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

[Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet, NDP, Hochelaga, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have noticed a trend lately in the bills coming from the Conservatives, and I am not the only one. Their bills always give ministers more powers. As my colleague mentioned earlier, in this case, the President of the Treasury Board will be granted more powers.

I would like to ask him whether he thinks this is acceptable and whether it is good for a healthy and democratic administration in our country.

[Hoang Mai, NDP, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for Hochelaga for asking the question. In fact, it is a concern for us. Quite frankly, being in the opposition and seeing how the Conservative government acts day after day, I find it sometimes disconcerting to see how it is managing security and the regulations that affect Canadians.

Again, it is a question of putting more power in the hands of a single person. In this case, that person is the President of the Treasury Board. He can develop guidelines, single-handedly determine how the rule will be applied—I am referring to the one-for-one rule—and he can make regulations on his own. That takes us, here in the House, out of the equation. As legislators, it is up to us to determine which laws and regulations are the best ones to implement.

We know that the Conservative government has the tendency to want to do less. It wants to take the government out of the business of ensuring that people are safe. It wants to put everything in the hands of one person. The government wants to be able to self-regulate. That is a laissez-faire approach and it is worrisome.

[Gary Goodyear, Conservative, Minister of State (Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario)]

Mr. Speaker, we have heard the comment that the minister should not be awarded the authority to make these simple regulatory changes. Does the member actually think it is in the best interests of small business to bring each of the thousands of regulatory changes into this chamber so that we can sit here and debate each and every one of the thousands for five hours each?

[Hoang Mai, NDP, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I agree with the minister of state. The goal is not necessarily to bring all the regulations here. I think the minister of state knows how things are in terms of legislation, so that was not the intent of my comment. My comment was about the fact that we are giving a lot of powers to the President of the Treasury Board and we are giving a lot of powers in terms of putting forward how we are going to apply this rule, how we are going to apply the bill. That is the concern. It is not necessarily in terms of looking at all the regulations. The minister of state knows that is not what we do here in the House.

However, the bill is giving more power to a minister and that is the tendency we have seen from the start when I first came to the House in 2011. We are seeing more and more power given to individual ministers in order to do what they want to do. That is what we have been saying from the start when the government keeps coming out with omnibus bills. It is a way for the government to take more power and do as it pleases. That is the concern. Members of Parliament have to make sure that we hold the government accountable and when we give all the power to a single individual, that is a concern for us.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleagues for their warm reception.

I am pleased to be speaking to Bill C-21 today, in part as the member for the beautiful riding of Sherbrooke and in part as the chair of the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates, which will be responsible for studying Bill C-21 when the time comes.

I would like to begin by reassuring my colleagues. I will be sharing my views on the bill. However, that will not affect my ability to be impartial as we study the bill in committee. As chair of the committee, I must remain neutral during debates and possible amendments during the clause-by-clause stage. I simply want to reassure those colleagues who will discern from my speech that I have a few opinions on the bill.

After reading the bill, I had the impression that it was more of a smokescreen than anything else, which I will explain. The premise behind this bill was first announced in the throne speech in 2012, a couple of years ago. The government reaffirmed it in 2013. All that to say that the government talks about this often, but it took a while to come up with a bill.

I think it is also a smokescreen in terms of its contents. It seems to me that this is merely a way for the government to boast about reducing red tape and doing something for small business owners, when really, the bill actually does very little in that regard. That is why I feel that the bill is more of a smokescreen than anything else and that it allows the government to brag about being a champion of small business.

If we look at the Conservatives' record, it is clear that the reality is quite the opposite. This is a nice way for the government to talk about this, but there are gaps when it comes to taking action.

First of all, even the title of the bill shows that it lacks consistency. The official long title is An Act to control the administrative burden that regulations impose on businesses, while the short title is the Red Tape Reduction Act. There is a contradiction there.

I am sure people will ask me if there really is a difference between the words “control” and “reduce” or if they really are opposites. Perhaps they are not opposites, according to the dictionary definition. Nevertheless, I do think there is a difference between “control” and “reduce”. In my view, when you control something, it can still increase, but it increases as little as possible, but when you reduce something, you end up with a smaller amount, and that is obviously one way of moving towards fewer regulations. However, both terms are used in the bill.

Why—

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Joe Comartin]

Order. The Minister of State for the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario on a point of order.

[Gary Goodyear, Conservative, Cambridge, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I apologize for interrupting the member, but I have been sitting here for this entire debate and that is exactly the same speech I have now heard three times. I encourage people watching this debate to compare the subject matter and the exact language of this speech. This is wasting the time of members in the chamber. This might be a good argument as to why we inflict time allocation. This is an important matter. If there is something new to add, I would like to hear it so we can debate it, but this is the third time I have heard this speech.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Joe Comartin]

I am not sure that is a point of order. There is certainly no issue, from the observations I have made, of relevancy. It is certainly on topic with the bill that is before the House.

The hon. member for Sherbrooke can continue.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his intervention. He seems to be a little sensitive. I just want to say that my notes are all handwritten. I have not sent them to anyone in the House. I have been here since the debate began at 3 p.m., and I am the only one to have pointed out those two terms in the bill. I am surprised by what the member said, but I thank him for his intervention all the same. I will try to be more original, and I hope that he will pay attention to what I have to say. It is important to have debate in the House. My colleague seems to be suggesting that imposing time allocation will enhance debate. I completely disagree with that. It is important for every member of Parliament to have an opportunity to express his or her opinion. That way, as we move through the process, we all know what the others think. That moves the debate forward.

In the time I have left, I would like to continue with my examination of Bill C-21 and the terms used therein. That slowed me down a little, which is a shame, because I had a lot to say.

Another thing I noticed has to do with the preamble. My colleague spoke about this and probably did a better job than I could, so I will not cover that portion of my speech. However, when a judge has to interpret the provisions of an act, the preamble has absolutely no effect or legal value. My colleague from Brossard—La Prairie did a good job covering this earlier, so I will move on to something else.

The other part of the bill that got my attention was this one-for-one rule. This had previously been announced by the government, so this rule already exists and is already applied within the departments. The rule is reinforced in the bill, since it will be enshrined in law. However, this law has no teeth and will do very little. This is clear in clause 8:

8. (1) No action or other proceeding may be brought against Her Majesty in right of Canada for anything done or omitted to be done, or for anything purported to be done or omitted to be done, under this Act.

(2) No regulation is invalid by reason only of a failure to comply with this Act.

This means that the one-for-one rule that the government just put in a bill will have no effect, since if this one-for-one rule—which will become law when this bill passes—is violated, there will be no consequences. If a department decides to make a new regulation and does not eliminate another one, there are no legal consequences. As a result, departments will not be bound by this law, since there are two provisions protecting them and giving them immunity if they do not abide by the law.

This proves once again that this bill is a smokescreen. This is a way for the government to say that it is a champion of small business.

The ultimate irony here is that the government has created six opportunities to increase the number of regulations with this bill. Clause 7 creates five opportunities for the minister to make regulations. The same goes for clause 10. It will be argued that the regulations in this bill do not apply to businesses, but I find it rather ironic to see that in a bill designed to reduce red tape, the government has included six provisions enabling the minister to create more.

I will be very pleased to take questions from my colleagues.

[François Pilon, NDP, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I commend my colleague on his speech. I learned a lot of things that we have not heard today.

After listening to his speech, I get the feeling that my colleague is quite close to the SMEs in his riding and that he is well aware of their needs.

I would like to know whether he thinks it is important to alleviate the administrative burden on SMEs. Will this bill achieve that goal?

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for the question.

Will the bill achieve that goal? I doubt it. Five years after the bill is passed, I would like to poll the SMEs and ask whether they have felt a decrease in the administrative burden since Bill C-21 passed. I am very curious and I will try to remember to go see the SMEs and ask them that because I highly doubt that this bill will have a significant impact.

It is important and it should have a significant impact because SMEs play a key role in our communities. In Sherbrooke, they are major employers. It is important to encourage them in many ways. Reducing red tape for them will give them more time to invest money in the expansion, visibility and growth of their business.

As members of Parliament and Canadian citizens, we must support our small and medium-sized businesses every day.

[Ted Hsu, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, would my colleague be interested interested in amending the bill at committee in such a way that any administrative burdens that would be added in a particular sector would be compensated by removals in the same sector?

We know that in the first year and a half or so, since the one-for-one rule went into effect, three-quarters of the regulatory reductions have come from the health sector. However, there have been more regulatory burdens in other sectors, particularly in natural resources and transportation.

Would business owners not feel more secure if they knew that the bill did not permit the regulatory burden to go up for them only to be offset by reductions in some other sector where they were not involved?

It seems more fair that way.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague.

There is room for clarification in this bill. As it is only two or three pages long, there could be some clarification. I am obviously not in a position to propose an amendment as I will be chairing the committee meetings. That will not be part of my role.

I will be very pleased to help out during the debate by doing the job of chair to the best of my abilities and trying to have all parties reach an agreement. I believe that the goal in committee is to do important work, work that is productive and moves things along. I believe that committee chairs have a role to play by achieving consensus among the members and ensuring that amendments to bills are adopted, even those proposed by the government. I believe that this is possible. We must be open to all possibilities when studying a bill in committee. I hope that all my colleagues, whether or not they belong to my party, will raise important points during the debate and perhaps propose amendments.

I am very interested in seeing what happens with this bill and participating in the next debate.

[Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet, NDP, Hochelaga, QC]

Mr. Speaker, first of all, I must say that I find the Conservatives' attempts to intimidate members on this side of the House who are giving speeches to be rather deplorable. I know that my colleague is strong enough not to be intimidated.

He spoke about missing measures and the Conservatives' less than stellar record. I would have liked to hear him talk about the measures missing from this bill.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am very disappointed that we have not heard much from members on the other side of the House. I would be very happy to hear what they have to say. Unfortunately we heard only two speeches. Still, I would be very interested in hearing my colleague's opinion rather than hear him tell other members that what they have to say is not relevant. I would prefer to hear him explain his position.

Since my time is almost up, I want to say that this bill is missing a few things, including teeth and impact. As written, it has neither. That is missing. Once passed, the bill will have no teeth. There will be no way to ensure compliance because the departments will be able to use the immunity clause in the bill. I think that is a real flaw that we will probably have to work on correcting.