Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise and address Bill C-212 today, an act that deals with user fees.
I want to compliment the member across the way from Etobicoke North for bringing this forward. This is an issue that my party has been concerned about in the past. In fact, I brought forward a private member's bill on this very issue a number of years ago which was similar if not the same as this private member's bill. Right from the start I will state my sympathies.
It is important for people watching this debate on television to understand a bit of the background behind why this is an important issue and why it is important to have some way to govern the exploding use of user fees by the government. Right now there are about 50 different departments bringing in about $4 billion a year in user fees. There is something like 500 different fees that are in place right now.
The idea behind user fees is actually quite laudatory. The idea is to ensure that if a government service is provided for the benefit of a particular business or individual, then in that case it makes sense to charge a fee for that as opposed to taking the money out of general revenue because the benefits accrue to only one person or one business. Therefore it makes sense to have something like user fees.
Having said that, the concern is that the government does not have in place proper rules to ensure that the fees which are charged are actually what is necessary to cover the costs. Sometimes we find they exceed the costs. We also find very often, because we are talking about government monopolies, when these fees come in, they do not bring about the benefits which they are supposed to bring.
There is a famous example. Fees were brought in to deal with the approval of new medications for the veterinary industry, dealing with animal husbandry and that kind of thing. If I remember right, in 1996 there was a whole new regimen of user fees that came into place. The result is that since 1996 the cost of the fees have exploded and at the same time it now takes twice as long to get approval to use various medications that veterinarians need to practise their discipline. There is that case and there are many other cases.
Another example is the Pest Management Regulatory Agency. This is a famous, almost poster child, example of what happens when agencies become unregulated but on the other hand also have the power to charge user fees. In that case exactly the same thing happened. All these fees started pouring in but the agency actually became less efficient and was unable to approve pesticide use in anywhere near the time that it had previously. In fact it became slower and slower.
As a result of that, a number of people became quite concerned. I brought forward a private member's bill a number of years ago. The Auditor General has looked into this. A large coalition of industry people got together to bring this to the government's attention. The coalition included the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, the chamber of commerce, Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters and a number of others all jumped on board and said that it was ridiculous and it was costing them a tremendous amount of money. Representatives came before the finance committee, testified, brought forward their own report, if I recall correctly, and made a number of recommendations.
My friend from Etobicoke North has adopted a number of those recommendations. I think he has adopted some ideas from the Auditor General's report and has included them in Bill C-212.
When I brought this forward, the government had all kinds of reasons why my bill should not go forward. That was a number of years ago now. I think my friend across the way has a number of his own colleagues interested in this issue now, and I hope he will find on his side a majority of people who will support the bill because it really is important.
I will not belabour this. I know there is an interest on a lot of sides to push the bill forward. I support it and I am sure that my colleagues in general support the drift and direction of the legislation. It is a good step. It is about time we brought forward something like this.
There is nothing worse than taxation without representation. In effect, that is what we have because agencies and departments bring these forward with really no discussion and really no representation. There is no parliamentary oversight at present to ensure that these fees are reasonable, that they are somehow tied to the benefits that are accruing to the businesses.
The last thing we want is taxation without representation. User fees yes, but taxation as just another way of bringing additional revenue into the government, no, we do not want that. That is not what this is about, just some way to ensure that costs are recovered when the government provides some kind of a legitimate service for a business or individual and they are the ones who solely benefit.
I have not used a lot of time, but suffice it to say that this is a step in the right direction. I will recommend to my colleagues on this side of the House that we support the member for Etobicoke North in his desire to bring forward this legislation and rein in that uncontrollable beast, the bureaucracy, that sometimes misunderstands the purpose of its powers. In this case, we have many examples of that so I will recommend to my colleagues that we support the bill.