Government Operations Committee on Dec. 2nd, 2014

[The Chair, NDP, Pierre-Luc Dusseault]

Now on to Mr. O'Connor. You have five minutes.

[Gordon O'Connor, Carleton—Mississippi Mills, CPC]

Mr. Aylward, last week I was commenting with members about finding somebody that supported red tape. I was having problems trying to think of anyone, because everybody seems to hate red tape, but I've listened to your briefing and you seem to like red tape. You tie in regulations with jobs, and you say that government agencies can adjust the regulations when they want to.

The problem with that, at least in my opinion, is that unless somebody somewhere says, “review your regulations”, departments don't. You know, they just don't review them. They just carry on with the old regulations and nothing changes. Anyway, may I have your comment?

[Chris Aylward]

That is doable today, though, and you can't refute that. When regulators and administrators today have the right to delete unnecessary regulations, why isn't that done? That's the question that should be asked. Don't simply say that for every regulation we're going to create, you must figure out and find one that we're going to delete. There's nowhere in the legislation where it says exactly how that's going to be done, except it points out that it's going to be done through a report at the end of the year: no consultation whatsoever with anybody. How is that going to be done?

Minister Raitt just last week introduced a new regulation around certification of railways. Who, then, is going to determine which regulation we should delete? How is that going to be done? There is nothing in the legislation around consultation, and that should be of grave concern to Canadians.

It's not the fact that we like red tape. We are very concerned, though, that when you try to reduce red tape, you reduce greatly the health and safety of Canadians and of our environment we live in. That's what we're concerned about.

[Gordon O'Connor]

Okay.

Ms. Jones, red tape is a fluffy term that everyone has opinions on. When you're dealing with red tape, how do you know you have red tape or not?

[Laura Jones]

That's a great question. There are two challenging things when talking about regulation and red tape: one is measuring it, the other is accurately defining it.

I will say that from a private sector perspective, you certainly know it when you see it. But it really boils down to a few different things. One is unnecessary or duplicative rules. Poor government customer service is clearly red tape. One of the ways we quantify it is we ask our members how much time they spend on regulation compliance, hours spent on all the regulatory activities they do. Then we ask how much of that time, in their view, could be reduced without harming the important human health and safety and environmental reasons for having regulation in place.

We take a very small business view on red tape. The rules that are necessary are regulation. Those that aren't or poor government customer service are red tape.

[Gordon O'Connor]

Ms. Coombs, I heard in your briefing something about applying American-type regulations in the future and that you wouldn't have to use the one-for-one rule. Does that mean you can just toss this aside?

[Shannon Coombs]

I'm sorry if it was unclear in my presentation, Mr. Chair.

No, what we were talking about is the GHS, and that the one-for-one rule doesn't apply to this new classification on labelling because it's a regulation that's changing all of the labelling and safety data sheets. It's not an administrative burden, so it doesn't fall within the scope of the legislation. However, the GHS will be a new, modern regulatory system that will be applicable in the United States and Canada and able to facilitate trade and protect worker safety.

[Gordon O'Connor]

But it is an administrative burden, isn't it? Your people have to do this. You actually had to change labels and everything else.

[Shannon Coombs]

It is the cost of business. We would like the scope of the bill increased, but it's one step at a time. We're quite happy with the way it's written now so that we can start to change the systems.

[The Chair, NDP, Pierre-Luc Dusseault]

Thank you, Mr. O'Connor.

Mr. Ravignat now has the floor. He has the last five minutes.

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I haven't heard anything that's convincing about why the one-for-one rule is somehow better than just having a government study about those regulations that cause red tape, that might be redundant, and then simply eliminating or deleting them. It seems like that could have been the approach.

At least in my sense of small and medium-sized businesses in my riding, I don't think they care how the red tape is got rid of but that it is gotten rid of.

Can either of you, Madame Jones or Madame Coombs, speak to the one-for-one rule as opposed to another way of going about reducing red tape?

[Laura Jones]

Yes, I can speak to that.

I think the big difference between doing a review and getting rid of unnecessary regulation—and that has been done from time to time over the course of Canadian history—is it's a one-time event. The one-for-one rule makes this an ongoing process, something that needs to be focused on all the time. It also starts to quantify in a way that we haven't quantified before. Those would be the two big things.

I think that businesses get very frustrated with governments when red tape reform is a flavour of the month, that it is the focus for a little while. They want it to be like fiscal accountability, a permanent feature on the menu. I think the one-for-one rule starts to do that.

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

Presumably you could do that. You could build in a review process that isn't direct and one-for-one, right? What you're saying doesn't necessarily mean a one-for-one rule; it could be an ongoing process. We have continuous improvement processes across the public service, so it could be a yearly review of red tape and red tape elimination. It doesn't have to be a one-for-one process.

[Laura Jones]

If you're suggesting that there might be other ways of doing it on a regular, permanent basis, of course there are other ways of doing it. But we're very excited that there is a way of doing it that is being legislated so that it is going to happen. For too long there hasn't been that important step, and governments haven't really been willing to hold themselves accountable when it comes to—

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

So it really isn't about the one-for-one principle as much as about the idea that the government be continuously reviewing red tape.

[Laura Jones]

Yes, if they are continuously reviewing red tape and holding themselves to a high standard of accountability with respect to it, which, in our view, legislation does.

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

That's interesting.

I'm not sure that this would be your responsibility, but I guess the other issue here is that small and medium-sized.... I actually agree with you that the vast majority of small and medium-sized businesses want to protect our environment and our health. The problem is that you don't regulate for them; you regulate for those who don't, for the people who are a problem and the corporations and companies that are problems. Unfortunately, there is a history of health and safety and environmental issues with medium, small, and large businesses in this country, so there needs to be robust regulation in place. That doesn't mean that a red tape review can't happen.

One thing also that I'm somewhat worried about is trying to get this understood by the business community. What does this mean for the restaurant owner in my riding who has 10 employees? How is this piece of legislation going to radically change their business and help them get ahead?

[Laura Jones]

Well, in dealing with the problem of red tape, as I said before, I don't think there is one magic bullet. This is a giant problem that has evolved over time. It's been hugely frustrating for business owners. There are some very real and legitimate challenges for governments on the other side of this as we advocate for change. There are some very real and legitimate challenges to doing it, in how to measure, how to track, how to know you're making a difference. I don't think there is any one thing that is going to be the magic bullet here. What is important is putting together a series of actions that are going to put a lid on the regulatory activity to start bringing more transparency and accountability to the hidden tax of regulation.

It would be a mistake to say that this is going to make a huge impact all by itself, but does that negate the fact that it is an important step forward? No, it doesn't. You can see from our survey results that it has the heads of business owners nodding; they support it.

[The Chair, NDP, Pierre-Luc Dusseault]

Thank you, Ms. Jones. You had the last word. This brings our first hour of testimony to an end.

Thank you so much for having shared your expertise with us. This will no doubt help us to further study Bill C-21.

I will now suspend the meeting for a few moments so we can see you off and welcome our next panel of witnesses who are already in the room.

[The Chair, NDP, Pierre-Luc Dusseault]

Order, please.

We will now begin the second hour of this meeting on Bill C-21.

We have the opportunity to welcome a few people from two major federal departments. First of all, we will hear from Ms. Weber, who represents the Department of Health. We are also joined by Mr. Beale and Mr. Lindale, who represent the Department of the Environment.

The witnesses have 10 minutes for their presentations, after which we will move on to questions by committee members.

Before we go further, I see that Mr. Byrne has a point of order, so I will give him the floor.

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

Mr. Chair, the committee in its business planning session took an affirmative decision to invite the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. They are not on our list. Would you or the clerk be able to give us an explanation for why someone from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans was not able to be here before the committee?

[The Chair, NDP, Pierre-Luc Dusseault]

That is a good question. I will ask the clerk, who looks after inviting witnesses to appear.

After consultation, I am told that these witnesses were indeed invited to appear by the committee, but that they could not be here as they had to appear before the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans to speak to supplementary estimates (B) at the same time as we were meeting this morning.

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

On that same point of order, the information we received from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans was that the only individuals who could speak with authority from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans on this issue were appearing before another committee on the budget implementation act. Is that correct?

[The Chair, NDP, Pierre-Luc Dusseault]

They were appearing on the supplementary estimates.

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

On the supplementary estimates. Nobody else from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans was confident enough to present to this committee on this initiative.