aware of any measures to allow that kind of oversight?

[Laura Jones]

Well, there is a report card. One of one of the recommendations that was made through the red tape advisory commission was to do a scorecard.

[Gerry Byrne, Liberal, Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL]

I haven't got a lot of time, so I'll just interrupt you and say, yes, I appreciate that, but that's after the fact.

What I'd like to know is, would you and your organization appreciate being advised of a change in regulation before it happens so that you can give input? I'm not aware that it's current.

Maybe, Ms. Coombs, you may want to answer.

[Laura Jones]

Of course.

[Shannon Coombs]

One of the outcomes of the action plan has been the forward regulatory plans, and from a business perspective we find them very helpful.

It's a very clear, transparent, public notice; here are the regulations that are coming in the next two years from the department.

It also provides us with a perspective that we are not the only ones, that there are others, and so there are going to be a lot of constraints on the department for the development of those regulations.

We've found that particular piece of the action plan to be quite productive.

[Gerry Byrne, Liberal, Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL]

Okay.

Is that it, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, NDP, Pierre-Luc Dusseault]

You have 20 seconds left.

[Gerry Byrne, Liberal, Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL]

Very good. Thank you.