Bill C-21 (Historical)

Red Tape Reduction Act

An Act to control the administrative burden that regulations impose on businesses

This enactment enacts the Red Tape Reduction Act, which establishes controls on the amount of administrative burden that regulations impose on businesses.

Red Tape Reduction Act

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, as always, it is an honour to stand up in the House on behalf of my constituents of Surrey North to bring forward their concerns. Today I would particularly like to inform the House that Surrey is on the list of the seven most intelligent communities in the world, so kudos to my city. We always knew that we were very intelligent and we finally made the Intelligent Community Forum list.

I am very proud of my people from Surrey and I am particularly proud of small businesses. As we in the House know, and as we have often heard, it is small businesses that drive this economy. They are the economic engines of this economy from coast to coast.

I have been in the House for over three and a half years now, and I have not seen many initiatives that would actually address the concerns of small businesses in order to ensure that we let them do what they do best, which is to create more jobs and invest in our communities. Bill C-21 has a nice name, “An Act to control the administrative burden that regulations impose on businesses”. I like the title of the bill. If it actually reduced the regulations, that would be welcome on this side of the House, but the fact of the matter is that Conservatives have failed time after time to deliver for our businesses and our communities.

NDP MPs will always look forward to days when we can reduce red tape for our businesses. I was in a business myself before I became a member of Parliament. Unfortunately, I had to sell it, because being a member of Parliament involves quite a bill of work. I can tell members that the amount of red tape and the forms I had to fill out took a lot of time that I could have more productively invested in my business and in hiring more people.

We know the system is broken. We know there is a lot of red tape that small businesses have to jump across. Big businesses have lots of employees. They have HR departments and PR departments. They have many departments. In small businesses, the CEO is the one who actually sweeps the floor at the end of the day. The CEO is the one who handles the paperwork. There is a lot of extra burden on small businesses that could be eliminated, and doing that could actually help small businesses prosper.

When we are looking at reducing red tape for small businesses, we need to ensure that health and safety issues are also addressed and that we are not stripping away the very regulations that protect Canadians. Whether they are health, safety, or environmental issues, those are fundamental. We need to ensure we do not strip those regulations away.

There is a small business group that meets regularly in my community. Whenever I am in Surrey, I attend those meetings. What those small businesses want from the federal government is, first of all, a fair system. I can say from my experience that the exorbitant amount of money we pay to the credit card companies is ridiculous. At the end of the day, we see a $10 Visa transaction, and part of that money is taken away by the credit card company. We know those are high fees. We have been advocating to the government on behalf of businesses to ensure that there is a fair system in place and that the credit card companies are not gouging these small businesses, but this has not been done because the government caved under the Bay Street bullies. It failed to protect consumers, it failed to protect Canadians, and it failed to protect the very small businesses that are the economic engines of this country.

The group also talked about mental health issues in the community. Small businesses want the federal government to provide housing for mentally ill individuals who are out on the street. Some of the businesses are being hurt because these people are sleeping in front of the businesses. These are the kinds of initiatives that small businesses want in our communities. With them, they can do what they know best, which is to grow and create jobs.

They need government assistance to ensure they have the proper tools to expand and hire more workers. Housing for mental health patients is the kind of initiative that the Conservative government has failed to deliver for Canadians and small businesses.

I want to echo what the previous member talked about when it came to postal services. If the government is truly interested in delivering for small businesses, it would not increase the postal service fees imposed, most notably, on small businesses.

Most of the business I attracted, and the business I offered, was through Canada Post. It was fairly efficient and costs were fairly competitive. It allowed me to get my message to out to my customers. The Conservative government has raised that cost. Every bit of cost that is added to small businesses hurts them. It takes them away from the very focus of creating jobs and offering their products to the communities.

Any time there is a reduction in red tape, we on this side of the House will support that. However, the plan of the government would not reduce red tape. It talks about how it would bring in one regulation and eliminate another. The government should be looking at the very regulations we have right now. Eliminate the ones that are red tape. Why do we need to have another regulation to eliminate some of the regulations that are already red tape? We could be more efficient, but the government has failed to realize that.

When we talk about regulations, the government has failed to deliver for small businesses time after time. We will always support the regulations that will protect Canadians and their health and safety concerns. We have seen the regulation of some of the very industries in front of us. If we look at the food and safety industries, we have seen the results of that in Alberta, where thousands of jobs were hurt because the government failed to provide the safety regulations and inspectors to ensure the food was safe. We have seen the cuts in the railway and to the very regulations that provide for safety along the railway corridors. We have seen this erosion not only come from the Conservative government, but from the Liberals, and it keeps going on and on.

If Conservatives were really trying to help the economic engines of the country, the small businesses, it would take the initiative. It would provide leadership.

Another example is the $500 million hiring credit that we supported. We wanted it to go beyond the 2014 budget. The Conservatives eliminated it. Instead, it put in another credit of $500 million, but it created only 800 jobs. According to my math, that is about $75,000 per job. That is how the Conservatives spend the hard-earned money of Canadian taxpayers.

I will again ask the Conservative government to ensure that it makes concrete efforts to help our small businesses, rather than put red tape up in front of them.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member opposite, a fellow British Columbian. I always appreciate hearing his input.

The one-for-one rule has been in place in British Columbia for a long time. The government is showing leadership by saying that we will make it into law, and we will be the only jurisdiction in the world to do so, which amounts to more than a slogan. Time and again at the red tape commission, which held hearings right across this country, we heard from members of the small business community who said they wanted to see a reduction in bureaucratic red tape. Therefore, the one-for-one rule actually forces the bureaucrats here in Ottawa to review those regulations, and any time they want to add another one they will have to take one out. That will allow modernization of these laws as they come to pass.

I have two short questions. First, does the member realize that the one-for-one rule will only apply to the administrative burden? This means that the forms or emails one has to send showing that one has complied with government regulation have nothing to do with health or safety, just the associated paperwork. If that can be done online and if we ask for the same information less often or require that instead of doing quarterly reports they do it once a year, would the member support that?

Second, do the New Democrats support this bill? I have heard them talking in a wishy-washy manner about red tape and wanting to see it gone, but will they support this common sense bill, which is supported by groups like the CFIB and will at the end of the day help small businesses?

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the member can be assured that I will not support any bill that does not actually help small businesses. This bill does not help small businesses.

We introduced 12 amendments at committee stage. None of those amendments were accepted by the government. One of those amendments called for a consultation with businesses so that we consult the very people who will be affected by new regulations coming out or those being eliminated. That is nothing new from the current government because it does not consult the people who will be impacted by the regulations and the laws.

We would first want the government to consult the stakeholders, the people and the businesses who will be affected. Time after time, it has failed to do that.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, as we debate the red tape bill and what it would do for small business, there is an opportunity today to focus on this term “job creators”. We have heard for some time from the Conservative administration that the job creators are the large corporations whose corporate tax rate they have reduced to 15%. It is clear, based on the evidence as described by our former governor of the Bank of Canada Mark Carney, that the large corporations are taking the money they have avoided in paying taxes and having it slosh around in their bank accounts. Mark Carney called it the “dead money”. It is now an astonishing 32% of our GDP that is in these large corporate bank accounts. It is not helping to create jobs, while small and medium-size businesses and enterprises do create the jobs.

I wonder if my friend has any comments on that.

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, small businesses are the economic drivers of job creation and wealth in this country and we should be supporting them.

The member is absolutely right that the government has reduced the corporate tax rate for the big corporations to a very low rate. It is much lower even than the rate in the United States.

The idea behind lowering taxes is that corporations would make money and then reinvest that into new businesses and create new jobs. However, the big corporations and friends of the Conservatives have not done that. There is over $500 billion of dead money sitting in corporate balance sheets that has not come back to create more jobs. Rather, as the member has pointed out, it is dead money.

We should be providing small business with incentives like the one we had advocated for, a hiring tax credit that would provide them additional incentives to hire more young people, youth, and students. We know that the youth unemployment rate is high and that small businesses could provide them with jobs, but time after time the Conservatives have failed to provide these incentives.

[Hélène LeBlanc, NDP, LaSalle—Émard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by saying that I will be sharing my time with the fine member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, whose constituency is next to mine.

First, I would like to wish all of the members of the House, as well as the support staff and pages, a happy 2015. I would also like to wish all of my constituents of LaSalle—Émard good health, happiness and solidarity. I will also take this opportunity to wish the owners and employees of small and medium-sized businesses in the riding of LaSalle—Émard a happy and prosperous 2015. Happy new year as well to all of the members of the co-operatives, which are also businesses that are striving for a sustainable and 100% local economy.

At the beginning of this new year, I am pleased to have the opportunity to debate Bill C-21, An Act to control the administrative burden that regulations impose on businesses.

This is a very important bill, particularly when you come from a riding such as mine, namely LaSalle—Émard. LaSalle has close to 1,680 registered businesses and 71% of them employ fewer than 10 workers. There are therefore many small and medium-sized businesses in LaSalle, many of which are retail stores.

We recently learned of the imminent closure of Target stores and the loss of hundreds of jobs in my riding. Small business is very important to the Sud-Ouest borough. There are 2,047 small businesses in the borough, and 69% of them have fewer than 10 employees. This is the case across Canada. Canada's economic landscape is shaped by a large number of small and medium-sized businesses which, as many of my colleagues have mentioned, are the driving force of our economy. More than 75% of jobs are created by small and medium-sized businesses. One would think that Bill C-21 would focus on the owners and the people who work in these businesses. This is also a bill that, to some degree, could be of interest to co-operatives. We often forget that co-operatives are also businesses involved in a multitude of areas. Naturally, we always want to help the owners of small and medium-sized businesses, but we could also consider co-operatives.

We must be careful. Once again, the Conservatives are talking about a bill to help small and medium-sized businesses and to reduce red tape. However, we should also realize that regulations have a very important role to play in Canada, whether it is protecting the environment or ensuring the health and safety of Canadians. Regulations stem from the bills introduced in the House of Commons, bills that are introduced by all members in order to improve the lives of Canadians, not to increase red tape.

The Conservatives are using this bill to eliminate some regulations, but these regulations are important to protect the safety and health of Canadians and to protect the environment.

Government regulations are intended to protect the safety and health of Canadians and protect the environment. That should be a priority. Regulations that are in the public interest should be maintained. It is not just a question of managing the number of regulations on the books, as is the case with Bill C-21, but of determining which regulations are working for Canadians and which are not.

Let us look at how the bill defines an administrative burden:

“administrative burden” means anything that is necessary to demonstrate compliance with a regulation, including the collecting, processing, reporting and retaining of information and the completing of forms.

It may not, in fact, be an administrative burden, but rather a tool to ensure accountability or to answer questionnaires, as is often the case.

Businesses must prove that they comply with the regulations and look at the whole economic picture. However, not every small and medium-sized business has the resources to comply with these administrative rules. That is why legislators, and not just bureaucracy or the public service, must be innovative. We also need to give small and medium-sized businesses the means to comply with administrative demands.

Earlier, Conservative members spoke about online forms and faster ways to comply with administrative regulations. What are they doing to ensure that all Canadians have access to high-speed Internet? Speaking of high speed, this is also a matter of how easy it is to fill out and submit these forms. The government must also ensure that high-speed Internet is affordable for all Canadians and for small and medium-sized businesses. The Conservatives have completely missed the boat there.

As legislators, we are also responsible for introducing bills that will not increase the administrative burden on small and medium-sized businesses. However, a bill introduced not long ago by the Conservatives, Canada's anti-spam legislation, places a huge added administrative burden on small and medium-sized businesses. In addition, this bill, Bill C-21, is inconsistent by virtue of its own administrative burden, because it requires a calculation of the cost of the administrative burden and compliance deadlines.

The truth is that Bill C-21 will not reduce the administrative burden for small and medium-sized businesses. On the contrary, the Conservatives will actually be increasing their burden without really helping them by instituting a hiring tax credit, which the NDP has proposed, or reducing the credit card fees they have to pay.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board]

Mr. Speaker, I am a bit confused on the position of the NDP on Bill C-21, the red tape reduction act. Earlier, members said that they would not support anything that would not help small business, yet the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, with members from coast to coast to coast in our great country, has said that it would support the one-for-one rule. It supported it when it was a policy of government, and it is excited to see the government taking a leadership role and actually enshrining it into law.

Again, small business is keenly supportive of it. Are the NDP members seriously suggesting that small business is not supportive of the bill? I do not understand. Maybe the member could clarify it.

[Hélène LeBlanc, NDP, LaSalle—Émard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I sincerely thank the Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board for his question. He has given me an opportunity to discuss an issue I did not have time to address because I did not have much speaking time.

We have to wonder whether the one-for-one approach is the smartest and most effective way to reduce the administrative burden. My colleague's government increased the administrative burden for small and medium-sized businesses by passing the anti-spam legislation and complicating Revenue Canada.

I believe that the Conservatives are going overboard and actually increasing the administrative burden for small and medium-sized businesses.

[Isabelle Morin, NDP, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for her speech. It is obvious that she is very knowledgeable when it comes to her riding and businesses. She does an incredible job for co-operatives.

Co-operatives will also be affected by this bill. Even though my Conservative colleague says that we are not being clear, we do want to reduce the burden for small business.

My spouse owns a small business that has five employees. He is always telling me how all the forms make his job difficult. He has to ask for help from many people, including his accountant. At the end of the year, his income is modest because he spends money on getting help to fill out the forms. This bill only increases that burden.

We understand why the one-for-one rule was introduced. However, the NDP wonders whether that is the best solution. New products are coming onto the market every day and there is a great deal of innovation. The one-for-one rule may well be obsolete.

Would my colleague comment on what the NDP is proposing to do to help make small businesses more profitable? She mentioned that these businesses create 75% of jobs in Canada. What does the NDP want to do to help them?

[Hélène LeBlanc, NDP, LaSalle—Émard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague.

The NDP is the only party that has denounced the abusive transaction fees small and medium-sized businesses are charged, particularly for credit card transactions. We also want the hiring tax credit to be restored.

The NDP is also the only party that defends co-ops, businesses that are 100% Canadian and create a sustainable, fair economy.

The government claims it wants to help small and medium-sized businesses, but it is completely neglecting a sector of our economy that creates jobs in Canada and contributes to our multi-faceted economy.

[Isabelle Morin, NDP, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, this is the first time I have had the honour of rising in the House in 2015, so I would also like to take a moment to wish all my colleagues a happy new year. I wish all my constituents a happy, healthy and successful year. I also want to take this opportunity to acknowledge all the small and medium-sized businesses in my riding and wish them a happy new year. I am lucky to have many small businesses throughout my riding, including the Lachine industrial park and the Dorval industrial park. There are SMEs in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine and Montreal West. I am very familiar with these SMEs because I am involved in the business groups in my riding. I talk to them regularly and they tell me about the problems they face. As I said, my husband owns a small business that he started three years ago, with a storefront that just opened this year. We talk about it a lot, because it can be complicated, so I am very familiar with what is at stake.

I am rising in the House today to oppose at third reading Bill C-21, which seeks to control the administrative burden that regulations impose on businesses.

I would first like to remind members that the bill was meant to respond to the poor management of regulations, which has been hindering the growth of our companies. The red tape that our businesses have to deal with is preventing them from successfully carrying out their innovative projects, which promote economic growth and benefit the entire country. In that regard, it is important to point out that many regulations are problematic for our economic activities. I think that everyone agrees that there are too many regulations and that something needs to be done. However, it is important to point out that this debilitating situation is the result of the action taken to date by Liberal and Conservative governments. We are trying here to repair the damage done by previous governments through neglect. As I said, the administrative burden is too heavy right now, but regulations cannot just be changed willy-nilly. A procedure must be followed. Right now, the government is eliminating regulations that are very important.

To explain why I am opposed to this bill, I would like to remind members that, in 2012, the Conservatives passed an action plan that consisted of 90 measures to be taken by the departments and six major reforms, including the one-for-one rule. This rule requires the government to eliminate one regulation for every new regulation it adopts. The one-for-one rule also stipulates that departments must evaluate the impact that any proposed regulation would have on small businesses. What is more, the government must offset any new burden on small businesses, that is, time and money spent by businesses to demonstrate compliance, with amendments to existing regulations. That was the theoretical answer the Conservative government gave us in 2012.

I understand that a reduction in red tape in necessary. However, the government cannot simply say that a regulation must be eliminated every time a new one is adopted. I think that happens naturally at some point. If there are outdated regulations or regulations that are no longer useful, they should be eliminated. This should not be a requirement every time a new regulation needs to be put in place. I think we need to look beyond that.

In truth, Bill C-21 is dangerous. I will explain why I think we should not support it. First, it gives the President of the Treasury Board a completely arbitrary position. He might unilaterally decide to get rid of some regulation or another. He can establish policies on how the rules will apply. He will have the power to regulate how deadlines will be determined for taking the necessary measures in order to comply with the regulations. He will have the power to determine the manner of calculating the cost of the administrative burden and how the law will apply to regulations that are amended when the one-for-one rule comes into effect. He will also have the power to grant exemptions.

We all know that our President of the Treasury Board is not the biggest fan of regulations in general. In my opinion, giving him too much authority might jeopardize the many regulations that are essential for Canadians.

We might also wonder what right the President of the Treasury Board has to hold such power. Since I have been here, I have seen the Conservatives give a lot of power to the ministers and the President of the Treasury Board. In our system, I do not think we should give all the power to the government in place, the ministers or the President of the Treasury Board.

In a democratic Canada, if we have democratic principles, we need to care about what Canadians want. I think it is very dangerous to put all the power in the hands of one person. One has to wonder.

Furthermore, we cannot stand for compromising regulations that deal with sensitive topics, such as those that protect the interests of Canadians. Contrary to what the government appears to be trying to show, some regulations truly are necessary and essential. Regulations dealing with the health and safety of Canadians, for example, must be handled carefully and wisely. The Conservatives seem to want to reject any protections related to the interests of Canadians. The only mention of regulations that protect the health and safety of Canadians is in the preamble. There is no other mention in the bill. How can the government completely disregard a topic that so directly affects how we protect Canadians?

This is an unfortunate demonstration of the Conservative government's lack of interest in issues that truly matter to Canadians. These subjects do not seem to be priorities for the Conservative government. Think of the Lac-Mégantic tragedy. That was the result of decades of Liberal and Conservative deregulation. Canadians' safety is not an option; it is an objective. We should all keep that in mind as we discuss this bill.

I also want to point out that Bill C-21 is silent on the environment. The government continues to ignore the protection of nature and the consequences of human activity on the resources available to us. Once again, it looks like taking care of those things is not on the government's agenda even though creating a regulatory framework for that would be very useful. That is why I do not think that the one-for-one rule should apply in this case. There are necessary regulations that should not be summarily discarded.

This bill is awash in paradoxes. Although touted as a bill to reduce the burden, it is counter-productive. The bill calls for an annual report on the implementation of the one-for-one rule and gives the Governor in Council the power to adopt regulations dictating how that report should be structured. In addition, the bill calls for a review of the law after five years, thereby creating an even greater administrative burden. Instead of simplifying the existing regime, these measures will slow down reforms and end up wasting public funds at Canadians' expense.

Instead, the NDP is proposing more consistent and more careful management of regulations. We want to promote SMEs and help young entrepreneurs and family businesses so they can contribute to the growth of our country and our economy. As I was saying, SMEs create most of the jobs in this country and wealth that could spur economic growth. With everything that is going on, we know that growth is sluggish. We really need to focus on SMEs and jobs that are created locally. That is really important.

Clearly, the Conservatives have not really managed to improve the situation. They have made it worse. For instance, the hiring tax credit was eliminated from the 2014 budget. That credit was really important to small businesses. The transaction fees that Canadian businesses are charged are among the highest in the world. Lowering those fees would also really help small businesses.

The Conservatives promised to do something, but instead, they allowed credit card companies to use voluntary measures. This is another fine example of self-regulation. This just goes to show how little this government cares about the interests of SMEs and Canadian consumers. They come second to the interests of large corporations and multinationals.

It is not complicated. We want to help SMEs. As my colleagues said, we are in favour of reducing red tape. We are in favour of reducing this burden. However, we cannot go about this in any old fashion. The NDP proposed 12 amendments in committee. Nine of those sought to protect health and safety, food safety, transportation safety and the environment. They were all rejected. This is a government that never listens to the opposition and does not want to work with us.

Bill C-21 had the potential to be good. Unfortunately, the government did not allow us to give our opinion and stand up for the interests of Canadians. For that reason, I will be forced to vote against this bill.

That being said, I think that it is important in future to have a better way to work with small businesses on reducing their burden. It is very important. They create good local jobs and we must help them.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the member, in a question earlier, made reference to the fact that her spouse is a small businessman and an entrepreneur. She said that the New Democrats do not support the legislation, as her other colleagues have indicated very clearly.

There is a feeling among small businesses and middle-sized businesses, and it has been reflected in umbrella organizations, that even though the legislation has fallen short in many ways, it does seem to have support and acceptance from small business and brings us a small step in the right direction. In that case, how can the New Democrats say, on the one hand, that they are supporting small and medium-sized business policies and that this is a policy that they actually support, and then vote against it?

[Isabelle Morin, NDP, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his question.

I will go back to the small businesses in my riding and explain to them why I voted against this bill. The government cannot brush aside certain regulations that are necessary for the health and safety of Canadians just so that it can put other regulations in place.

Many witnesses supported us in committee. Chris Aylward from the Public Service Alliance of Canada said that Bill C-21 was useless and would not protect Canadians properly. Robyn Benson, the president of the Public Service Alliance of Canada, said that the regulations could save lives if they were enforced properly, but that it sometimes takes a serious tragedy to make people aware of the importance of these regulations, and even then, that is not always the case.

There are necessary regulations that cannot be eliminated. By imposing the one-for-one rule, the government is eliminating regulations that should not be eliminated. I therefore cannot vote in favour of this bill. There are other ways to help small businesses. The hiring credit was an excellent way to help, as is the reduction of credit card fees.

Also, the cost of mailing letters and parcels through Canada Post has increased so much that it has become another burden on small businesses. Clearly, there are concrete ways to help our SMEs. I really want to do that, but this bill does not meet the criteria that I think are important in protecting Canadians. I cannot vote in favour of this bill.

[Robert Chisholm, NDP, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague raised a concern, and I would like her to speak to it a bit more.

One of the issues and concerns that members of this caucus had about the bill was that there was nothing in it, other than in the preamble, that protected health and safety regulations and ensured that the health and safety of workers throughout this country were protected.

We are concerned about this aspect because the current government does not have a good record when it comes to safety regulations. The Conservative governments and the Liberal governments before them have been very much in favour of voluntary regulation. That is the direction that they followed as it relates to both transportation and food security.

I would like to ask the member if she would comment. Regardless of the concerns that have been raised, regardless of the fact that the Conservatives continue to say that this bill would not affect health and safety regulations, can the member explain why she thinks the government failed to accept any of our amendments that would have ensured that the protection of health and safety regulations was spelled out clearly in the text of this bill?

[Isabelle Morin, NDP, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question. The NDP presented nine recommendations to prevent the government from eliminating regulations relating to health, safety, food safety, transportation safety, safety management systems and Canadians' environment. The members of the committee voted against these amendments.

This means that we are not able to ensure that this bill will not affect safety, health or transportation safety. I refuse to hand the government a blank cheque, and I especially refuse to put so many powers in the hands of the President of the Treasury Board without first ensuring that the health and safety of Canadians will not be affected.