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.

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Okay. Thank you very much.

I will direct my next questions to Mr. van Raalte from the Treasury Board.

Thank you for being here.

In early 2015, the former government passed the Red Tape Reduction Act. In your opening statement, you mentioned the one-for-one law, which is to ensure that regulators remove one regulation for every new regulation. Is this something that is currently being enforced by the department?

[James van Raalte, Executive Director, Regulatory Policy and Cooperation Directorate, Regulatory Affairs Sector, Treasury Board Secretariat]

Thank you, Mr. Chair and members, for inviting me to join you today.

My remarks will focus on how Canada's federal regulatory policy and modernization agenda responds to the needs and concerns of Canadian small and medium-sized enterprises. I'd also like to share some of the key policy challenges we are seeing in this space.

The Government of Canada policy that sets out how regulatory departments and agencies must develop, manage and review federal regulations is called the “Cabinet Directive on Regulation”. The directive asks regulators to:

...consider the impact of proposed regulations...on small businesses to ensure that [they] do not unnecessarily bear a disproportionate burden when complying with regulations.

To determine whether there are impacts on small businesses, regulators must apply what we refer to as the small business lens. If there are impacts, they must explain how they were factored into the regulatory design, as well as any flexibility that responds to small businesses' needs within the regulation. Flexibility can come in the form of delaying implementation, offering exemptions, reducing reporting frequency, etc. We find that about 20% of the time, there are impacts on small businesses when departments come forward with new regulatory proposals.

There is also a rule within the federal regulatory system that controls the administrative burden on businesses, known as the one-for-one rule. Established in policy in 2012 and under the Red Tape Reduction Act in 2015, this rule requires that, for every new dollar of administrative burden imposed on businesses, a dollar must be removed. It also requires that for every new regulation that imposes a new administrative burden on businesses, a regulation must be repealed from the books. As of March 31, 2021, $60.5 million in net annualized reductions have been observed under the rule. There's also been a net reduction of 185 regulations.

Part of our role at TBS is to ensure that regulators are complying with these rules and to report annually on the application of the one-for-one rule. In addition, TBS leads the government's regulatory modernization effort to facilitate competitiveness, agility and innovation within the Canadian regulatory system and address inefficiency, while ensuring important protections for Canadians and the environment.

We have regulatory co-operation fora with the United States, the European Union and provinces and territories in order to reduce the regulatory differences across jurisdictions and remove barriers to trade. We lead thematic regulatory reviews to identify rules and practices that are creating bottlenecks to growth and innovation, and develop plans to address them. We host a centre for regulatory innovation that focuses on building capacity for regulators to design flexible regulations that enable new and innovative products to come to market. We have a regular TBS-sponsored legislative initiative that removes requirements that stand in the way of modernizing regulations.

In support of this agenda, a committee of stakeholders external to government advises the Treasury Board on ways to improve regulatory competitiveness in Canada and promote excellence, growth and innovation. The committee most recently recommended that the government take a practical approach to help regulators assess the impact of regulations on competitiveness. We commissioned the OECD to learn about what other countries are doing to understand these impacts. The OECD report was clear. Each country has its own approach, and there is no standardized way to measure regulatory competitiveness.

Following on this, we've taken our external advisory committee's approach and are consulting with stakeholders on a draft tool designed to be a practical self-assessment checklist to help unearth potential competitiveness impacts that are top of mind to Canadian businesses as regulatory proposals come forward.

The recommendations made by the external committee are consistent with what we have learned from the COVID-19 pandemic and by monitoring how our regulatory policy compares to other top countries, exposing key opportunities and challenges.

First, while we rank third in the OECD, stakeholder engagement isn't working for everyone. Modernization requires more frequent and meaningful consultation with stakeholders. However, we are hearing that many stakeholders are experiencing consultation fatigue and lack the capacity, knowledge and resources necessary to contribute effectively. This challenge also contributes to a lack of diverse representation.

Second, businesses are concerned with the impact of the cumulative regulatory burden on competitiveness. This issue is significant, yet complex. It implicates the federal government, provinces, municipalities and international regulations. There are no recognized ways to objectively measure cumulative burden or to compare it across jurisdictions. There's a real need for better regulatory data to help search for, identify and address this cumulative burden efficiently.

Third, regulators could make better use of digital solutions and embrace user-centred approaches to improve service delivery. Simply put, being responsive to Canadians demands new ways of working with a focus on digitalization.

Fourth, while the one-for-one rule controls the creation of new burdens, the burden that lies in existing regulations is not getting enough attention. Canada ranks sixth place in the OECD's regulatory policy ranking on post-implementation review, a fact that reinforces the need to improve the way we examine the existing regulatory stock to ensure it is relevant and performing as intended.

Finally, while there is greater demand for agility in regulation, for example, by incorporating standards by reference, stakeholders also require predictable regulatory regimes in which to operate, and there is a tension in finding the right balance between these opposing objectives, agility and predictability.

As we look to address these challenges, I welcome the insights this committee can offer about ways the regulatory system can be more responsive to small and medium-sized enterprises, and support regulatory efficiency and competitiveness more broadly while maintaining Canada's high standards for health, safety, security and environmental stewardship.

I would be pleased to expand upon these points I've raised and to answer your questions, Mr. Chair.

[Dan Albas]

Bill C-21 was the Red Tape Reduction Act in the last parliament. Obviously, I strongly supported that bill.

There is a difference, though, between what Mr. Masse was referring to, in terms of regulations, and administrative compliance. The way the Red Tape Reduction Act works, at least at the federal level, is that it actually will find out how much time and energy....

For example, if it takes x amount of time by a professional to submit paperwork, it monetizes it, rather than using a straight-up one-for one substitution, whereby we would say, “Here's one new piece of paper on the books; we need to take one piece of paper out.”

Ms. Jones, can you explain whether there's a difference between British Columbia's system and the federal system, and also the American system? I'd like to hear what your views are and which one is the most desirable and effective. I imagine that two-for-one sounds better than one-for-one, but if it's simply a case that we'll shrink the font size and say we've reduced the red tape provisions, I don't think it's what business owners are looking for.

Opposition Motion—Government Advertising

[Jim Eglinski, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it goes back to just last year when the hon. member for Pontiac showed great interest in how the government would advertise Bill C-21, the red tape reduction act. He said:

I'm wondering if there has been or if there will be outreach done that explains this to the mom-and-pop shop that's doing great work with 25 employees or fewer. How are we going to tell them how it affects them?

There is no difference in the question he has asked right now. We are passing information on to Canadians about important issues, and it is a message that has to be passed on.

Red Tape Reduction Act

[Matthew Dubé, NDP, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

Mr. Speaker I also have the pleasure of speaking to Bill C-21, which addresses the administrative and financial burden imposed on our small and medium-sized businesses. This is quite clearly a matter that affects all of us, because we all have such businesses in our communities.

In my constituency of Chambly—Borduas, I belong to two chambers of commerce and industry: the Chambre de commerce et d'industrie du bassin de Chambly, and the Chambre de commerce et de l'industrie de la Vallée-du-Richelieu. The latter is an example of one of the newest and fastest-growing chambers of commerce in Quebec, and indicates what a strong upswing we are currently enjoying.

With respect to the Chambly chamber of commerce, we also know that with assistance from the Quartier Dix30 centre, good work is being done to promote the services available in the regions and municipalities in the Chambly basin.

When you talk to these people, you can be sure that they will all tell you the same thing, regardless of where they come from, their riding or the circumstances on the ground. They all want us to reduce the tax burden and cut red tape. If we are going to do that, however, we have to do it right. When I talk about doing it right, the example that comes to mind does not involve small and medium-sized businesses, but it says a lot about the approach taken by the Conservatives. I am referring to the report of the parliamentary budget officer of the time, which talked about cuts the Conservatives had made. They said they had to reduce the size and cost of government. They talked about austerity, and so on. We realized, and the parliamentary budget officer demonstrated this, that because of these cuts, we reduced services to citizens but did not really reduce the size of government, improve its efficiency, or actually reduce costs all that much.

When we consider this example, we realize that we all want the same thing. We all want to reduce an unnecessary burden. At the same time, however, it has to be done in an intelligent and effective way. We supported Bill C-21 at second reading and it went to committee. Some 12 amendments were proposed, but none was accepted. The very purpose of those amendments was to make our approach more coherent.

As my colleague from Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel so rightly put it, regulation in itself is not a bad thing. We just need regulation that is intelligent. For example, when we talk about the safety of a company’s employees, the safety of Canadians, health, protection of the environment and all such matters, these are things we want to improve, things that must be in place and must be properly managed and regulated. However, at the same time, we have to find ways of reducing the tax burden.

The problem with Bill C-21 is not only that there is no oversight of those issues, but also that the bill gives the president of the Treasury Board too many discretionary powers. From what we have seen, the current President of the Treasury Board is incapable of making good decisions that effectively reduce the existing burden of our small and medium-sized businesses.

In terms of reducing the tax burden, it is important to raise a number of points to confirm and explain the NDP's approach to this issue. I had an opportunity to raise these points with the Chambre de commerce et d'industrie du bassin de Chambly. About 100 people attended a conference that I offered to the entrepreneurs of part of my riding to explain our approach. First and foremost, this approach involves reducing taxes for small and medium-sized businesses. We often talk about this, and it is extremely important.

The example that proves that we can walk the talk is Manitoba. After five majority NDP governments, the tax rate for small and medium-sized businesses is 0%. That speaks volumes about our approach. We realize that they are the economic driver of our communities. We must legislate or not legislate—or, in this case, impose or not impose legislation—accordingly.

The other issue is the hiring tax credit. This measure was introduced by this government, but unfortunately it was cut in the last budget. We wanted to see a new and improved version of it. We even used it as a basis for a proposal that I had the chance to make a little over a year ago with my colleague from Parkdale—High Park. We proposed a similar tax credit that also applied to the hiring of young people. After all, there is a problem not just with youth unemployment, but also with youth underemployment.

A Statistics Canada report indicated last year that an increasing number of well-educated young people are struggling to find work that matches their qualifications and talents. We proposed providing a tax credit to SMEs to create new jobs, not just replace their employees with younger workers.

The credit sought to encourage growing businesses to hire and train young workers, who would become contributing members of our communities and our economy for the future. This is just as important for the SMEs as it is for everyone in our communities.

After all, we can see a domino effect among young people. When families of consumers settle outside urban centres, that leads to new businesses and new schools in the area and to all sorts of positive effects that contribute to our communities. I have seen this in my constituency, which has some of the fastest-growing municipalities in Quebec. There are growing numbers of young families where I live.

We are not just talking about a tax credit to reduce the tax and administrative burden on small and medium-sized businesses; we are also talking about the notorious credit card fees. We talk about that all the time. The Conservative government is happy to rely on a voluntary code of conduct for these companies, which means that we have to rely on the good faith of these companies. That very rarely translates into concrete results.

The measures the NDP is proposing are the result of consultations with the small and medium-sized businesses that come to see us in our constituencies and in Ottawa. They come to see the NDP members and the members from all the other parties to tell us that this code of conduct is not working.

This is a concrete way of minimizing the burden that would not require major changes and that the government could implement very quickly. It would put substantial shares of profits into the pockets of small and medium-sized business, which in turn would contribute to job creation and economic growth in our regions and our communities.

There is also the question of the different employment insurance schemes. Here again, we saw a ridiculous proposal from the government. It proposed astronomical spending to create very few jobs, while at the same time dipping into the employment insurance fund to finance this measure, as the Liberals did before the Conservatives.

The employment insurance fund belongs to the employees and employers. Spending those funds in such a cavalier manner for the sake of good headlines on the eve of an election is not a very intelligent approach. They tell us that this bill is a step in the right direction, when all it does is give more powers to the President of the Treasury Board.

I will repeat what some of my colleagues have already said. We can no longer trust in the Conservatives’ approach. We have a plan for small and medium-sized businesses. When I interact with entrepreneurs, because I participate regularly in the activities of the chambers of commerce in my constituency, they tell me that they fully support that approach. We are going to continue to fight for it in the House.

We cannot support an approach that so far has not worked and has not produced the desired results. That is why we put forward our proposals.

[Mylène Freeman, NDP, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, before I begin, I would like to let you know that I will be sharing my time with the member for Chambly—Borduas.

I am pleased to rise to speak to Bill C-21 because this gives me an opportunity to talk about how important small businesses are to me and my riding and about why we should support them.

Specialized industries and big businesses should not be the only beneficiaries of our desire to support our economy. We need to recognize that small businesses are central to our economy. I will explain why. Small businesses are one of our biggest drivers of economic growth. We have to help them thrive. Small businesses already account for nearly half of Canada's GDP, and they are responsible for close to 60% of all jobs in Canada as well as 75% of net new jobs. When the economy is in a downturn and fewer jobs are being created as we lose big companies, small businesses are the ones making a difference and creating jobs, especially in rural and remote areas. As a result, they are very important and create 75% of net new jobs.

We in the NDP believe that SMEs should be a priority for any federal government, because they directly support job creation. That is why we proposed reducing the small-business tax rate from 11% to 9% during the last federal election. That measure directly targeted SMEs. We also proposed other simple, concrete measures to help SMEs. For instance, we proposed expanding the hiring tax credit for small businesses. The Conservatives cancelled it in 2014, which was really sad to see, because it meant taking away a tax credit that created jobs and helped people enter the workforce. There are 1.3 million unemployed Canadians. Eliminating this kind of hiring credit that created jobs was a move in the wrong direction. At the same time, in the most recent budget, the Conservatives spent $500 million to implement measures that, according to the Parliamentary Budget Officer, will create only about 800 jobs. Clearly, that is not a good investment.

Furthermore, youth unemployment is very high. It is actually double the national average. We need to take a closer look at that in order to reverse that trend. Everyone knows that our youth are Canada's future. As parliamentarians, we have to invest in their future. That is why we proposed a tax credit worth up to $2,000 for hiring young people, in order to help businesses train young people aged 18 to 25 and provide them with good jobs.

In addition to all of that, as part of our campaign to make life more affordable, we proposed ways to reduce operating costs for our retailers and merchants, by directly tackling the anti-competitive credit card fees imposed by credit card companies. The Conservatives introduced a voluntary code of conduct recently, but that is not enough to reduce credit card transaction fees. We in the NDP are concerned about the excessive fees that businesses have to pay, since they can amount to 1, 2 or 3% of sales.

The exorbitant fees charged by credit card companies do not help our communities. That is money that comes directly out of our communities and will not be reinvested. A ceiling needs to be imposed to make these fees more equitable for the companies, but especially for our merchants. That would be fairer to the families who are trying to make ends meet.

These proposals truly support the entrepreneurs in my region whether they have just started their company or have been in business for decades. I travel around my riding and talk about these proposals, which are very well received by the Vallée de la Petite-Nation chamber of commerce and the chamber of commerce and industry of Deux-Montagnes, Saint-Eustache, Sainte-Marthe-sur-le-Lac, Mirabel and Argenteuil. These proposals will directly affect business owners in my riding.

In a riding like mine, a big part of the economy is based on agriculture and agri-food, and most of the business owners work in that field as well. These farmers are at the heart of our rural areas and a job creation strategy in the rural areas and small communities. I wanted to point that out because we have to think beyond taxes and red tape. We also have to think about what we can do to encourage and support our farmers.

The bill before us, Bill C-21, An Act to control the administrative burden that regulations impose on businesses, is meant to reduce red tape for businesses. The Conservatives are proposing to do that by giving more power to the Treasury Board. That is where they start to take away the SMEs' power to create jobs.

We still want to find ways to reduce the administrative burden on SMEs and allow them to focus on what they do best, namely growing their business and creating jobs. However, the NDP wants to prevent the government from eliminating rules regarding health, food safety, transportation safety, management systems and the environment. It is not unreasonable to ask the government to protect the environment, workers and our food.

We are concerned that the measures introduced to concentrate power in the Treasury Board are not steps in the right direction. We do not trust that the Conservatives will do a good job. In closing, I will provide two examples.

First, in the October 2013 budget implementation bill, Bill C-4, the Conservatives made changes to the Canada Labour Code in order to gut the powers of health and safety officers in federal workplaces. They are directly compromising Canadians' health and safety.

Second, they do not necessarily want to reduce red tape because they increased the paper burden with the building Canada fund. We do not know how they can be trusted. When they have the opportunity to take occupational health and safety seriously, they do not do so, and when they say that they want to reduce red tape, they make more for our municipalities, which also create jobs.

For all those reasons, I cannot support this bill.

[Jean Rousseau, NDP, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the subject today affects many more businesses across Canada than we might think.

I am simply going to take the example of the manufacturing sector, which plays a key role in Canada. It once accounted for 65%, but it is now 50%; it is declining somewhat. In that segment, we find not just companies with 500 or more employees. From one end of my riding to the other, there are companies with five or 15 or 50 employees. These manufacturing entrepreneurs need an appropriate operating framework. They have enough competition at the international level. Today, no sector of economic activity, whether in Canada or elsewhere on the planet, can be exclusive to one region, one riding or one country any longer. Everything is global these days. You produce something, a natural resource, and it can be processed or manufactured anywhere on the planet.

I am talking about the manufacturing sector, but there are other sectors such as agriculture or retail, which now has to adjust to e-commerce. What is needed is a genuinely flexible framework. Bureaucracy and red tape, as it is called today, are certainly part of operating a business. However, I have sometimes had businessmen or businesswomen tell me that they had to spend one day a week doing nothing but administration. They had to fill out reports: one for the environment, another for workers’ compensation, because there is also bureaucracy at the provincial level. Put it all together and it adds up to a lot. People have to be able to operate their businesses in a sound environment and, most importantly, a competitive environment.

Bill C-21, An Act to control the administrative burden that regulations impose on businesses, is intended as a response from this Conservative government to the Canadians and the small and medium-sized businesses that have often voiced their concerns about the expanding administrative burden that regulations impose on the cost of doing business in Canada. If we want to prosper, we must really have an attractive framework.

The government therefore wants to institute the one-for-one rule. As my colleague said earlier, plus one minus one equals zero. You do not have to be very good at mathematics to understand that calculation: 1 - 1 = 0. However, the one-for-one rule must not interfere with public health or safety. There is an environmental framework and a framework for public health and safety. It applies mainly to employees but can also relate to the cleanliness of food processing. This must all be as transparent as possible.

Once again, they are going to give a minister, Mr. Gazebo, some latitude, rely on his judgment, and trust him to reduce administrative burdens and make decisions about this subject. I am sorry, but the Conservatives and Liberals really do not have a good track record in this regard, particularly when it comes to regulations that protect Canadians’ health and safety. I stress this again. We have seen very clearly the disastrous consequences for the environment and public safety that deregulation has had for the Canadian public in recent years.

Regulations that are in the public interest should be retained, of course. What needs to be done is to closely monitor the aggravating factors and the factors that are mitigating and user-friendly for businesses and business owners.

Bill C-21 seems to disregard that obligation. We would have liked to have assurances that deregulation will not apply to regulations that affect health and safety and, most importantly, the environment.

If the Conservatives really wanted to help small businesses, they would have supported the NDP’s proposal to create an ombudsman position to deal with issues such as the excessive credit card fees that the big banks unfairly charge merchants. This is an ineffective injustice that my colleague fromMontmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup has been battling vehemently since he first came to the House.

Small and medium-sized businesses create most of the new jobs in Quebec and Canada, not only in the major centres, but also outside the urban areas. In addition, small businesses make those regions thrive. Unfortunately, small businesses and the regions outside urban areas get very little attention from this Conservative government. The Prime Minister and his key ministers have completely ignored them at the expense of big businesses, the ones that have been given billions of dollars in tax cuts. We see what happens when you favour a single sector of economic activity, with the price of oil falling. The Conservatives find themselves in a precarious position, making it up as they go. They are no longer even capable of producing a budget in real time, something that is essential to help Canadian business owners across the country.

I talked about the fiscal and administrative environments as well as the actual environment. When someone operates a business, we want them to do so in a way that respects the environment. Of course, the government also deregulated that. It said it would let project proponents self-regulate. Canada is one of the only countries in the world that lets everyone do almost whatever they want, wherever they want, whenever they want. Furthermore, the provinces have tried to protect themselves when it comes to natural resources, just in case the federal government is unable to impose an environment that is not highly regulated, but that people respect.

Thinking clearly about what is happening also means having a healthy, clear and successful framework. I am thinking of future generations. That is what is so aggravating about this. Future generations do not have an environment in which they will be able to develop our natural resources without polluting. If you add this to our changing demographics and our aging population, it is going to be a disaster. We were talking earlier about renewing our workforce. Businesses have a real challenge on their hands. The workforce, the next generation, the men and women who want to be part of this prosperous Canada should have the opportunity to do so, and they should be able to run businesses even in areas where crops cannot be grown as they once were here in Canada. There are areas where climate change is preventing people from farming the same way they did in the past.

The regulatory framework in which most businesses in Canada will operate is made up of nearly 2,500 regulations spread over more than 15 departments. These cover everything from agricultural businesses to R and D companies researching the energy of the future. Business people across Canada need to dedicate a huge amount of time, money and consultation to complying with these regulations.

At present, red tape is preventing the collective growth of entrepreneurship. The need to prove that they comply with regulations by collecting, processing and retaining information, preparing reports and filling out forms is such that it discourages many people from actively taking the reins of businesses across the country. I talked about demographic changes. That will be the result if there is not an appropriate framework.

This small bill, which is truly small, contains about 11 clauses. In actual fact, there are only four. It is a question of semantics. It does not address the real problems, which cause quite a few headaches for Canadian entrepreneurs.

In closing, it is not until the NDP comes to power in 2015 that things will change and entrepreneurs will prosper.

[François Lapointe, NDP, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague referred to employment insurance reform, which is totally out of touch with what is going on in so many industries, particularly in eastern Canada and Quebec. That is certainly causing problems. It also relates to another comment I had.

If circumstances are such that a business has to hire new employees every six months, there could easily be a shorter form for when employees are replaced. However, if the form has to be changed every time, that will result in more paperwork, not less. It is like I was saying before.

There is another unbelievable phenomenon happening in my riding. It is so hard to manage the innovation tax credit that a significant proportion of small and medium-sized businesses no longer bother to claim it and have given up on some of their efforts to innovate.

In many cases, it is medium-sized businesses, not small ones, that have managed to keep claiming the tax credit. I have asked them if it is that hard for them to do. They have told me that the administrative hassle costs them between 30% and 35% of the amount they get back. I have asked them if there is really more paperwork. They have told me no, but the government checks and double-checks their answers, and they have to call an official 18 times, and the official challenges everything they submit.

Officially, the program does not involve any more red tape. However, the program is now managed in such a convoluted way that small businesses are, for the most part, abandoning their efforts to innovate. That is really bad for the country's economy in the medium and long terms. There are all kinds of examples like that one.

Once again, Bill C-21 is a long way from fixing this problem.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to my hon. colleague.

Bill C-21 is yet another bill in which the government passes off fluff for action. It is as if the government has created itself as Don Quixote and is going to go after windmills called red tape.

The government has systematically attacked the basic systems that are in place to ensure a viable economy. One example is its attack on the environmental legislation, which stripped all of the water protections, and the government's dumbed-down idea that it would somehow make it easier to get the pipelines approved. Then it has run into one bit of opposition after another because there are no clear rules in place.

The Conservative government is afraid to bring in a budget. It cannot have a plan and cannot even count the money, and yet it has created this false attitude that it is going after red tape.

Could my hon. colleague tell me why he thinks we are wasting time on a bill like this flop, rather than dealing with clear issues like the budget and protecting citizens?

[François Lapointe, NDP, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with my colleague from Compton—Stanstead. I will therefore be speaking for just 10 minutes, in order to leave him the other half of my 20 minutes.

I have the honour today to address my colleagues, and those who are kind enough to be watching us on CPAC, on the subject of Bill C-21, An Act to control the administrative burden that regulations impose on businesses.

I would recall at the outset that for a long time, the government called this its bill to reduce—and not to control—red tape. We can already see that there has been some backsliding with respect to the government’s real intent to deal with the problem.

Over the last seven years, a number of ministers have made numerous announcements at various locations in Canada, with much fanfare, to express how eager the government was to attack the administrative burden. The Conservatives said they wanted to reduce what they called “red tape”. They made it into a major obsession, which has unfortunately produced very little in the form of Bill C-21.

However, this is an important issue, not to say a major problem. Roughly $30 billion in time and costs are imposed on SMEs and entrepreneurship in general in Canada with forms and various other requirements. That is a lot of money. For an SME or a business, the situation is even worse in terms of its resources.

When you have more than 100, 125, 200 or 300 employees, you can set up human resources or administrative services where people can focus on administrative requirements. The business thus becomes more efficient, and in proportion to the company’s overall operations, such requirements pose less of a problem.

However, for the owner of a small business that has generated 5, 10, 15, 20 or 30 jobs through hard work, whenever a form or a request from a public servant appears, it is always handled by a single person: the small business owner. It is a heavy burden, especially for small businesses and microbusinesses. It is also a burden for medium-sized businesses, but it is even more serious for small and microbusinesses.

We have to deal with this problem, because 98% of our active businesses in Canada have fewer than 100 employees. Ninety-eight per cent. The category includes people who work very hard and have created jobs, but do not yet have sufficient turnover to have human resources and administrative departments. These people have to shoulder the administrative burden themselves.

Sixty-four per cent of employees in the private sector work in an SME; 64% of people in Canada who are not employed by provincial governments or the federal government work in an enterprise with fewer than 100 employees.

This is the sector of the Canadian economy that creates and maintains the most jobs, and it is these enterprises that have to come up with most of the $30 billion invested in time and trouble because of good old red tape.

In addressing this major and important issue, we unfortunately have serious problems with respect to the bill that is before us at third reading today. The bill embodies the government’s desire to apply the one-to-one rule, which is designed to eliminate a regulation for every new regulation made by the government.

I do not know how many times I have to drive this home. The one-for-one rule always gives nothing more than zero. We are faced with a solution whereby the sum total of what was to be an attack on red tape to liberate Canadian businesses still amounts to nothing more than zero. That is the major solution offered by this bill.

A few weeks ago, we were fortunate to have Kevin Page with us in Parliament. He gave a speech to my colleagues and me. He made a very accurate observation to the effect that when there is a complex issue, someone always thinks of a simple solution. The problem is that it is often a very bad solution.

When I think about the one-for-one rule, I cannot help but think about what Mr. Page said that day. That is exactly what we have here: a simplistic measure.

Another problem with this bill is that the President of the Treasury Board could decide to eliminate regulations. The member for Parry Sound—Muskoka is currently President of the Treasury Board and his record is not entirely spotless when it comes discretionary decisions. Take for example, the $50 million invested in gazebos in Ontario when the G20 leaders were visiting.

It is a serious problem when a bill places so much power in the hands of a single representative of government, particularly when the person who currently holds that position does not have a completely spotless record when it comes to discretionary decisions.

The Conservatives also have a poor track record with respect to workplace health and safety, and the bill says nothing about the environment.

We would not want Bill C-21, which gives the government power to tinker with forms and abolish regulations, to be exploited by a government with a very bad track record. Just think about the train tragedies that have occurred in recent years in Canada. The regulatory management that preceded those accidents was part of the problem, and it was the Conservative government that was in charge. We would not want want Bill C-21 to be used to do away with regulations that are for the common good or important for the environment.

The NDP would like the report to contain clear obligations on how we will ensure accountability in how the government will use this law and in how the stakeholders will be consulted before a regulation is eliminated. It would be very important to give that responsibility to an organization and not just to the President of the Treasury Board.

However, the nine amendments presented by my colleagues in committee were all rejected. That is just another problem with this bill, which seeks to address an important issue. We need to cut red tape, but we do not want to adopt a solution that has no effect. It is therefore difficult for parliamentarians to determine whether this is a worthy bill.

In short, according to a document produced by Industry Canada, red tape decreased by about 11% between 2005 and 2008. The report concluded that employment trends and the decrease in workers' compensation claims were the primary causes. This shows how complex the situation is.

If people are being injured at work and there is no job stability, even if we reduce the administrative burden, we will not decrease red tape. If business owners are constantly having to replace employees and if these employees are getting injured every three days, there will be no decrease in red tape. Business owners will have to deal with all kinds of hassles. This is a much bigger and more complex problem.

There are solutions, but they would require a lot more work and co-operation. For example, Belgium is working on digital solutions. Business owners send their papers in electronically, so they are not forced to send them every time a government official has a question.

Furthermore, some European countries have created statuses for microbusinesses. These countries are trying to cut red tape for people who are getting into business and who have only about 10 employees. These companies get a special tax status to make their lives easier. There are solutions that would have an impact.

Those solutions are not in this bill, and it has a number of problems. I will have to continue to think on this bill.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege to stand in the House and follow the minister. We definitely want to thank her for all of her work at WED and for her commitment to small business. It is a privilege for me to share a province with the member, where we are proud of the work that she has done.

The red tape reduction act is one that is very close to me. I have the privilege of serving on the Red Tape Reduction Commission, and what we have heard again and again from small businesses from coast to coast is the need for the government to get a handle on the amount of red tape that is developed. This one-for-one rule is really moving the goalpost further down the field to ensure that we get to a place where we can address some of the concerns of small businesses and other businesses across the country.

As members know, this legislation would fulfill a commitment that we made as a government. In October, 2012, we brought forward the red tape reduction action plan in response to the commission's recommendations. With this legislation, we hope to make it the law of the land that regulators strictly control the administrative burden they impose upon businesses. Under the one-for-one rule, for every new regulation that adds an administrative burden on businesses, one must be removed.

This is smart legislation. It would help Canadian businesses become more productive and help them succeed in an increasingly global and competitive marketplace.

The red tape reduction act would require that regulators take seriously the requirement to control the amount of red tape imposed upon businesses and the related costs. The legislation is designed to be tough. It would challenge regulators to think through how regulations could be designed and implemented in ways that do not impose unnecessary red tape upon businesses.

It is tough, but it is also quite flexible. The government's commitment to maintaining Canada's high health and safety standards is unwavering. The one-for-one rule would be applied without compromising the protection of the health and safety of Canadians.

This legislation is very timely. As we know, one of the government's top priorities is creating a climate in which business can innovate, invest in the future, and create economic growth and jobs. Too often, red tape gets in the way by tying up a company's time, energy, and production resources. The red tape reduction act would allow businesses to use their resources to become more productive by eliminating unnecessary regulatory red tape.

Given what is happening in the global economy today, we know that Canadian businesses have to be at the top of their game to succeed. The good news is that the Canadian economy has come through a global economic downturn, that recovery is happening, and the economy is in relatively good shape. Canada is positioned for sustainable economic growth.

It is worth remembering that when the hard times arrived in 2008, Canada was in a position of economic strength compared to its international partners. This allowed us to put in place one of the most comprehensive stimulus packages in the world. At the time, international observers, such as the International Monetary Fund, were predicting that Canada would be one of the fastest countries to recover. I am proud to say that these predictions have come true, given our relative economic and fiscal strength.

Since we introduced the economic action plan to respond to the global recession, Canada has recovered more than all of the output and jobs lost during the recession. The Canadian economy has boasted one of the strongest job creation records in the G7 over the recovery, with nearly 1.2 million jobs created since June, 2009. Over 90% of the jobs created since June 2009 are full-time positions, 80% of those in the private sector, and over two thirds in high wage industries.

What is more is that the real GDP is significantly above pre-recession levels, the best performance in the G7. Not only has Canada weathered the economic storm well, but the world has also noticed. Both the International Monetary Fund and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development expect that Canada will be among the strongest growing economies in the G7 over this year and next. The World Economic Forum rated Canada's banking system as the soundest in the world for the seventh year in a row in its annual Global Competitiveness Report. According to KPMG, total business tax costs in Canada are the lowest in the G7, and 46% lower than those in the United States.

In addition, four credit rating agencies, Moody's Investors Service, Fitch Ratings, Standard and Poors, and DBRS, have reaffirmed their top rating for Canada and expect Canada to maintain its AAA rating in the year ahead.

However, we cannot rest on this record of success. Despite solid job creation since 2009, too many Canadians remain unemployed. That is why the government's economic action plan focuses on the drivers of growth and job creation—innovation, investment, education, skills and communities—underpinned by our ongoing commitment to keeping taxes low and returning a balanced budget by 2015.

Clearly, responsible fiscal management has to be in place for us to succeed. Canada is one of the few countries that can now boast of having a declining tax rate and a low debt. That is why we remain committed to eliminating the deficit. Reducing debt helps to keep interest rates low and encourages businesses to invest and create jobs.

Reducing debt signals that the public services are sustainable over the long run. The gains that we saw as a result of Canada's low-tax plan are fostering long-term growth that will continue to generate high wage jobs in Canada into the future. It strengthens the country's ability to respond to economic shocks, such as the global financial crisis that we witnessed in 2009, and it will ensure that Canada keeps its economic advantage now and for generations to come.

Helping Canadian companies succeed in the global economy has clearly been a priority of this government and we certainly have seen the success of that. By taking action such as enshrining the one-to-one rule in law, we are making the regulatory system more conducive to business success and to economic growth. We are creating a more predictable environment for businesses, particularly for small and medium-size businesses, and we are freeing entrepreneurs from the burden of regulatory red tape.

It is all part of our plan for Canada. I certainly invite hon. members across the way to join me in supporting the bill we are speaking about today. It will help us to further eliminate unnecessary rules and costs that have been the source of frustration for business people and entrepreneurs across this country, and it will bolster Canada's strong reputation as one of the best countries in the world in which to do business and to invest.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Northwest Territories, NT]

Mr. Speaker, I am here today to talk about Bill C-21, an act to control the administrative burden that regulations impose on businesses. It is a good bumper sticker for Conservative politics later on in this year. It is also a bill that is in some ways very confusing.

If we take the basic premise that we will get rid of a regulation for every regulation we create, that logically says there are quite a number of regulations that do not need to be on the books right now. Why does the government not do some homework and identify the regulations that are not important to the Canadian public, to businesses and to the happiness of the Canadian state and simply eliminate those regulations? Would that not make more sense than tying up the time of the House of Commons with a bill that really does not nail anything down? It simply lays out a pattern that can or cannot be obeyed. It is sort of like the elections limits law earlier in my time in Parliament. People could follow it if they wanted or they did not have to follow it

The President of the Treasury Board may establish policy or issue directives respecting the manner in which the rules can be applied. We have another law that is really for public consumption. It really will not affect too much in the way that business regulations are set or not set in Parliament.

For instance, it says in the preamble of the bill that the one-for-one rule may not compromise public health, public safety or the Canadian economy. It is in the part of the bill that is not law. It simply talks about the bill. Where Conservatives outline their concerns about where we should not touch regulations on a one-to-one basis, it really is inappropriate, it does not work and it is not part of any requirement of government to follow.

Environment, immigration or human rights are not mentioned. A whole number of things are not mentioned. The Conservatives' thoughts are very different from their thoughts about foreign regulation or how to sell the Canadian public on the idea they are taking care of the economy, the economy being a very complex organism which has social, cultural and environmental aspects to it at all times.

I was a small businessman for many years in the Northwest Territories. I dealt with small businesses in limited markets under very difficult conditions. Regulations set out a pathway for businesses in many cases. They provide, and should provide, a mechanism by which business people can conduct their business in a good and proper fashion. That is the purpose of regulation. Regulations put everyone on a level playing field. Everyone is required to abide by regulations.

Within the economy, there are some rules and conduct that can make business work. Therefore, regulations are very important. To simply deal with regulations in this rather cavalier fashion, saying that for every new regulation we create we are going to take one away, is patently absurd.

Let us go back to the environment. The Conservatives have been changing environmental laws to help large resource developers to effect their businesses better in the three northern territories. That has not worked very well for them. With the changes to the NWT environmental legislation that occurred last year along with devolution, they are now in court with first nations over those changes.

Now we have uncertainty in the Northwest Territories about how development is going to proceed because of those changes. Now the government has decided to do a somewhat similar thing in Yukon with Bill S-6. It would make changes to the Yukon environmental legislation.

The bill has created a firestorm among first nations and ordinary Yukon citizens right across the territory. The people of Yukon understand that the best way for developers to proceed is with the full understanding and co-operation of first nations.

What the government has done in both territories is created this chasm and brought legislation forward which has the exact opposite effect of what it says it is trying to do. I think this bill will probably be similar in some ways.

As I said earlier, if regulations are not appropriate, they should be taken down. We should not wait until another regulation comes along to decide that a regulation is not appropriate anymore. That really is an unbelievably inane way of conducting government.

The NDP has some sensible suggestions for small business. What are we going through right now in Canada? We have a dollar that has dropped by about 20%. What does that do for small businesses that want to innovate and expand their production base, much of which would be imported machinery?

What we need is an innovation tax credit to encourage investments in machinery, especially at this time when we are dealing with 80¢ dollars that have to buy equipment from countries that have a better exchange rate, like the United States.

The NDP tax innovation credit is a good idea. It is an idea for 2015, for the situation in which we exist today. The New Democrats would also extend the accelerated capital cost allowance, which would allow businesses to quickly write off the cost of processing equipment and machinery. This allowance is set to expire this year. At the very time it is needed most, it is going to expire.

Hopefully over the course of this year, as the government changes, we will be able to put some of these things into effect.

As well, cutting the small business tax rate from 11% to 10% and then to 9% is a good solid idea. Small businesses create jobs, they grow communities and they provide services to those who would not have them otherwise.

We do not see multinational corporations investing in small business in my communities in the Northwest Territories. We see the average Joe, the person who has a few dollars and wants to make a difference putting that to work in his community. A lower tax rate for those people ensures that the money will circulate within the economy.

Lowering the tax rate for multinational corporations with multitudinous shareholders all over the world means that the money is dispersed to other sources, dead money in many cases, sitting in banks, good to no one at all. Perhaps we should have a look at other ways to activate that money. That is something the NDP government can look at as it moves into the future.

I have a minute left, and that is probably all the bill deserves. It is really does nothing. The way it is set up it will be meaningless in the future. It is just another wasted effort on the part of the Conservative government to try to show how it can use symbols rather than real work to persuade Canadians that it is on their side.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to rise and finish my intervention from last week on this important bill.

Bill C-21, An Act to control the administrative burden that regulations impose on businesses, known as the “red tape bill”, is an interesting idea, an idea that has been tried by a number of governments at all levels. It comes up especially when parties are campaigning, when candidates go out and talk to small business people. They say they are going to get in there and work to get rid of red tape and bring the cost burden of red tape down for people with small businesses. They are going to make a real difference.

It should be the goal of all governments to ensure that any regulations that exist are up to date and current and accomplish what they set out to accomplish. Otherwise, they should be jettisoned. They should be revised or just gotten rid of. Any government worth its salt would do that as a normal administrative practice within its responsibilities.

However, sometimes, mainly for political reasons, governments like to trot out a particular catchy phrase in the way that this bill does. It talks about one for one. It talks about how the Conservatives have communicated with public servants within the bureaucracy and have told them that if they are going to bring a regulation forward, then they have to get rid of a regulation. It has absolutely nothing to do with whether the regulation they are bringing forward has any merit or whether the regulation they want to get rid of does not have any merit; it is simply on the basis of one for one. It is nothing more and nothing less than bald politics. It has nothing to do with proper administration.

An issue that we have raised here on a number of occasions is that there are many good reasons for regulation. The government has a role to play beyond just ensuring that businesses are able to operate effectively and efficiently and that the rules and regulations that affect them are appropriate and efficient; on behalf of the public interest, the government also has to ensure that there are good health and safety regulations. It ensures that there are good regulations that protect Canadians in the area of food safety and good regulations to ensure that the immigration process works smoothly. There is an important role for regulations to play in the process.

My concern with a bill like this is that the Conservatives are just looking for numbers and looking at being able to roll out a banner during the election campaign to say what they have been able to accomplish with their one-for-one campaign. If the Conservatives were truly serious, then they would prove to small business and to Canadians by their actions that they were in fact administering the federal government effectively and efficiently.

I took the opportunity over the past year and a half to communicate with small business people on the issues they were most concerned about as they related to the role of the federal government. The top of the list tended to be taxation. That is why small business people in my community in the constituency of Dartmouth—Cole Harbour have responded so well to the announcement by our leader that when we are elected in 2015, we will bring forward a reduction in the small business tax from 11% to 9%.

That tends to be at the top of the list of small businesses in my community. That is why they have responded so well.

The second item that tended to be important was cracking down on anti-competitive credit card merchant fees. That was something that the government had talked about doing. It talked about it in the Speech from the Throne last year. It talked about it before in the election campaign, saying that it was was going to bring down the cost of the use of credit cards for merchants.

What happened? The government bowed to pressure from the big banks. It decided in favour of the wishes of the big banks, which make billions of dollars in profit every year as a result of many of the things that the government does. The government decided to land on the side of the big banks rather than the small businesses, and it has not done anything with the credit card merchant fees.

That is another commitment that the New Democratic Party has made to Canadians.

The small business people in my community are always concerned about paperwork and regulations that are useless or do not make sense. They are concerned about them, but those matters fall well down the list in terms of priority.

If I may, allow me to bring up a couple of other points. In this bill, what the Conservative government talks about is a focus on inefficient and unnecessary regulation. It also talks about the bureaucracy and the burden of paperwork.

As I was thinking about this, I thought about the infant from Egypt who was prohibited from travelling with her family to Canada simply because of unnecessary, unfair, and unrealistic policies made by the Conservative government. I see it in my office all the time, whether it is with immigration, employment insurance, the Canada pension, or Canada pension disability. The Conservative government is not doing Canadians any favours when it comes to dealing with the kinds of forms, processes, policies, and regulations that ordinary Canadians need to deal with in order to access some of the programs that still exist in this country. If the government were truly concerned about getting rid of inefficient and ineffective regulations and policies, it would pay much more attention to the ones that we have brought to the attention of members here in the House.

This bill, unfortunately, could be much more than it is. It is no more than political rhetoric on behalf of the government. If it was truly concerned about dealing with regulation, it would simply do it and prove to Canadians through its actions that it is making a difference on the issue of regulation.

The House resumed from January 26 consideration of the motion that Bill C-21, An Act to control the administrative burden that regulations impose on businesses, be read the third time and passed.

Business of the House

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, let me first say happy new year to my counterpart and all hon. members.

We are back in Ottawa for another hard-working, orderly, and productive sitting of the House of Commons, a sitting in which our respective parties' policies and plans will be debated. Only one party, though, has a plan that will benefit all Canadians, and that is the Conservative plan to create jobs, keep taxes low, and keep our communities safe from crime and the threat of terrorism.

This afternoon we will conclude debate on the Liberal opposition day motion.

Tomorrow we will wrap up debate on Bill C-44, the protection of Canada from terrorists act, at third reading. This bill is the first step in our legislative measures to ensure that our law enforcement and security agencies have the tools they need to meet evolving threats.

The other part of our program to counter that terrorist threat is a bill that will be introduced tomorrow. It will be called for second reading debate during the week after our upcoming constituency week. That should allow all hon. members an opportunity to study these thoughtful, appropriate, and necessary measures and to hear the views of their constituents before we start that important debate.

Before we get to that constituency week, though, there is one more sitting week. On Monday, we will debate the NDP's pick of topic, on the third allotted day. Before question period on Tuesday, we will start debating Bill C-50, the Citizen Voting Act. After question period, we will return to the third reading debate on Bill C-21, the Red Tape Reduction Act, which will help ensure job creators can focus on what they do best, not on government paperwork.

Wednesday and Friday of next week will be dedicated to Bill C-32, the victims bill of rights act. This bill would put victims where they belong: at the centre of our justice system.

Finally, next Thursday will be the fourth allotted day, when we will again debate a proposal from the New Democrats.

Red Tape Reduction Act

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

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time, not the two minutes, but what is left of it thereafter.

I am pleased to rise and speak for a few minutes on Bill C-21. I have listened to much of the debate. It is interesting to note that it is always said that if regulation and red tape were removed, that would be of benefit to small business.

Regulations, like laws, have been established to protect our economy and our communities and to ensure the proper operation of our economy and our communities to the benefit of small and large businesses and individual citizens, and to try to ensure their safety through the administration of our food and transportation systems, and others.

If the government is not paying attention to regulations and to ensuring that counter-productive, wrong-headed, and inefficient ones are not dealt with, then it is not doing its job. Wrapping up that commitment under a cute little title called “one for one” is not going to make any difference. Many of the small business people that I talk to in my riding of Dartmouth—Cole Harbour are not easily fooled by this kind of sloganeering and campaigning.

All the government wants to be able to do with Bill C-21 is to ensure that when the election is called, it is able to put up a sign repeating the slogan that it has reduced red tape. The government should be doing its job and making sure that it gets rid of inefficient regulations while ensuring the protection of Canadians.

[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.

[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.

[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 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.

[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 want to congratulate my colleague on his new portfolio for small business. I am sure he will be up to the task.

My question is relatively simple. Bill C-21, the red tape reduction act, is premised around working on administrative burden, not compliance burden. There seems to be some misunderstandings about that.

I would like to member to elucidate to the House the difference between administrative burden and compliance burden. If someone knows the difference between the two, they will have a very good understanding of how the bill would relieve many of the administrative burdens on small businesses, while not dealing with any of the health and safety issues he mentioned.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Surrey North, and I am pleased to do so.

I am pleased to speak about Bill C-21. It is an interesting issue. The vast majority of Canadian businesses are small businesses. They employ millions of people. Some employ just one, sometimes two, and sometimes more. It is a vital part of the economy that we have to take care of.

The government website says it all. It has nice cute little scissors cutting red tape and talking about the one-for-one rule. I want to address that to start with.

What is red tape? Red tape can actually prevent yellow tape, yellow tape being sickness, death, or something else. Regulations have been put on products, services, and the way we go about doing business because of problems or issues. We have seen that most recently with food safety, rail, and aviation.

A number of times we have needed to bring in rules. Some of those rules are important. In fact, I want to point to an example of something I worked on when I first got to Parliament, and that was the tax deductibility of fines and penalties. It used to be the case in Canada that people were able to get a tax credit of up to 15% for a fine or penalty they incurred that went through the judicial system.

For example, if my memory serves me correctly, there was a drug company that got $11 million back from a $40 million fine. That is unfair, not only in terms of taxpayers but also for the companies that are actually following the proper regulations and rules and doing the right thing. It would be akin to getting a speeding ticket going to work and being able to write half of it off.

The reality is that the rule is the rule. If people are caught breaking it, then it is a problem. There are two ends to this. The regulation is in place and it is an issue for some businesses to actually get the paperwork and get the regulation through their process. However, there is also the unfair competition aspect, where people are breaking the rules and regulations, taking shortcuts, and putting people's health and safety at risk, and those people are rewarded for that type of behaviour. We end up paying for that in a couple of ways. We pay for it on the front end, with the loss of revenue that could go to other types of things. We also lose by paying for the damage that the improper product or service led to, whether it be a health care cost or an insurance cost.

This is a problem with the ideology of the one-for-one rule. The one-for-one ideology does not take into account new product development, innovation, and change that is necessary at different times. Look at how far electronic products have come over the last number of years.

We have also had changes in the types of materials we have. Sometimes it has been quite positive. Mercury is an example. If we did not have regulations in place, we would end up with more of it in our landfills.

I would argue that regulations can also protect some of our trade. We know from the work we have done in the industry committee that some illegal products, often those coming from China or other places, do not follow some of the regulations, which ends up costing us. Mercury in batteries is a good example. We end up paying for that, at the end of the day. There are even cases where knock-off products were used in hospitals. If the regulatory process is not in place, it can actually create other problems.

The government can help small business. I want to point to products and services it could actually bring in and implement that would be a benefit for them. On the services aspect of the government, small business is hurting. I will use a couple of examples from my constituency. There has been the closing of mail sorting and the raising of the price of stamps.

Right there we have a significant issue that impacts small business far greater than filling forms. When small businesses do their transactions now, their banking, their outreach to the community, they often use door-to-door delivery. Whether it is a pizza place, or a new business, often those flyers are the ones that hit our doors. The postal service is used for that.

The door-to-door delivery is one of the greatest assets for outreach. If there are five or six people working in a small business, or it is a new pizza place, they do not have time to deliver those flyers. They do not have time to do the outreach. However, the post office delivery system offers an economic alternative and a worry-free service that gets business flyers to somebody's door right away.

The Conservatives will argue those post office boxes will do the same thing, but it is not the same. It is not having a person go there. It guarantees that it gets into the customer's hand.

Sorting the mail in London, Ontario is not helping our small businesses in Windsor, Ontario. We now have a built-in delay system, and we throw all these trucks onto the highways and the 401. They go up to 401, get sorted, come back and get distributed, which is another delay in service.

Another one affecting our area is the closure of the consul general services in Detroit. It used to be we could fly into Detroit and if we needed to come across to Canada, we could get a visa right there from that service. A lot of small and medium-sized businesses arrive in Detroit. When they realize how close Canada is, they want to investigate opening a business. However, they have to go to New York or wait three weeks. Closing that service did not help my constituents and small businesses. It put them at risk.

Another thing employers talk about is employment insurance, not having the proper staffing at Service Canada and delays of cases. That hurts on two fronts. It hurts employers that are trying to deal with employment insurance and the lay-off of people for perhaps the first time. It also delays, in the casework files processing, the person receiving employment insurance being able to get that cheque to buy local groceries, products and services. Those things in particular hurt small business.

There is also credit card fees. Small business has been gouged on credit card fees for many years, and that continues. The government's program has not resulted in any significant reduction in credit card fees. They will finally be reduced a little, but not nearly as much as they should be. They still collect billions of dollars in fees.

Adding new products to the market will help small business, like C-290, which is a single sports betting bill. It has been stuck in the Senate for three years. That would allow convenience stores and other small businesses a new source of revenue, taking it away from organized crime and offshore nefarious businesses and putting that money back into the pockets of Canadians.

[Dean Allison, Conservative, Niagara West—Glanbrook, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for Parry Sound—Muskoka for his insightful comments earlier on the importance of Bill C-21. I would also like to extend my gratitude to the House for allowing me to rise today to speak to why I think it is important to support Bill C-21, the red tape reduction act.

As members know, Bill C-21 is an important piece of legislation when it comes to how the government relates to and engages with one of the drivers of Canada's economy, which is small business.

As one of the members of the Red Tape Reduction Commission, I feel privileged to rise to speak to this issue today. One of the key drivers of the commission was that helping businesses succeed in Canada requires doing all we can as a government to decrease the administrative burden that regulations impose on businesses. Bill C-21 represents a strong step toward accomplishing this goal for many reasons.

In my time today, I would like to focus on one of those reasons in terms of the importance of enshrining into law the government's one-for-one rule. This rule, which has been in effect since April 1, 2012, has already proven to be effective in controlling and even reducing red tape regulations that hurt small business. It works by placing strict controls on the growth of regulatory red tape for businesses by applying a very simple principle: for every new regulation that is added that imposes an administrative burden on businesses, one must be removed. In addition, regulators must offset any increase in the administrative burden as a result of regulatory changes with equal reductions in existing regulations.

Canada is one of the first countries in the world to give the one-for-one rule the added muscle of legislation, making it the most aggressive red tape regulation in the world. What is more, we know that it works. The one-for-one rule has already proven successful in system-wide controls and regulatory red tape that impact businesses. Specifically, as of June 14, 2014, it has resulted in a net annual reduction of over $22 million in the administrative burden imposed on businesses, estimated annual savings of 290,000 hours in time spent dealing with regulatory red tape, and a net reduction of 19 federal regulations taken off the books.

By giving the one-for-one rule the added muscle of legislation, this Conservative government has clearly demonstrated just how committed it is to reducing unnecessary regulations for businesses. We know that time spent navigating red tape is valuable time that small-business owners could otherwise use to grow their operations and create jobs.

When I speak about red tape, I am referring to the unnecessary and undue compliance burden placed on small businesses. A compliance burden is exactly the time and resources spent by businesses to demonstrate compliance with federal government regulations. It can include planning, collecting, processing, and reporting information; completing forms and retaining data required by governments; inspection costs; and time wasted waiting for regulatory decisions and feedback.

There are many areas of Canada's economy that benefit from discreet regulation, like safe food, air space control, workplace health and safety, and so on. However, every regulation that requires paperwork, equipment, or training imposes compliance costs on a business. At some point, regulations get into diminishing return territory when the cost, time, and effort required to comply with the regulations outweigh the benefits conferred by the regulation.

Our Conservative government recognizes this red tape problem, and through measures like the one-for-one rule, it is taking measures to curb it.

A couple of years ago, I participated in the Red Tape Reduction Commission, which consulted a wide cross-section of Canadians for ideas on reducing the onerous administrative overhead for Canadian businesses. What I heard was the feedback of hard-working small-business owners who were absolutely fed up with over-regulation, tedious paperwork, and valuable time wasted.

This past week, I stood proudly by our Prime Minister, fellow members of Parliament, and the executive vice-president of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, the CFIB, Laura Jones, in the Niagara region. Through talking to and hearing the stories of small businesses within my riding as well as Canadian small-business representatives like Ms. Jones of the CFIB, one thing becomes immediately clear: red tape heavily limits the ability of small businesses to grow.

I would add that the CFIB had Red Tape Awareness Week last week, from January 19-23. This is actually very good timing as we introduce this legislation. I would also mention that I had a chance to work with Ms. Jones on the red tape reduction round table, and it was a great experience.

To put it in the words of our Prime Minister, red tape and administrative burdens all represent “a silent killer of jobs” in this country. Although Canada has been recognized by the OECD as having a sophisticated and mature regulatory system that continues to maintain high levels of health, safety, security, and environmental protection, the OECD has also recommended that reducing undue regulatory costs would help to improve Canada's economic performance.

Let me be clear. Applying the one-for-one rule and giving it the legislative shape it requires to fulfill its mandate does not in any way compromise the presence of important health and safety regulations. Put simply, we are not repealing health and safety standards. We are making it less of an administrative nuisance to comply with them.

Canadians can count on this government and its regulatory system to uphold the public trust and to continually enforce the health and safety standards that protect everyday Canadians.

One of the aspects of the red tape reduction plan I am most proud of is the level of public consultation and transparency that informed its approach. As a government, we listened to the advice provided by small-business owners from across the country, and we reflected very carefully on that advice.

We understand the necessity of enforcing regulations that maintain Canada's high standards for safety and protection. We believe that regulations can and should co-exist with freeing businesses from unnecessary, costly, and time-consuming red tape.

I would like to remind my hon. colleagues that reducing regulatory red tape was one of the commitments we made to Canadians in October 2012, when we first announced the red tape reduction action plan. This plan is one of the most aggressive in the world today for reducing red tape, and with its implementation, Canada is bringing a new level of discipline to how we regulate and create a more predictable environment for businesses.

I would like to update members on the progress we have made in this important effort. In all, the red tape reduction plan introduced six system-wide reforms to the federal regulatory system to limit regulatory creep and to free up small businesses to focus on what they do best, which is to grow and create jobs.

This plan has helped businesses meet challenges in the areas of payroll, labour, and trade. It has further introduced time-saving measures, such as single windows and electronic submissions.

We have made substantial progress in implementing the reforms outlined in the plan. As well as the one-for-one rule, a number of other reforms are advancing well. For example, federal regulators have stepped up efforts to ensure that new and existing service standards are publicly posted, making the approval process for complying with regulations more transparent for business. In addition, departments have posted 40 forward regulatory plans on their websites, providing early notice of upcoming regulations so that stakeholders can provide input and prepare for their implementation.

All of these initiatives are proving their value and are further demonstrating this government's commitment to a transparent and safe system for business growth that is not weighed down by unnecessary red tape.

We have also saved small businesses in Canada $75 million annually through the application of the small business lens.

In the fall of 2014, the government published the administrative burden baseline, a key commitment of the action plan that clearly tracks the total number of requirements that impose administrative burdens on businesses.

Finally, we have also put into place a regulatory advisory committee. This committee's main task is to provide the President of the Treasury Board with advice on the fairness and reliability of the government's annual scorecard report.

We recently published our second score card report during Red Tape Awareness Week. It shows that we continue to eliminate unnecessary rules and costs that have been a source of frustration for Canadian businesses and entrepreneurs across the country, while maintaining high standards for the protection of the health and safety of our citizens.

The bottom line is that this report confirms that we have made tangible progress in cutting red tape for Canadians and businesses.

Let me now turn to a few examples of how departments are putting the red tape action plan into action. There are numerous examples. I am thinking of the launch of buyandsell.gc.ca at Public Works and Government Services Canada and the modernization of food safety regulations through the Canadian Food Inspection Agency's Safe Food for Canadians Act.

There is also the launch by Canada Revenue Agency of the new online mail service for Canadian small businesses. The service allows businesses to communicate with CRA online, helping streamline their interactions with the agency.

CRA also launched My Business Account, the online enquiry service where business people or their representatives can ask the agency tax-related questions about their accounts online and receive answers online. I know one of the things we heard over and over again was the frustration of business people to call and not be able to get anything actually in writing. That made it difficult for them when they called someone, were bounced around, and went to different people. This is a very direct response to what we heard in talking to small business people.

As well, CRA introduced a one-stop web page for businesses, allowing them to easily find information and service options relevant to their tax situation.

In addition, Statistics Canada has improved communication with survey respondents to better explain the purpose of business surveys. The changes include redesigning printed material and improving a section of its website.

These are just a few of the many departmental actions that are under way to reduce red tape. The one-for-one rule and other red tape reforms demonstrate our resolve to improve Canada's regulatory system and help businesses focus their energies on seizing new opportunities. They are part of the broader commitment to ensuring Canada is playing its A game when it comes to creating the right environment in which businesses can grow and create jobs.

Bill C-21 is smart legislation that would help Canadian businesses become more productive and succeed in an increasingly competitive global marketplace. The red tape reduction act would require that regulators take seriously the requirement to control the amount of red tape imposed upon businesses, and the related costs. The legislation is also designed to be tough. It would challenge regulators to think through how regulations could be designed and implemented in ways that would not impose unnecessary red tape on businesses. While it would be tough, it would nevertheless offer a great deal of flexibility. The government's commitment to maintaining Canada's high standards for health and safety is unwavering and will not come at the cost of helping small businesses succeed.

The legislation would also be timely. As members know, one of the government's top priorities is creating a climate in which businesses can innovate, invest in the future, and create economic growth and jobs. That is why, despite what is happening in the global economy today, Canada has and continues to post one of the strongest job creation records in the G7, with more than 1.2 million jobs created since July 2009.

I would add that over 85% of those jobs created since July 2009 are full-time positions and almost two-thirds are in high-wage industries.

Looking ahead, this government believes Canada is positioned for sustained economic growth. We are one of the few countries that can boast of having both declining taxes and low debt. Our government remains committed to eliminating the deficit. This would ensure we continue to create a business climate here in Canada that invites investment, prosperity, and growth. Canadian businesses have to be playing at the top of their game to succeed and to compete in a global economy. This is especially true in uncertain times, such as those we have faced since the 2008 global recession. By reducing debt, we could free up tax dollars that would otherwise be absorbed by interest costs. We could then reinvest that money into things that matter to Canadians, such as health care, public services, or lower taxes. I would add that reducing debt would also strengthen the country's ability to respond to economic shocks, such as global financial crises.

It is worth remembering that, when the hard times arrived in 2008, Canada was in a position of economic strength compared to our international partners. This allowed us to put in place one of the most comprehensive stimulus packages in the world. At the time, international observers such as the International Monetary Fund were predicting that Canada would have one of the fastest recoveries. I am proud to say that these predictions have come true, given our relative economic, financial, and fiscal strength.

Our red tape initiatives all demonstrate the government's ongoing commitment to helping Canadian businesses succeed, and they are part of a broad strategy that is present in almost everything we do. We only need to look at the recent PricewaterhouseCoopers study analyzing the ease of paying taxes in 189 countries. The study, called “Paying Taxes 2014”, found that a business in Canada takes 25% less time than a business in the United States to prepare, file, and pay its taxes each year. Furthermore, the study said that Canada is the only G7 country to rank among the top 10 countries based on the overall ease of complying with tax obligations.

Balanced budgets and responsible fiscal management have been keys to helping small businesses succeed, as well as to our success as a country.

Through real action such as enshrining the one-for-one rule in law, we are making the regulatory system more conducive to economic growth. We are creating a more predictable environment for businesses, particularly small and medium-sized businesses, and we are freeing entrepreneurs from the burden of regulatory red tape.

Our government is focused on the drivers of growth and job creation—innovation, investment, education, skills, and communities—underpinned by our ongoing commitment to keeping taxes low and returning to a balanced budget. This is our plan for Canada. I hope members of the House will join us in enshrining the one-for-one rule into law to help Canadian businesses succeed.

I talked about how this all fits together and I look at the acronym TIRE, which this government has used: T is for taxes and trade; I is for infrastructure, investments, and immigration; R is for R and D, red tape reduction, and relationships; and E is for entrepreneurship. If I could just go through those, members will see how it all ties together. I talked in my speech about how we look at reducing red tape, but that is just one thing in a large array of things that the government has done to make Canada more competitive.

I will start with the T for taxes and trade. Our government looked at reducing taxes for business to make us more competitive on the world stage. In addition to that, we have fostered additional trade deals—the European free trade deal and all the numerous deals that this country is working on right now—because we realize, as a net exporter, that we need to sell our goods and services around the world. There is no way that 35 million people could sustain the type of GDP that we have come to enjoy without the ability to trade. That is the T in TIRE.

I is for infrastructure, investments, and immigration. We have continued to move forward on immigration reforms to make sure we look at bringing the best and brightest people into this country. We have looked at continuous investments. We look at the Detroit bridge that stalled under the previous Liberal government. We have worked hard to make sure we can get our goods and services to the U.S. in a timely way given the fact that it represents one of our largest trading partners at over 75%. We have spent money on massive infrastructure, and we will continue to commit to infrastructure over the next 10 years as we realize that is important for the sake of our country.

I talked about R and D and trying to make it more targeted, more specific, and more timely. I have just spent my whole time talking about red tape reduction, which is absolutely huge.

The last letter is E for entrepreneurship. Our government has started a venture capital fund, or we have set aside $400 million where we could try to attract, realizing that it is tough sometimes for companies to get started. One of the issues that continues to be there is access to capital. We believe we can continue to create the climate in this country. We will not only continue to lead the world in development but will continue to lead the world in jobs, and Canada will be the best country in the world in which to live, to work, and to play.

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

Mr. Speaker, since the mid-1990s, and even since the Liberals were in power, there has been an increase in the deregulation of rail and air transportation. The Conservatives have also undermined environmental protections. Bill C-21 seems to be just another exercise in deregulation, which was initiated by previous federal governments.

I would like my colleague from Winnipeg North to talk about the dangers of eliminating regulations that protect Canadians' health and safety and the environment. The Conservatives claim that Bill C-21 will help reduce the administrative burden of SMEs. However, does this not appear to be just another step in the process of deregulation initiated by the Liberals?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise today to speak to Bill C-21. It is a significant piece of legislation. A strong statement is being made, and maybe a certain expectation is being built up by the government.

I must say at the get-go that the government has not been very successful at meeting the expectations of Canadians, specifically small businesses, with respect to the government's getting rid of unnecessary red tape.

The member referred to the idea of having those regulations in front of us. We would need an exceptionally large table, because we are talking about literally hundreds of thousands of pieces of paper that we would ultimately have to review, and that is just federal regulations. That does not mention provincial regulations and municipal regulations, all of which have a very significant impact on each and every one of us, in particular with a special focus on small businesses.

Within the Liberal Party, we have recognized that the potential growth, the potential valuable jobs into the future, will be provided by our small business sector. It is the mid-sized businesses that will be providing the hope into the future in terms of those valuable, important jobs that will feed our middle class and ensure that the Canadian economy continues to move forward or improves from where the Conservative Party has it today.

Bureaucracy and the public service as a whole, our civil servants, have done a phenomenal job in working with the regulations we currently have in place and ensuring that those regulations are being followed. It is our job to do what we can to try to minimize the regulations and at the same time make sure there is a strong sense of efficiency.

No one would question, at least within the Liberal Party, the need for strong regulations dealing with issues of safety, health care, food safety, and so forth. We have asked plenty of questions related to all three of those. In fact, earlier today, we were debating Bill C-46, which deals with pipeline safety. I had the opportunity to pose a question in regard to that issue.

Canadians recognize that regulations are not an option, but an absolute necessity. They provide a service that complements legislation and ensures that there are certain standards throughout our country to protect us. Whether it is health care, environmental safety, ensuring our pipelines are built satisfactorily, ensuring there are fines where they are appropriate, or ensuring that good quality product is produced and manufactured, and the whole nine yards, there is absolutely no doubt that regulations are of critical importance.

Having said that, I think it bears repeating, because I have heard many members from all sides of the House talk about regulations that are somewhat dated. There are a great number of regulations currently in place that are just not necessary.

Reviewing should not happen every four or five years but happen internally, virtually on an ongoing basis, at the micro end. We should look at regulations that could be deemed dated or no longer necessary and look at ways in which we can improve the system.

There was an interesting report done by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business. It was suggested in the report that the cost of regulations to Canadian businesses was estimated in 2012 at $31 billion. That is a phenomenal cost. Obviously, a good part of that cost is necessary, but let me suggest that there is great room for improvement. When we look at it from a party's perspective, if we can identify ways in which we can improve the system and ensure that there is more efficiency, we can help small and medium-sized businesses.

By doing that, we would be helping the Canadian economy. We would be creating jobs, and possibly even raises in certain sectors. If small business owners were able to save money on some of that administrative work that they have to do every week, that money could be turned into a cost reduction of a consumer product or consumer service. It could be used as an increase in pay for the workers, which is something that I personally would highly recommend. There is so much more that can be done if we are successful at reducing the paperwork.

I would suggest that the Canadian Federation of Independent Business has been fairly consistent over the years. I am relatively new to Ottawa, having been here for just over four years now, but I have been a parliamentarian for 20-plus years. When I have had the opportunity to meet with members of those stakeholder umbrella groups, they have consistently said that there is a need to improve and get rid of red tape and make our system more efficient.

Even in the NDP-administered government in the province of Manitoba, there is a great deal of room for improvement. However, there is also room for improvement at the municipal level, and obviously there is room for a great deal of improvement here in Ottawa. That is why I posed the question for the minister responsible for Treasury Board about how he, as the President of the Treasury Board, along with his department, is trying to work with other levels of government to deal with the issue of administration costs, and what our expectations jointly are for small and medium-sized businesses in Canada.

I have been disappointed, in the sense that there does not seem to be any holistic approach to dealing with business people in particular. I do not say that lightly. I hear members talking about meeting with business people and what the business people have to say. Like them, for me it is something that is ongoing. I am constantly talking with entrepreneurs, almost on a weekly basis, and dealing with a wide variety of issues. One of the issues that comes up time and again is the issue of red tape, administration costs, and things of that nature. I truly believe that there are businesses that are no longer in existence because of the paperwork that was required to be in business.

Let us look at what it takes in order to even start a business these days. It is no easy task, whether it is having to register and fill out all the necessary paperwork for a name for one's business or whether it is meeting the requirements for an occupancy permit and everything that is involved in regard to that.

Often business people refer to the federal government as a collection agency for the government. Whether it is the collection of the provincial sales tax, which sadly is going up in Manitoba, or the GST, or employment insurance or pension benefits, all of these are very important, but look at the pieces of paper involved. How often do we find a great deal of repetition in all of it? Is it the most efficient way of dealing with and supporting our small and medium-sized businesses, along with others?

There is room for great improvement. We have lost jobs in Canada. We are not talking about dozens or even hundreds. We are talking about thousands of jobs. Why? It is not because of the entrepreneur's idea, desire and possible dream to own a business and employ Canadians. It is because of the overwhelming amount of paperwork. That is what it feels like to many small business owners in particular.

My gut feeling is the government has sensed that in our communities and that is why it has come up with Bill C-21. It is hard to oppose the bill, given it is making a statement in the general direction of reducing unnecessary regulations. However, I think it has a lot more to do with the government wanting to give an impression that it is sympathetic to what individuals and businesses are saying, which is they are quickly becoming overwhelmed with the amount of paperwork and duplication. The government could have done a great deal more in addressing this very important issue.

The government has brought in trade agreements. We in the Liberal Party have been very supportive. We understand the real value of trade. We are not scared of trade agreements for the simple reason we recognize Canada is a trading nation and in the long run it is in our best interest to develop, promote and encourage trade agreements. We differ from our New Democratic friends who tend to oppose free trade for rather bizarre reasons, but they have their own rationale and justification.

When we talk about trade, what are we really encouraging? The exporting and importing of goods. Canadian jobs are very dependent on that. Consumers benefit immensely from it.

To what degree has the government been able to deal with some of the barriers of regulations of trade? I believe there is a lot of room for improvement. I have had discussions with individuals who get exceptionally frustrated because their product is being held at the border waiting to get paperwork through, or there are issues surrounding tariffs, or what should be deemed what. There are a great number of complications. The bottom line is that it causes delays and those delays have significant impacts on our communities in all regions of our country.

At times, the government seems to move in a general direction in certain areas, which we can support. However, more often than we would like to see, it is caught falling short on the important issues that affect us all, and we should be giving those issues more attention. That is why I posed the question for the President of the Treasury Board with respect to the issue of leadership. To what degree has the treasury minister or any other minister worked with the different levels of government?

Members should put themselves in the shoes of individuals who want to open a small business such as selling widgets, or a restaurant or whatever it might be. They do not necessarily care what level of government is causing the issues related to the amount of paperwork. They understand that there is a certain amount of paperwork involved in owning a business. I think where they are less sympathetic is when the government as a whole does not respond to what they feel are overwhelming situations at times, where there is just too much being asked of them, especially when in certain situations they do not have the financial means to meet those requirements without substantial cost. Quite often family business members are making less than minimum wage in order to sustain the business.

The government needs to be more sympathetic. Therefore, when I posed the question for the President of the Treasury Board, I was hoping the minister would tell me that the government was proactively working with other levels of government, while at the same time reviewing its regulations to see what it could do to better enhance the overall efficiency in the bureaucracy or in the filling of forms. How wonderful it would be to have a portal on the Internet which would assist our small businesses more directly and efficiently. We will need more co-operation and collaboration among our partners of Confederation to make that happen. It is an admirable goal. It means we have to work with others. We in the Liberal caucus are not scared to work to make a difference.

As my time is quickly running out, I will conclude where I started, by emphasizing just how important our small and medium-size businesses are to our economy and to our social and economic fabric.

I believe we could be doing so much more. Regulations is just one aspect of it but it is an important one. We recognize the great deal of frustration. If we take a more proactive approach in dealing with some of those frustrations, at the end of the day we will see more successful businesses. With that success, we will witness more employment, better pricing for consumers and better wages, which is one of my personal favourites.

I want to stress how important regulations are with respect to the issues of safety and health. We need to stay on top of this and that is why we are here.

As an example, today the government brought forward the bill on the pipeline safety act. It is important that we hold the government accountable when it is about to make significant changes to the regulations.

[Djaouida Sellah, NDP, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I too would like to wish you and all of my colleagues in the House a happy new year. I would also like to say that I was very pleased to hear the speech by my colleague, the critic for this portfolio.

As the member for Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, I have had the distinct pleasure of visiting small and medium-sized businesses in my riding twice, and it is exactly as my colleague described. These small and medium-sized businesses need real measures that will make a difference to them and how they operate. I asked one small business owner what he wanted from the federal government. He said that nothing happening in the House was of any interest to him because he feels like a tax collector for the federal government these days.

I also had the opportunity to meet someone who owns a little supermarket. He runs it together with his family and some employees. He told me that he has had it with all the paperwork that makes their lives such a pain because he has to ask his spouse, who is supposed to be there to work in the store, to take care of the paperwork. Those are real situations that we observed on the ground.

The bill before us today, Bill C-21, is just smoke and mirrors as far as small and medium-sized businesses are concerned. As my colleague pointed out, we know that the average small or medium-sized business does not have more than 20 to 25 employees. That may even be true of most of them. As a result, this bill will not affect everyone. Unfortunately, this is one of the Conservative government's usual tactics for pleasing its electoral base.

I would like my colleague to say more about the measures in this bill in terms of their real impact on people on the ground.

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

Happy new year, Mr. Speaker. I would like to thank my colleague, the Treasury Board critic, for his speech. He shed a lot of light on Bill C-21 and on the way the Conservatives are always claiming that they take care of small and medium-sized businesses when, in actual fact, those businesses have been completely misled by the Conservatives when it comes to measures that will allow them to grow and create jobs.

I would like my colleague to elaborate on the policies the Conservative government has implemented over the past few years. They are hindering Canada's economic growth and creating obstacles for small and medium-sized businesses. They are preventing these businesses and the middle class from making ends meet.

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

Mr. Speaker, since this is the first time on my feet giving a speech, I would like to wish all my constituents a happy new year.

Happy new year to all my constituents. 2015 will no doubt be a very interesting year, one that I am sure will mark a major change in Canadian politics when an NDP government takes power.

Obviously, no one can oppose virtue. However, this bill is far from virtuous. I want to be clear with Canadians. I believe—as does my party, of course—in the principle of red tape reduction, which will reduce administrative hassles for business people. However, this bill does not significantly reduce the burden on small and medium-sized businesses, since it does not address most of the regulations that are problematic for them, namely those pertaining to all of the paperwork associated with taxes. When I visit small and medium-sized businesses in my riding, most of them complain about all of the paperwork required, particularly by Revenue Canada.

It is difficult to believe that the Conservatives are sincere about wanting to eliminate red tape since they did the opposite with the Building Canada fund, for example. Instead of helping municipalities and SMEs start infrastructure projects in a timely manner, the Conservatives set up a long and cumbersome bureaucratic process for every project worth more than $100 million. That will create delays of up to 18 months that will slow down important projects in my riding and the ridings of my colleagues.

The Conservatives did the same thing with their so-called employment insurance reform, which requires employers to provide more and more information about their employees. What is more, small and medium-sized business are not really getting any help when it comes to training and information. Such assistance would help them figure out all of the paperwork and send the right forms to the right people. This government is not really supporting small and medium-sized businesses.

If we really want to help small and medium-sized businesses, we can do better than this bill. For example, the Conservatives are dragging their feet when it comes to taking serious action to regulate anti-competitive credit card fees that merchants must pay to card issuers. That is another example of bureaucracy and red tape.

If the Conservatives really wanted to help SMEs, they would have supported the NDP's idea to have an ombudsman to control the credit card fees that card issuers charge merchants. That was a simple and reasonable solution, but it was rejected by this government.

No, this bill is not good enough. The principle is good, but it is unclear whether it will achieve the expected results. What small businesses really need is for us to identify what is wrong with the system and eliminate it. It would take a simple study. The one-for-one rule is too vague, and there is no guarantee that it is going to work.

We also have to stop giving lip service to small and medium-size businesses and actually help them out, either by restoring the small business hiring tax credit for young people; reducing taxes for small businesses specifically, not the corporate tax rate for the largest and most successful businesses in this country; cracking down on hidden credit card transaction fees; and perhaps redefining what a small and medium-size business actually is for the purposes of government procurement contracts. These are major, tangible differences. These are changes that can help SMEs.

I do not know if members realize this, but the government currently defines small and medium-size businesses as businesses with 500 or fewer employees.

In my riding, SMEs have on average 12 employees. It is completely unrealistic to expect a company with 25 employees to compete with a so-called small business with 499 employees. That makes absolutely no sense. The system is not designed to consider criteria such as profit margins or staffing numbers, for example.

We could debate the service agreements that merchants sign with credit card companies, which favour small-business owners by allowing them to pass the fees on to consumers, thereby increasing all prices. Even though the Competition Tribunal recently rejected a lawsuit against Visa and MasterCard, in a rare move, it did call for the creation of a regulatory framework for anti-competitive practices.

Furthermore, to help small and medium-sized businesses, we could also create a tax credit to help businesses that hire and train young people or give grants to help SMEs expand. We could make it easier to transfer a family business to the next generation, for example, create tax credits that would offset payroll taxes, help small business innovate, and so on. In agriculture, we could do something about venture capital and the high interest rate for new land purchases.

Clearly, unlike the government's symbolic one-for-one legislation to reduce red tape, our proposals are sensible, concrete, realistic measures that would actually help Canadian SMEs create jobs. However, as the official opposition's Treasury Board critic, I have other, more serious concerns regarding this bill.

As is often the case with the Conservatives' bills, because of their almost uncontrollable zeal for defending the free market as they understand it at all costs, I see that they have hidden in this bill their intent to eliminate regulations that protect my constituents' health and safety and the environment.

After the listeriosis crisis and the Lac-Mégantic tragedy, we need to guarantee, more than the government is doing, that there will be more, not fewer, standards and regulations to protect Canadians' health and safety.

Regulations that are in the public interest should be kept. This bill puts them in jeopardy because it gives the President of the Treasury Board the power to eliminate them under the pretext of cutting red tape for businesses. This is definitely not the recipe for sound public administration.

We are not alone in thinking that. During the study of the bill, Chris Aylward of PSAC testified before the committee. He said:

If regulations are no longer deemed to be in the public interest after due consideration and consultation, the regulators have always had the ability to amend or delete them. In fact, they have done so on a regular basis... Not only is Bill C-21 unnecessary, it will not adequately protect Canadians... At worst it is a make-work project that will mean regulatory and enforcement officers will have to spend their valuable time within a context of shrinking resources aimlessly looking for regulations to cut.

Furthermore, Laura Jones, executive vice-president of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, stated that:

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.

It is all still quite vague.

It is true that the NDP wants to reduce red tape for small businesses, but we cannot do that at the expense of Canadians' safety. We cannot trust the Conservatives, who are in the habit of deregulating without any regard for safety, health or the environment. Their harmful record on eroding regulations that protect the health and safety of Canadians and the environment is quite clear.

For example, in 2013, the then Minister of Transport gave WestJet an exemption from the Canadian aviation regulations. WestJet planes can now operate with just one flight attendant for every 50 passengers, rather than the standard one flight attendant for every 40 passengers, as required by the regulations. Other airlines have since asked for similar exemptions. It is only natural. Where will this end? The NDP has asked that the rule of one flight attendant for every 40 passengers be upheld.

The Lac-Mégantic tragedy also put the important issue of rail safety in Canada back on the agenda, after decades of Liberal and Conservative deregulation. In 1999, the Liberals persisted with the deregulation of rail safety by continuing to implement the safety management systems approach, which was adopted by the Mulroney Conservatives. This approach left it up to the industry to look after the safety of its own operations—in other words, self-regulation, which no longer works—instead of ensuring that the government worked with the industry to set safety standards. That would be perfectly reasonable.

In October 2013, the Conservatives used the budget implementation bill, Bill C-4, to make changes to the Canada Labour Code, and those changes will gut the powers of health and safety officers in federal workplaces. This will jeopardize the health and safety of workers.

The Liberals were no better. I would remind the House that the Lac-Mégantic tragedy called decades of Liberal regulations into question. In 1999, the Liberals continued with the deregulation begun by the Mulroney government. No, the Liberals are no more reliable when it comes to protecting the health and safety of Canadians. Does the Liberal leader really have the judgment needed to defend the regulations protecting the health and safety of Canadians? I seriously doubt it.

It is not simply a question of managing the number of regulations to please the richest companies in Canada, but rather of determining which ones are helping Canadians. Therefore it is important that we do our research and our homework as good public administrators. This is a reasonable way to address this issue.

It is ridiculous that only the bill's preamble clearly states that the regulations protecting the health and safety of Canadians will not be affected. We all know that the legislation that will govern these regulations has no preamble. No mention is made of the environment in the entire bill. If the Conservatives really care about the health and safety of Canadians, why did they not specifically protect health and safety regulations from the application of the bill?

Why did they not support our amendments in that regard when studying this bill? The NDP moved 12 amendments; that is not a lot. They were robust amendments, and nine of them would have prevented the government from eliminating regulations that protect Canadians' health and safety, food safety, transportation safety, the safety management system and the environment. One amendment would have required the government to just consult with stakeholders before eliminating regulations. Another amendment laid out the reporting requirements and eliminated the Governor in Council's power to make new regulations for the report.

If the Conservatives are serious, why did they vote against all these amendments? The amendments are reasonable and truly reflect all the evidence we heard in committee. The Conservatives said that these amendments were redundant. That is absolutely not the case. It is obvious that giving the President of the Treasury Board more powers is not what is needed for sound public administration.

The NDP believes in common sense solutions to reduce red tape and the compliance costs for small businesses when they deal with the government. The NDP is always open to ways to help small businesses by eliminating unnecessary red tape and letting them focus on what they do best: growing their businesses and creating jobs. However, the best way of doing this is not the one-for-one rule. It is rigorous research and broad consultation with the business community to identify those bureaucratic demands that are really causing problems.

This bill is a poison pill. Bill C-21 gives the President of the Treasury Board too many arbitrary powers that will make him the arbiter of eliminating regulations that he deems unnecessary. If the Conservatives are really serious about the health and safety of Canadians, I hope they will answer during this debate why they will not explicitly exclude regulations that protect health and safety from the application of this bill and why they opposed the NDP amendments that did that very thing.

Government regulations to protect Canadians' health and safety and the environment should remain a priority of any government. We need more than the government's promises of a preamble. The NDP would like to prevent the government from eliminating the regulations that protect health, safety, food security, and workplace health and safety, and this is why we are opposing this bill.

We want to make sure that future generations are not affected by the deregulation this bill would cause. Our fellow citizens deserve to be protected, as well as our children and grandchildren. Also, any bill of this kind should include clear obligations in terms of accountability for how the government uses this legislation and for the stakeholders who are consulted before regulation is eliminated. However, the Conservatives voted against this accountability in committee. Regulations that are in the public interest should clearly be consulted on with the public.

It is a matter of good public administration. It is about protecting our children, keeping them healthy and safe, and protecting the beauty of their natural environment, while finding a way to eliminate red tape. As I said before, we can do this by conducting a study in partnership with the public service and our small and medium-sized businesses and by using our heads.

The House proceeded to the consideration of Bill C-21, An Act to control the administrative burden that regulations impose on businesses, as reported (without amendment) from the committee.

Government Operations and Estimates

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

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the seventh report of the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates in relation to Bill C-21, An Act to control the administrative burden that regulations impose on businesses.

The committee has studied the bill and has decided to report the bill back to the House without amendment.

[The Chair, NDP, Pierre-Luc Dusseault]

Shall the committee order a reprint of Bill C-21?

No, that is not necessary, as it was not amended.

This concludes our clause-by-clause consideration of Bill C-21.

As the committee has just requested, I am going to report the bill to the House as soon as possible.

That said, there are no further items on our agenda. Members of the committee, we will meet again in January.

Have a good Christmas to all. It will be nice to see you in January.

The meeting is adjourned.

[The Chair, NDP, Pierre-Luc Dusseault]

Amendment NPD-11 reads as follows:

That Bill C-21, in clause 8, be amended by replacing line 18, on page 3, with the following: “done under this Act, except in the case of serious or irreversible environmental damage or an accident causing the death of a person.”

The chair feels that amendment NPD-11 is not in order. I will explain my decision.

The purpose of Bill C-21 is to create An Act to control the administrative burden that regulations impose on businesses. The bill states that the Crown has total immunity from all legal action or any other procedure. The purpose of the amendment would be to lift that immunity in certain cases.

TheHouse of Commons Procedure and Practice, second edition, page 766, states the following:

An amendment to a bill that was referred to a committee after second reading is out of order if it is beyond the scope and principle of the bill.

The chair is of the opinion that the amendment is contrary to the principles of the bill as adopted at second reading by the House on November 17. Consequently, I declare the amendment not receivable.

Since there are no other amendments to clause 8, we will vote.

(Clause 8 agreed to)

[The Chair, NDP, Pierre-Luc Dusseault]

Good morning.

I now call to order the 39^th hearing of the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates. We will be doing clause-by-clause consideration of Bill C-21.

Mr. Vandergrift, who is with us today, will be able to answer specific questions on clauses of the bill and the potential effects of the amendments. He is our resource person.

The legislative clerk is also present; he will also be able to answer questions and decide with me whether amendments are in order.

Without further ado, we will begin our clause-by-clause consideration of the bill. You no doubt have all of the necessary documents in hand.

Consideration of the title, short title and preamble stand postponed. I remind you that you may propose amendments. Twelve amendments have already been tabled, but it is possible to propose others now.

So, we shall begin with clauses 2 to 4.

(Clauses 2 to 4 inclusive agreed to)

[Mike Beale, Assistant Deputy Minister, Environmental Stewardship Branch, Department of the Environment]

Mr. Chair, members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to speak to you on behalf of Environment Canada about Bill C-21, the red tape reduction act.

My name is Mike Beale. I'm the assistant deputy minister for environmental stewardship at Environment Canada. I'm here today with Stewart Lindale, who is the director of regulatory innovation and management systems at Environment Canada. Stewart oversees implementation of the one-for-one rule for the department.

Environment Canada administers over a dozen acts and more than 70 regulations that support the department's goal to provide Canadians with a clean, safe and sustainable environment.

The department has an active regulatory agenda. Our forward regulatory plan contains 42 initiatives that we anticipate advancing over the next two years. Since the one-for-one rule was introduced in April 2012, we have completed approximately 33 regulations or regulatory amendments.

As one of the government's most active regulatory departments, Environment Canada has, for many years, emphasized the importance of continual improvement in pursuit of regulatory excellence, and places high importance on strengthening the capacity of its people and its regulatory systems.

Before amending an existing regulation or designing a new one, we seek to ensure that it will be the right tool to achieve the risk management objective. When designing a regulation, we strive to ask only for information that is needed and only as often as required, maximize the use of online reporting, and actively engage regulatees in discussing ways to reduce administrative burden without compromising the attainment of environmental objectives.

To date, the one-for-one rule has been triggered for eleven Environment Canada regulatory initiatives, three of which added burden, and eight of which were regulatory amendments that reduced administrative burden without compromising environmental protection. In total, we have attained a net reduction in administrative burden of approximately $1.6 million over the past two years.

Environment Canada has actively engaged with the Treasury Board Secretariat in the implementation of the government's regulatory reform agenda, and going forward, we will continue to strive to minimize burden on Canadian business while fulfilling our environmental protection mandate.

Thank you.

I would be pleased to answer any questions.

[Kendal Weber, Director General, Policy, Planning and International Affairs Directorate, Health Products and Food Branch, Department of Health]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and members of the Committee.

My name is Kendal Weber and I am the director general of policy, planning and international affairs in the health products and food branch at Health Canada.

Thank you for the opportunity to present Health Canada's perspective on Bill C-21, the red tape reduction act.

As you know, Health Canada's primary mandate is to protect the health and safety of Canadians. We support the government's red tape reduction action plan, including enshrining the one-for-one rule in law to target and control administrative burden on business. Cutting red tape to business fosters growth, competitiveness, job creation, and innovation.

As one of the government's major regulators, Health Canada is committed to reducing regulatory administrative burden to industry, while ensuring that the health and safety of Canadians is not compromised.

Health Canada has an ambitious regulatory modernization agenda and follows good regulatory design principles, including the reduction of unnecessary administrative burden to industry. The good practices required by the one-for-one rule are consistent with departmental approaches to regulatory design.

With respect to reducing administrative burden, it is now a matter of practice within Health Canada that the development of regulations includes an assessment of the cost, alternatives, and consideration of ways to reduce the imposition of administrative burden on regulated parties, particularly small business.

This practice is embedded in the design of our regulations. Stakeholders are consulted throughout the regulatory development process, including on the assessment and costing of administrative burden, as well as identifying alternatives to minimize the burden without compromising on health and safety requirements.

Stakeholder consultations begin early and include publishing regulations in the Canada Gazette, part I. This pre-publication of regulations gives all Canadians a chance to submit their comments about a proposed regulation well before it is made. Bill C-21 would allow for a 24-month reconciliation of administrative burden. This flexibility over two years respects the realities of the timelines involved in introducing new or amended regulations through the Canada Gazette process.

ln implementing the requirements of the one-for-one rule over the past two years, we have recognized that there are opportunities within the 95 regulations which we administer to cut red tape and minimize burden on businesses while continuing to meet our mandate of protecting the health and safety of Canadians. These two objectives of health and safety and administrative burden reduction are not incompatible.

Here is an example of how Health Canada has been able to do just that: reduce administrative burden on business without compromising the health and safety of Canadians.

Pharmacists and their regulatory associations told us that certain requirements under the food and drug regulations were out of step with more modern provincial legislation and were unnecessarily prescriptive, requiring pharmacists to perform functions which could be safely performed by pharmacy technicians. We listened and amended the provisions that regulate prescription drugs. The regulations now allow the transfer of prescriptions by pharmacy technicians, an administrative task that was previously administered solely by pharmacists. This means that community pharmacies and retailers that dispense prescriptions may better utilize the skills of lower-salaried pharmacy technicians, thereby reducing the overall operating and administrative costs of business.

This change alone represents a net annual reduction of almost $15 million in unnecessary administrative burden and does not compromise the health and safety of Canadians. lt was of benefit to everyone, was practical, and made good sense.

As of June 2014, the department has contributed to approximately 70% of government-wide administrative cost reductions.

Health Canada will continue to seek opportunities to reduce unnecessary regulatory burden to industry implementing the one-for-one rule while protecting the health and safety of Canadians.

Furthermore, the department has embedded in its regulatory design a small business lens assessment to consider flexible regulatory options that reduce costs to small businesses.

Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today on this important issue. I'm happy to answer your questions.

[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.

[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.

[Chris Aylward, National Executive Vice-President, Public Service Alliance of Canada]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and members of the committee for allowing representatives of the Public Service Alliance of Canada to appear before you this morning.

My name is Chris Aylward. I'm the national executive vice-president for PSAC.

PSAC represents public service workers who provide a broad range of regulatory, inspection, and enforcement services for Canadians. Our members protect Canadian consumers, and work in the fields of health and safety, food safety, transportation safety, and environmental protection, among others. They are proud of the work they do to protect Canadians.

Our major issue with Bill C-21, an act to control the administrative burden that regulations impose on businesses, is that it is completely unnecessary. If members of Parliament and senators have passed laws and created regulations, we have to assume that they believed those laws and regulations were created in the public interest. The stated purpose of Bill C-21, the so-called red tape reduction act, is to eliminate one regulation for every regulation created, the one-for-one rule. If regulations are no longer deemed to be in the public interest after due consideration and consultation, the regulators have always had the ability to amend or delete them. In fact, they have done so on a regular basis. There is absolutely no need for the one-for-one rule. Everything that it claims to do can already be done.

Bill C-21 is filled with loaded terms like “red tape” and “administrative burden”. Laws and their accompanying regulations are important safeguards to balance rights in a democratic society. We should be proud that they exist and not paint them as red tape.

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.

Why should it be a burden to obey the laws of the land? Why should it be a burden to make sure our citizens are protected?

Regulations in Canada have helped make this country one of the safest and best places to live. Canadians depend on regulations to protect our water, food, health, and consumer goods. Regulations ensure the safety of the roads we drive on and the environment we live in. They keep financial institutions, telecom companies, and other businesses in check. In the case of financial regulation, Canada's economy was sheltered from the worst of the 2008 global economic meltdown because our bank regulations were tougher than those in jurisdictions like the United States. Those regulations paid off and protected Canadians from the economic devastation that almost ruined some other countries.

Canadians also rely on their governments to enforce those regulations. Today, that reliance is in jeopardy. Not only are regulations on the chopping block, so are the people who enforce them. Federal inspectors in all sectors have seen their numbers and enforcement power reduced through successive budget cuts and freezes. For the past two years, for example, regulatory positions have been eliminated in beef research, aircraft service and maintenance, food-borne pathogen research, microbiological and viral disease research, civil aviation programs and road safety, cereal analysis, and aquatic ecosystem management and biosphere analysis. We are relying more and more on corporate self-regulation to the detriment of Canadians' health and safety.

Not only is Bill C-21 unnecessary, it will not adequately protect Canadians. While the bill says that the one-for-one rule must not compromise public health, public safety, or the Canadian economy, this is insufficient. It compromises a broader category of issues that concern Canadians, such as consumer protection and environmental protection. It could mean, for example, that our current strong financial regulations won't be there to protect Canadians in the event of future economic crises.

The immunity clause, clause 8, while absolutely essential if this bill becomes law, makes us wonder again why this bill is even necessary in the first place. This clause says that no action will be taken if this legislation isn't applied and that no regulation is invalid by reason only of a failure to comply with the act. As we understand it, the proposed legislation foresees that there will be occasions when the government will decide that the act can't and won't apply. If that's the case, and regulations can already be amended or deleted, what is the point of Bill C-21?

We believe there must be transparency around which current regulations will be traded away for new regulations. This is suggested in clause 9. However, clause 9 doesn't meet the test of transparency. Public or stakeholder consultation must occur openly before regulations are scrapped, not simply contained in a report after the fact. Our members believe that it is more important to the Canadian people that they spend time to actually inspect and enforce non-compliance.

For instance, in February of this year, in the case of Western Canada Wilderness Committee v. Canada (Fisheries and Oceans), the Federal Court declared that the Minister of the Environment and the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans acted unlawfully in delaying, for several years, the production of recovery strategies for four at-risk species. These species were threatened by industrial development, including the proposed northern gateway pipeline and tanker route.

The department's reasons for not meeting their legal obligations were staff shortages and not enough capacity. Yet between 2010 and 2017, Environment Canada will have cut, or plan to cut 21% of their staff, some 338 employees from the climate change division alone. At Fisheries and Oceans, there has been a further 30% cut of the staff who were responsible for the Species at Risk Act and the recovery and protection of all aquatic species in Canada.

ln 2014 there will be 60% fewer ground meat inspections than there were in 2013 at CFIA. This means that there will be less checking of fat content, filler, and fraudulent species claims. There will be no inspection of cooking oils. Less than half of the independent food retailers inspected in 2013 will be inspected this year.

Just last week the Transportation Safety Board said that the federal government isn't doing enough to enforce proper safety practices by Canada's railways, airlines, and marine operations. The board also said that there was an imbalance between auditing processes versus traditional inspections.

We agree with the Transportation Safety Board, and we believe that the Canadian public would agree. There needs to be more emphasis on real inspection and enforcement, not just on safety management systems. We certainly don't believe it's in anyone's interest to have public service regulators spending their time looking for regulations to cut just to meet the terms of this unnecessary bill. That would really be an administrative burden.

Bill C-21 is just one aspect of how regulations to protect Canadians are being undermined. First you eliminate the people who enforce the regulations, and then when you can no longer enforce them, you eliminate the regulations.

ln summary, we believe that Bill C-21 is unnecessary. At worst it is a make-work project that will mean regulatory and enforcement officers will have to spend their valuable time within a context of shrinking resources aimlessly looking for regulations to cut.

Thank you for your time.

[Shannon Coombs, President, Canadian Consumer Specialty Products Association]

Good morning, Mr. Chair and honourable members of the committee.

It's a pleasure to be here today to provide CCSPA's perspective on your review of the proposed legislation, Bill C-21.

My name is Shannon Coombs and I'm the president of the Canadian Consumer Specialty Products Association. I have proudly represented the industry for the last 16 years and our many accomplishments as a proactive and responsible industry.

CCSPA is a national trade association that represents 35 member companies across Canada. We're collectively a $20 billion industry and employ 12,000 people in over 100 facilities.

Our companies manufacture, process, package, and distribute consumer, industrial, and institutional specialty products such as soaps, detergents, domestic pest control products, aerosols, hard surface disinfectants, deodorizers, and automotive chemicals, or as I call it everything under the kitchen sink. I have provided the clerk with copies of our one-pager, which has a picture of the products, and I'm sure many of you have used them today. Also, you would have received our goody bags in the spring, that is, of course assuming that your staff decided to share them with you.

Why are we here? CCSPA member companies are regulated. The ingredients in our products, the bottle, at times the end use—ant traps and disinfectants, for example—and all the labelling are regulated under the respective regulations and legislation. This is both for consumer and workplace use.

We support Bill C-21 because it adds the necessary checks and balances for regulation development, which in turn adds complexity and costs to doing business in Canada. The bill tackles the issue of administrative burden, which is very important to industry. While it may be very narrow in scope in only addressing regulatory burden brought on by paperwork, it is a positive step in the right direction.

It causes regulators to reflect on the costs to industry prior to the development and implementation of a regulation. Could the scope, the net, be bigger? Yes, we would argue that the scope could have included regulations that modernize labelling laws or ingredient regulations, which are very costly to industry.

We are currently faced with the implementation of the globally harmonized system of classification and labelling of chemicals for workplace chemicals. Industry will be changing all of its safety data sheets and labels to adopt the UN's globally harmonized system, GHS, which the U.S. recently adopted. This will be a significant cost to industry and the one-for-one rule does not apply. However, the spirit of the one-for-one rule was considered in the development of the regulation, and as Health Canada worked with officials from the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration, OSHA, they reduced regulatory barriers so that industry could use one safety data sheet and one label within North America.

As per the RIAS, the Regulatory Impact Analysis Statement for GHS, it is “proposing to revise the classification and hazard communication requirements related to workplace hazardous chemicals in order to align the current system with that of the United States ... it is expected to reduce costs for industry while simultaneously enhancing the health and safety of Canadian workers.”

We support the GHS initiative and the intent to streamline regulations for the classification and labelling of workplace chemicals. We see Bill C-21 as a catalyst for change within regulatory development. It is the first in a stepwise approach to changing Canadian regulatory development processes and the culture that creates it, and it provides a rigorous check and balance function by Treasury Board.

Since the one-for-one rule has been introduced, we've seen officials within government open to ideas of harmonization to reduce regulatory burden with Treasury Board officials providing oversight and guidance to departments to ensure adherence to the policy. Both have been refreshing and effective.

For the proposed legislation to be successful, CCSPA would ask that the committee also undertake a review or accountability function to assess the successes and possible improvements by reviewing the scorecard and the metrics to develop that scorecard; by reviewing the successes not captured in the report, which I'm sure stakeholders could provide to you—I certainly can; by reviewing each of the departments forward regulatory plans; and also by ensuring departments publish and deliver on those plans and that the small business lens is being utilized within the departments.

Mr. Chair, thank you very much for the opportunity to comment on this important piece of legislation and provide our perspective. We support this legislation and will work with you and the officials to ensure the intent of the legislation is fulfilled.

I'd be happy to take any questions.

[The Chair, NDP, Pierre-Luc Dusseault]

Good morning.

As it is 8:45, we will begin the 38^th meeting of the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates immediately.

Today, we will hear from several witnesses who will speak about Bill C-21.

During our last meeting, we heard from the President of Treasury Board. Today, we will hear from experts who will provide some clarification on the issue of administrative red tape that burdens businesses. Each witness will have 10 minutes to present.

We will begin with Ms. Jones and Ms. Moreau, who are here on behalf of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business. We will then move on to Ms. Coombs, from the Canadian Consumer Specialty Products Association, then to Mr. Aylward and Mr. West, for the Public Service Alliance of Canada. Following the three presentations, committee members will ask questions of the witnesses, until 9:45.

Without further ado, I give the floor to Ms. Jones and Ms. Moreau.

Thank you so much for being with us this morning.

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

Very well.

You said the following in your presentation: “As the preamble to Bill C-21states, the One-for-One rule will not compromise public health, public safety or the Canadian economy.”

There are at least three components, but why not the environment or the happiness of Canadians? Why have you chosen these three elements?

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

That's interesting, because you mentioned earlier that in other jurisdictions, other advanced economies, the problem with their legislation or policies is that they include directives that can be undone by another directive. Clause 8(1) of this piece of legislation states:

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.

Clause 8(2) states:

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

It sounds to me like Bill C-21 has a poison pill. It has a directive that's built into it that can be used to undo all of the other elements of the bill. This is an unenforceable bill because you've built in a clause that says, “Yes, we have a policy, we have a general thrust, we have an intention”, but clause 8 as it is spelled out in this bill gives you an off-ramp. It gives the Government of Canada an off-ramp. You don't have to do anything under this bill and not be in compliance with this bill because of clause 8.

Minister, how would you respond to that?

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Okanagan—Coquihalla, BC]

I want thank the President of the Treasury Board and, obviously, Mr. Vandergrift for coming in today to talk about the merits of Bill C-21.

Before I get into Bill C-21, pertaining to Ms. Day's comments that this particular bill doesn't address anything to do with red tape, if I heard you correctly you said that as of June 2014 the rules resulted in a net annual reduction of more than $22 million of administrative burden on businesses and an estimated annual savings of 290,000 hours dealing with regulatory red tape. To me, that sounds like the one-for-one rule has already had an impact on businesses right across this country.

[The Chair, NDP, Pierre-Luc Dusseault]

Mr. Ravignat, your question has nothing to do with bill C-21. You make a valid point, but you must return to the topic currently under study.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for being here, Mr. Clement.

We have several questions to ask you about bill C-21. I think you are quite proud of your bill. However, there are several surprising things about it.

Firstly, we find that the premise is a bit flawed, as this bill is supposed to reduce red tape. In fact, it sets out the one-for-one rule, which means that when a new regulation is added, another regulation is removed. That does not reduce paperwork, it just prevents it from increasing.

Next, why did you choose such a populist title for the bill? Is it because businesses want to see red tape reduced? We know that for decades, they have been calling for a real reduction of paperwork. They have a lot of difficulty with the various levels of government and the various departments when it comes to reducing paperwork. This bill does not reduce paperwork.

Why did you choose a populist title given that the bill does not actually reduce red tape?

[The Chair, NDP, Pierre-Luc Dusseault]

I just stopped him because he seemed to be getting off track, but I noticed a slight link with bill C-21. If the minister wishes to answer, I will give him the opportunity to do so.

[The Chair, NDP, Pierre-Luc Dusseault]

Thank you for your point of order, but I hope that in the next 30 seconds, maximum, Mr. Martin will bring things back around to bill C-21, otherwise the question will not be—

[Joy Smith, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

I have a point of order.

Without challenging the chair at this point, I would like to point out to my colleague across the way, with all due respect, it is a well-known fact—I know when I was chairing the health committee—there are often times when a minister can't appear because of scheduling issues. Today we're talking about Bill C-21 and to be relevant we need to stick to that particular topic and not go off on all these rabbit trails.

[The Chair, NDP, Pierre-Luc Dusseault]

Thank you for your point of order about Mr. Martin's remarks.

I was waiting for the end of his question to see if it had anything to do with Bill C-21. I am presuming that Mr. Martin will ask it quickly. Indeed, we need to stick to today's topic.

I will let him finish, in the hope that he will bring things around to the bill that we are currently studying. That is why Mr. Clement is here today.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Okanagan—Coquihalla, BC]

You know, Mr. Chair, I hate to cut into Mr. Martin's time by any way or means, however, the point I'm making is relevancy. We're here to discuss Bill C-21, and I have failed to hear any question coming from the member in reference to our study of this particular bill.

I believe that being relevant, particularly at committee, considering that this committee is charged with looking at this bill in depth, really should provoke a response of focusing on the bill.

[Tony Clement, Conservative, President of the Treasury Board]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

It is a great pleasure to be here with you this afternoon to talk about how we can reduce red tape for SMEs.

As you already mentioned, Mr. Michael Vandergrift, who's the assistant secretary of regulatory affairs at the Treasury Board Secretariat, is with me. We're pleased to comment on Bill C-21, which enshrines the one-for-one rule into law and as a result will help to permanently control the growth of federal regulatory red tape.

The one-for-one rule, I should mention to committee, has already been in place as a rule for more than two years.

The one-for-one rule has been in place for more than two years.

It is a cornerstone of the government's Red Tape Reduction Action Plan, which we launched in October 2012 to eliminate unnecessary regulations, while maintaining high standards for safety and protection.

The purpose of the rule is to make regulation as pain free and efficient as possible for Canadian businesses, particularly small and medium-sized businesses, and to free them up for what they do best, that to is to say, to grow, innovate, and create jobs.

Specifically the one-for-one rule requires regulators to monetize—and I will get into that a bit later—and offset any increases in administrative burden that result from regulatory changes with equal reductions from existing regulations. One rule comes on and one or more rules must come off. In addition, when a brand new regulatory title is introduced that adds administrative burden, an existing regulation must also be repealed.

This approach has already proven to be effective.

During the first year of implementation, it provided successful system-wide control on regulatory red tape that impacted businesses. As of June of this year, the rule had resulted in a net annual reduction of more than $22 million insofar as it is calculated for administrative burden on businesses, an estimated annual savings for businesses of 290,000 hours—that's 33 years dealing with regulatory red tape—and a net of 19 federal regulations taken off the books.

As I mentioned earlier, the government is committed to help permanently control federal regulatory red tape.

That's why we decided to propose to Parliament that we enshrine the one-for-one rule into law, and that's why we introduced the red tape reduction act. By giving the one-for-one rule the added muscle of legislation, Canada will have one of the most aggressive red tape regulations in the world.

The one-for-one rule and other red tape reduction action plan reforms are, I can report to you, bringing a new level of discipline to how government regulates and creates a more predictable environment for businesses. And believe me, that is their request and demand of government.

And we are doing it while maintaining high standards for the safety and protection of Canadians.

Canadians count on their government and on their regulatory system to uphold the public trust.

I can assure you that the government will continue to protect the health and safety of our citizens, but we will do that while freeing businesses from unnecessary costly and time-consuming red tape. Our approach is designed to increase Canadian competitiveness and to free businesses to innovate, invest, grow, and create jobs without being impeded by unnecessary government regulations. With this bill and by following through on our other red tape commitments, we are helping to cement Canada's reputation as one of the best places in the world in which to do business and invest.

I just want to describe very briefly some of our other commitments. They include introducing the small business lens, posting forward regulatory plans on the web, increasing service standards for high-volume regulatory authorizations, and keeping track of our progress in reducing red tape through the annual scorecard report.

It's precisely because we have taken such actions that Bloomberg recently ranked Canada as the second-best country in the world in which to do business. We believe that it is the private sector and the ingenuity and creativity of hard-working Canadians that should and does create economic growth, jobs, and long-term prosperity.

Indeed, our role as the government is to put in place the right balance of policies to support them.

We are doing that not just through our red tape reduction reforms but also through other measures that secure Canada's long-term economic prosperity, including a competitive tax regime, the lowest debt-to-GDP ratio in the G-7, and a stable banking environment.

With that, I can say thank you.

[The Chair, NDP, Pierre-Luc Dusseault]

I call this meeting to order. It is 4:30 by my watch.

We will continue our 36th meeting with the second item on the agenda.

It is our pleasure to receive the President of the Treasury Board who is here to answer questions on Bill C-21. He is the sponsor of the bill. He is thus the first witness to appear before our committee. He will speak for about 10 minutes. Then committee members can ask him questions.

He is accompanied by Mr. Vandergrift, Assistant Secretary, Regulatory Affairs.

Without further ado, I give the floor to Mr. Clement, President of the Treasury Board.

[The Chair, NDP, Pierre-Luc Dusseault]

I would like to welcome you to the 36th meeting of the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates.

We will be planning future business until 4:30 p.m. That includes planning the study that we will be starting this afternoon. An important witness will be appearing: the President of the Treasury Board; he is the sponsor of Bill C-21. We will also discuss the scheduling of the study as well as the list of witnesses who will be invited to appear.

I now give the floor to Mr. Trottier.

The House resumed from November 6 consideration of the motion that Bill C-21, An Act to control the administrative burden that regulations impose on businesses, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-21, An Act to control the administrative burden that regulations impose on businesses, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Red Tape Reduction Act

[Laurin Liu, NDP, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, indeed, we have to take a global approach and a number of measures to help SMEs.

I would like to get back to the question from my colleague from Sherbrooke, who asked whether the bill would have a real impact. The Conservatives said that they wanted to reduce red tape, but they did the opposite with the building Canada fund.

Instead of helping municipalities and small businesses start infrastructure projects in a timely manner, the Conservatives set up a long and cumbersome bureaucratic process for every project worth more than $100 million.

It is great that they introduced Bill C-21 to reduce the administrative burden on small businesses, but I must point out that the government is increasing red tape in other instances.

[Laurin Liu, NDP, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to inform the House that I will share my time with my hon. colleague from Dartmouth—Cole Harbour.

I am very pleased to rise in the House today to speak to Bill C-21, An Act to control the administrative burden that regulations impose on businesses. Those who have been following the debate so far know that Bill C-21 is supposed to reduce administrative headaches and the administrative burden for businesses.

However, what it will really do is give the President of the Treasury Board the power to decide which regulations to eliminate. I would like to draw your attention to some of the more important clauses in this bill. I would like to read clause 5(1) of the bill:

5.(1) If a regulation is made that imposes a new administrative burden on a business, one or more regulations must be amended or repealed to offset the cost of that new burden against the cost of an existing administrative burden on a business.

That is essentially one of the most important clauses in the bill. I would also like to draw your attention to clause 6, which states that:

6. The President of the Treasury Board may establish policies or issue directives respecting the manner in which section 5 is to be applied.

Basically, that sums up what I just said about the President of the Treasury Board's new powers.

I will begin by underscoring the importance of small and medium-sized businesses in our Canadian economy. I would also like to say that I support this bill to reduce red tape for SMEs. It deserves to be studied in committee. In this debate, other members proposed amendments that can be presented in committee later. This bill is not perfect, but it is worth studying.

It should be noted that SMEs are at the heart of our local economy. I can attest to that because I have talked to small business owners in my riding, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles. I have seen how SMEs are the cornerstone of the vitality and prosperity of our community.

This summer, I toured the SMEs in my riding to get an idea of their concerns and to find out what the federal government could do to help them. Reducing red tape was one concern raised by the SMEs in my region.

We must not forget that business owners create jobs, hire local workers and support our community organizations. I know this because I have personally seen how generous the business owners in my region are and how much they help our community organizations, such as the Emile- Z.-Laviolette foundation, which provides food assistance programs for children. I know that the businesses are actively involved in the community of Rivière-des-Mille-Îles and their commitment is much appreciated.

My colleagues might be interested to know that over the past year, SMEs created 80% of the new jobs in the private sector in Canada. We have to admit that is a significant part of our economy. Nonetheless, we have unfortunately seen that many SMEs struggle to survive on a daily basis.

Before I continue, I would quickly like to list some other proposals and ideas that came out of my consultation with SMEs in the riding of Rivière-des-Mille-Îles this summer. Many businesses proposed restoring the hiring credit for small businesses. In fact, that tax credit was abolished by the Conservative government in 2014.

They also suggested reducing SMEs' taxes. They asked the government to limit hidden fees on credit card transactions. I will digress here to mention that there was some news about these fees this week. However, credit card transaction fees in Canada are approximately 1.5%, which is twice the international average. That has taken two years, but we still have a lot of work to do to get further reductions in hidden credit card transaction fees.

SMEs in my riding also proposed creating a tax credit for hiring and training youth, which is very important because the youth unemployment rate is twice the national average. They suggested giving business owners access to financing that would foster the growth of SMEs. They also suggested reducing red tape, as I have already mentioned.

They also said that there must be support for SMEs that work on innovation. We must provide more support for research and development. In my riding, there are many innovative businesses because of the presence of the aerospace industry. There are many innovative companies working for this sector and also for other sectors.

I would like to come back to the reduction of red tape. That has already been proposed by the NDP. An NDP government would reduce red tape for businesses across Canada. The measures contained in this bill are not the only ones of interest to SMEs. There are other things we can do to reduce the administrative burden for businesses. For example, we could facilitate access to government contracts, provide more online services to businesses, make it possible for owners to sign up their companies only once for multiple government sites and provide a single-window service to start up new businesses.

These are just a few of the NDP's proposals for reducing the paper burden of SMEs. I think we have a lot of work to do in that regard. I am interested in hearing what suggestions experts will make to the committee.

I want to talk about one aspect of this bill that concerns me greatly. This bill does not contain enough protections for the health and safety of Canadians. There is no mention of the environment in this bill, which I also find appalling. The current Conservative government relies far too much on self-inspection and self-regulation. Last week, I asked a question in the House during question period about the lack of safety inspectors for Canadian motorists. George Iny, a stakeholder in the sector, appeared before committee to tell us that there is a lack of inspectors in the auto safety sector. That worries me a lot.

I do not think that the government invested enough resources and money in the health and safety of Canadians. The bill very briefly mentions the fact that it cannot not harm public health and safety or the Canadian economy, but I think there is a way to integrate these measures and this idea into the bill itself. We know that the preamble does not necessarily hold any legal weight.

[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.

[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.

[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—

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to discuss Bill C-21, An Act to control the administrative burden that regulations impose on businesses. I will be sharing my time with the member for Sherbrooke.

To listen to the government, and at first glance, this bill seems interesting. The idea of reducing paperwork is important. Before I was elected, I owned a small business and was the only employee. Therefore, I understand that it is important to reduce the amount of paperwork, the forms and procedures for people in business so that they can concentrate on their work.

As an elected official, I spoke with representatives of the Board of Trade of Metropolitan Montreal and chambers of commerce on Montreal's south shore. I know that this issue especially affects the business world and small businesses. Business people would not have to waste their time filling out forms and doing the administrative tasks of their companies and instead could look after their business and improve their bottom line, as that is often their objective.

However, we must not forget our responsibilities as legislators. I do not want to generalize, but deregulation seems to be the goal of the Conservative government and the Liberals. They are always saying that the market will take care of itself.

For example, in terms of rail safety, the Liberals first privatized everything to do with railways without putting in place regulations to protect Canadians, and that practice continued under the Conservatives. Unfortunately, we saw what happened at Lac-Mégantic.

Let us return to the bill before us, as that is the reason why I am rising today. I will talk about the one-for-one rule. This means that the government will eliminate one regulation for every new regulation it introduces. This rule is rather arbitrary, but we understand its objective. This would stop the government from introducing more and more regulations.

I will once again use rail safety as an example. I often use that, because I am the NDP transport critic, and we are all well aware of the problems caused by deregulation. In committee, the Liberals are still saying that private companies should be allowed to set their own regulations. They believe that companies should use common sense, and then it would follow that everyone would be safe. Of course, the government says the same thing, and says so loud and clear through the measures it adopts.

The goal of the one-for-one rule seems positive. However, it is troubling that the government is granting itself the power to put a regulation in place—yet another one—that allows it to set certain rules aside and decide how it wants to proceed. This gives more powers to the ministers.

Basically, I am worried about how this government manages regulations, particularly when it comes to rail safety, but also regarding food inspection. The government has a strong tendency to allow companies to self-regulate, and this creates situations like the XL Foods crisis, which led to one of the biggest food recalls in Canada.

Another concern is that the bill seems to lump everything together, without taking important public safety regulations into consideration.

As my colleague said, when we talk about safety, we are also talking about the environment and health. Should we put everything in the same basket? The government would say that this bill does not affect health and safety, because it has to do with reducing red tape for small and medium-sized businesses. Unfortunately, that is not written in the bill, only in the preamble. As a lawyer who studied and practised in this area, I know that the preamble is supposed to give us an idea of the legislator's intention, but why is this idea not found in the bill itself?

The government simply wants to adopt a measure to remove a rule every time a new rule is introduced. In light of the study conducted by the Standing Committee on Transport following the Lac-Mégantic tragedy, we know that railway safety regulations are inadequate. Since those events, the government has been introducing measures to make up for its inaction and that of previous Liberal governments.

In that case, we are talking about new regulations. If it is not written in Bill C-21, does that mean that according to the government's one-for-one rule, for every new regulation, another regulation that protects public safety will be removed? For example, we could talk about the phase-out of the DOT-111 tank cars.

We will ask questions, since we do in fact support the idea behind this bill at second reading stage. I have worked in business and I know what a burden red tape and forms can be and how much time is spent on administration instead of work.

I absolutely support the principle, but we must find the right way to go about this. I am especially concerned about the powers being given to the minister. This will be part of the concerns we will raise. I will support the bill at second reading, but studies will have to be done.

The NDP is often criticized for opposing everything, but that is not the case. Having been a member of several House committees, I know that we often, if not always, put forward proposals. However, the government, which holds the majority in the House and in committees, constantly rejects the proposals, even though they improve the bill in order to help Canadians and small businesses. There is concern that the government will not lend its support.

Since we are talking about proposals, I want to step away from the bill for a moment. However, my comments will still be relevant. We have talked about credit card fees. I met with people from my riding so they could sign letters to the former finance minister. They wanted him to be aware of their concerns. They were business people who work hard to earn a living. Unfortunately, once again, since the government does not really like to regulate, it adopted a measure that allows credit card companies to act voluntarily.

In the interests of small businesses, some regulations need to be made. However, the government is not listening to us and does not agree.

When this is referred to committee and the NDP and Liberals make proposals, we hope that the government will listen to us.

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the point that you have made, but I am setting the context. The context is that we have a government that purports to want to help small and medium-sized businesses. The reduction of red tape, especially if it is useless red tape, and regulations would help them, as would the other issue that I raised. I was just using it as another example in the way of educating my colleagues across the way.

What I hear from owners of small and medium-sized businesses is that they hear a lot from government and members of Parliament in their ridings and all across Canada about how much they want to support small and medium-sized businesses, but the owners often tell me that what the government says it is going to do does not always end up helping them or tackling the real issues.

We are looking at the track record of how the government has managed this in the past. Being New Democrats, very practical and down to earth people, of course we want to support any common sense solutions. Common sense should prevail. We want to use those common sense solutions to reduce the paper burden and compliance costs small businesses face when dealing with government. We absolutely want to do that.

We also want to assist small businesses and support the government by eliminating unnecessary red tape and allowing them to focus on what they do best, which is growing their businesses and creating jobs. We know that small and medium-sized businesses are the engines of Canada's economy. I always say that when people shop locally and invest in small and medium-sized businesses and when we make it easier for them by taking away a lot of the bureaucracy, they are the ones that grow jobs. They are the ones that hire people from the community and the people they hire then spend and put money back into the community, and the economic engine is invigorated. We absolutely need that.

It is said that the devil is in the details, and once again, there are details in this bill that are causing New Democrats concern. I mentioned it at the beginning, but let me stress it again. Bill C-21 would give the President of the Treasury Board arbitrary powers that would make him the arbiter of eliminating regulations that he deems unnecessary.

There are colleagues across the way who seem to have an allergy to science, data, experts or the people who actually do the work. I would say that in order to do this, we need to consult and engage the small business community so that they have a say in this, not to have a minister go behind closed doors and do some kind of pseudo-consultation online, talking to his buddies or the people who give him money. That is the not the kind of consultation or partnership needed as we move forward on such an important issue.

The other thing is that there are the important critical areas of the health and safety of Canadians and there is nothing specifically in the bill that says this bill does not apply to those regulations. It is mentioned briefly in the preamble, but I am always concerned when things are in preambles due to what I did in my other life, because things in preambles are just that, a kind of lead-up. However, those are the kinds of things we need enshrined in the bill. Health and safety are absolutely critical and nobody should be more conscious of that than members of Parliament after having seen what played out over the last few weeks and especially this week in the House.

Also, in the bill there is absolutely no mention of environmental issues. I know that a lot of my colleagues in the House across the way are in denial about climate change, but we are getting dire warnings in new reports coming out that the time to act is now and the time to talk is over. Therefore, there had better be something in the bill to address environmental protections as well.

I believe many of my colleagues across the way are absolutely serious about the health and safety of Canadians. I know some of them. I have worked on committees with some of them. They do care about the health and safety of Canadians, and they do care about the environment. I would urge them to urge that part of the House to accept our amendments, but also to bring forward changes themselves so that the health and safety of Canadians is an integral part of the bill, as well as the environmental issues.

Sometimes we talk about regulation and getting rid of red tape. Red tape is always a bit of a downer. No one ever wants red tape, the useless paperwork. At the same time, we have to remember that some regulations are good.

I am very nervous when the minister has that kind of arbitrary power, that on a whim, from a lobbyist pressuring him or her, what could happen in the future is deregulation occurring in areas where it should not. I do not want anyone to stand up and say that would never happen. We have seen that happen in this House, over and over again.

We are not the only ones saying this. Many people talk about the red tape irritants, and of course we want to get rid of those. We want to focus on growth and innovation. As parliamentarians, it behooves us to make sure that we do all of those things.

The government adopted a red tape reduction action plan that outlines 90 actions to be taken by government departments and six systemic reforms, including the implementation of the one-for-one rule. This guideline would require the government to eliminate one regulation for every new regulation it adopts. I think that is so that we do not run short of storage space, which would happen if we just keep adding regulations and never take any away.

Buried in this, is the fact that we have to look at which regulations actually do good and are there for the public good and to the protect businessmen, and which are not.

There are many things in the bill alone that will create more bureaucracy. The bill mandates a review after five years, thus triggering more administrative red tape. Then of course we will need the red tape police, and the red tape police will have to oversee those things.

I was looking at some of the failures that we have seen when regulation is looked at in such a limited way that all regulation is seen as just being in the way. What we are saying is that now is the time for a real consultation.

In the coming months, the NDP small business critic will be launching a national consultation with representatives of small businesses. That is the kind of parliamentary work we need. Young entrepreneurs and family businesses are key to a prosperous economic future for Canada. New Democrats will make sure that we focus on practical, common sense solutions to help them succeed. We are not going to do that by sitting here in Parliament. We are going to do that when we listen to those on whom our legislation is going to have a direct impact, in this case, the business community.

Only recently a businessman was telling me how much the hiring credit for small business in the 2014 budget would have helped him, but of course that is not there. When it comes to taking real action, my colleagues across the way just talk. Then we see this bill being rushed through.

I want to talk a little about the Conservatives' track record when it comes to safeguarding regulations and protecting the health and safety of Canadians. I say that because those are not protected explicitly in the legislation.

Let us just look at the Canadian aviation regulations when WestJet lobbied and got its staff to passenger ratios changed, just at a whim like that. That is what really scares me more than anything else, that the minister is going to be so prone to these lobbyists that will come forward. Of course, the Liberals do not have a clean record on this either because in 1999 the Liberals deregulated rail safety by continuing to implement the safety management systems approach adopted by Mulroney's Conservative government. They did not start it, but they did not stop it either.

We have seen some of those things happen, so finally and absolutely let us look at making it easier for small and medium-sized businesses to function but let us look at the full story on how we can support them.

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak in support of Bill C-21, an act to control the administrative burden that regulations impose on businesses, but let me make it clear that we are supporting it at second reading so that when it goes to committee, we can bring forward robust amendments. In the way it is being explained, the intention of the bill may sound good, but we believe there are major flaws and we believe these flaws could actually make it harder for small businesses, rather than easier.

The other thing is that I am always very nervous whenever I hear talk about getting rid of red tape, whether it is from the Liberal government in B.C. or the Conservative government here in Ottawa. I always wonder what the real agenda is and what the real issues are, because getting rid of red tape back in B.C. meant that hundreds and thousands of children who were designated special needs and therefore eligible for additional services lost those designations. That was considered getting rid of red tape and just simplifying things.

One of my other major concerns comes down to having very little trust in the current government to actually do what it says. Over and over again, I have seen MPs on the other side granting more and more power to ministers. That is also a major flaw in this piece of legislation. In this bill, just as in many immigration bills we have looked at in the past, we see a growing amount of power being vested in the hands of the minister so that actions can be taken without any parliamentary oversight, either through debate in the House or through debate in committee. That is very dangerous for our parliamentary democracy.

The whole idea of having parliamentarians here is so that we can have informed debates and bring forward amendments and move forward that way. The government talks about accountability and transparency but places more and more power in the hands of ministers, so very little comes to the House to be debated. When an issue does come to the House to be debated, Conservatives cannot bear the light to be shone on it or for real debate to break out, because at that time they move either closure or time restriction. All kinds of procedural angles are taken to cut off debate.

Before I get into talking about the bill itself, I would be remiss if I did not take a moment to say that Sikhs in my riding of Newton—North Delta, which is one of the largest Sikh communities in Canada, are celebrating the Parkash, or the birth of Guru Nanak Sahib Ji, and Gurpurab, along with Sikhs across our wonderful land from coast to coast to coast and Sikhs around the world. I want to wish all Sikhs celebrating this momentous occasion the very best. It is also a time when we reflect on the teaching that Guru Nanak Sahib Ji left for us, which was about doing service and about the value of honest work. It was about the value of sharing and building healthy communities. I do wish anyone who is celebrating this day, all the Sikhs around the world, happy Gurpurab day.

To get back to this legislation, it is very important to me and to my riding, which is spread along all the many arterial routes in Surrey.

I have a community that is made up of a huge number of small businesses. Entrepreneurs have come to this country, have made it their home, and through their hard work have added much to the tapestry of our Canadian way of life.

I hear from the business community constantly of the major challenges they face. Therefore, if the bill before us can reduce the bureaucratic requirements and the endless sheets of paper they have to fill out, of course we would want to do that.

I also hear from the small and medium-sized businesses that there are other things that would make their lives a lot easier. One of those things is an idea that we have been putting forward, which so far my colleagues across the way have not really heard. I do not know if those members are talking to the small and medium-sized businesses in their communities, because if they were, they would be hearing the same thing that I am hearing, which is that what is killing many of the small businesses is the transaction fees on credit and debit cards.

Just the other day, I pulled out my credit card to pay, but the business person told me that they only took cash or cheques. I was not buying a huge amount and I do not tend to carry cash, but as soon as he said that, I was reminded of how mindlessly we use credit cards. We forget that when we do a transaction that may be worth three or four dollars, the transaction fee that the businessman has to pay for processing the credit card is huge. For that small businessman in Toronto, that fee really cuts into the profit margin. As this businessman told me, it actually cuts into his ability to survive month to month.

I think that if we really want to help the small and medium-sized businesses, we should look at examples. We are so good at quoting England, the U.S., Australia, and other countries when we want to go to war, but let us take a look at some of their economic policies as well.

In Australia, if my memory serves me right, the transaction fee for a credit card is 0.6%. That is a huge difference from what some of our businesses pay, which is anywhere from 3% up to 6%. Of course, it all depends on the kind of credit card we are using.

We can just imagine—

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

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

I would like to expand on what I was saying earlier, because I have read the provisions in Bill C-21. I said that the one-for-one rule would not necessarily reduce red tape, it would just control it. Bill C-21 is titled “An Act to control the administrative burden that regulations impose on businesses”, and the short title is the “Red Tape Reduction Act”.

I have a hard time with the fact that those two terms are used in the same bill. I am wondering which of the two is more appropriate. Does the government want to control the burden or reduce it? The title and the short title say two different things.

Could my colleague tell us which title is more appropriate? What were the Conservatives really trying to say when they drafted this bill?

The House resumed from October 20 consideration of the motion that Bill C-21, An Act to control the administrative burden that regulations impose on businesses, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Business of the House

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, as my friend has observed, the House of Commons has had an eventful week, but the event that gave me the most satisfaction was seeing the House vote on Tuesday to adopt Ways and Means Motion No. 16. Some watching on TV at home might ask what Motion No. 16 is. That motion enables our government to proceed with the family tax cut and it supports our increase to the $100 a month universal child care benefit, an increase that would see up to $1,920 per child, per year going to support Canadian families.

As exciting as that vote was, I was disappointed to see the position of the members of the NDP and the Liberals in particular, who voted against that support for families.

Now, on to the business of the House. This afternoon we will resume and hopefully conclude debate on second reading of Bill C-21, the red tape reduction act.

Tomorrow, we will finish third reading debate of Bill C-22, the energy safety and security act.

Next week, of course, is a constituency week, when we will be able to connect with our constituents, as well as have a chance to join them at Remembrance Day ceremonies, in our home communities. This is especially important this year, for many reasons.

When the House returns on Monday, November 17, we will start the report stage of Bill C-18, the Agricultural Growth Act, and after question period, we will start the report stage of Bill C-27, the Veterans Hiring Act. Both of those bills have been recently reported back from committee.

On Tuesday, November 18, we will have the third day of debate on Bill C-44, the protection of Canada from terrorists act. Since all parties support committee examination of the bill, I would expect that the opposition will agree to let that start after next Tuesday's debate.

Also on Tuesday night, we will complete the concurrence debate on the first report of the agriculture committee.

The following day, we will debate Bill C-18 again.

Finally, on Thursday and Friday of the next sitting week, we will resume debate on Bill C-26, the tougher penalties for child predators act, at second reading.

I was asked directly when the remaining two opposition days will be scheduled. Some time in those remaining four weeks, before we rise for the Christmas break, we will hold those two opposition days.

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, this afternoon we will continue to debate Bill C-43, the economic action plan 2014 act, no. 2, at second reading. That is a bill that focuses on job creation, economic development, growth and prosperity for all Canadians, and is certainly something that is welcomed in this time of continuing global economic uncertainty, and something that focuses on the priorities of Canadians. That debate will continue tomorrow and then will conclude on Monday.

Of course, also on Monday, the President of France, François Hollande, will address both houses of our Parliament that morning.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, we will consider Bill C-44, the protection of Canada from terrorists act, at second reading.

Ideally, we will conclude this debate on Wednesday, so that a committee can get on with the important work of studying the details of this legislation. This will be an opportunity for all parties to study the bill and its important measures in detail.

Next, I am hoping that on Thursday we could wrap up the second reading debate on each of Bill S-5, the Nááts’ihch’oh National Park Reserve act; and Bill C-21, the red tape reduction act.

Finally, next Friday, November 7, will be dedicated to finishing the third reading debate on Bill C-22, the energy safety and security act.

There was a specific question with regard to the remaining two allotted days. As members know, I believe we have four weeks available to us after the opportunity in the ridings to observe Remembrance Day with our constituents. I anticipate that those two allotted days will be designated for dates in that last four-week period.

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, first, let me take the opportunity to extend my own appreciation and thanks to our Sergeant-at-Arms Kevin Vickers, the House of Commons Security Services, and their security and law enforcement partners for their extraordinary work yesterday.

Much has been said, all of it deserved, and I cannot think that anybody here thinks we can say it too much. All members of the House, and the institution itself, were incredibly well-served by them yesterday. We have every right to be proud of them.

All members of the House, and the institution itself, were incredibly well served by them yesterday. We have every right to be proud of them.

I also want to acknowledge yesterday's efforts of your other officials, and the indulgence of my counterparts and their staff, as we managed our way through the logistics surrounding the next meetings of this House.

Plans do change from time to time. However, here is the plan as I have it for the next week.

Today, we will continue debating the bills I have indicated on our projected order of business, first, Bill C-35, justice for animals in service act (Quanto's Law), at second reading. It is kind of appropriate since we were among many of those very police dogs, and other service animals yesterday, taking care of us. Perhaps it would be a good tribute to them to see this bill advance.

We have Bill S-5, Nááts’ihch’oh National Park Reserve act, which we will continue debating, as well as Bill S-2, incorporation by reference in regulations act, at second reading.

Tomorrow we will start report stage of Bill C-41, Canada-Korea economic growth and prosperity act. If there is unanimous support, perhaps we can also take up third reading tomorrow as well.

In any event, on Monday and Tuesday of next week, we will continue with any uncompleted debates on today's and tomorrow's bills, as well as Bill C-21, red tape reduction act, at second reading.

Starting on Wednesday and for the remainder of next week, we will debate the economic action plan 2014 act, No. 2, which my hon. friend, the Minister of Finance introduced this morning.

Red Tape Reduction Act

[François Lapointe, NDP, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise in the House today to talk about Bill C-21, An Act to control the administrative burden that regulations impose on businesses. I am not altogether unhappy about this bill, but I do have some reservations about it. “Control” is a key word in the comments I am about to make. This bill tackles what our Conservative colleagues opposite usually call red tape, or administrative burden.

The title says “control”. That is pretty deceptive, and it is why I am somewhat pleased, but not unreservedly so. Since 2007, Conservative ministers have repeatedly made announcements having to do with reducing the administrative burden. I have lost track of the number of times that the Minister of State for Small Business and Tourism, and Agriculture has announced, with great pomp and circumstance, that there would finally be a 20% reduction, that 96 items and 306 sub-items would be removed. This idea of reduction has been floated and promised to entrepreneurs and small business owners in Canada for ages. Now we have this bill, which purports to minimize the damage.

Despite all that, the NDP will support the bill at second reading. I would like to remind our listeners that second reading means that the bill will go to committee, where members can make suggestions and debate more tangible solutions to ensure that there really will be a reduction in the administrative burden for SME owners in Quebec and Canada.

Just last Thursday, I was in Rivière-du-Loup, where the president of the Fonds de solidarité FTQ was giving a presentation. Among the 80 people in attendance were many small business owners. There was one entrepreneur in particular, a young man who got a small business up and running again five or six years ago.

The business must be about 30 years old, and since the young man started it up again, it has gone from 30 to 120 employees. I know him, because I visited the company nearly two years ago, when I was the official opposition critic for SMEs. He said that business was good and that the Germans were interested in a product he developed a year ago.

I asked him if he had had any support from Canada Economic Development, because it could be good if the Germans wanted to purchase cases or shiploads of his product. He said he had tried everything, but he would not do business with CED. I asked him why and he said it was so complicated that he gave up.

Nonetheless, he had good things to say about other organizations. The CFDC helped him when it came to writing certain reports, but he gave up on Canada Economic Development. He now has a German purchase order to deal with and he has to find solutions and capital, but the red tape at Canada Economic Development forced him to give up on asking the federal government for help. That was just last week.

This is something the party across the way has been going on about since at least 2007, but the results on the ground and within a number of federal services are more than disappointing for business owners. Bill C-21 makes good on a promise made by this government in the Speech from the Throne to enshrine the one-for-one rule into law.

When I hear “one-for-one” I think of the word “unbelievable”. I went to three media events across the country where Conservative ministers said they were finally going to reduce red tape using the one-for-one rule. In committee, I reminded the Minister of State for Small Business that one minus one equals zero and that the government could not present a plan to reduce red tape when the only concrete solution on the table equals zero.

We need to be talking about negative numbers to be talking about a decrease. My nine-year-old son understands that. We need to be talking about negative one at some point in the process. We have before us a bill that is once again based on the idea that plus one minus one equals zero. However, were intellectually honest enough to call this a type of limitation. They dismissed the notion of reduction. They took a step in the right direction in terms of showing respect for Canadians' intelligence, but a step in the wrong direction for the well-being of Canada's entrepreneurs.

The other arguments made by my colleagues deal with the lack of focus on the environment, for example. Given the Conservatives' values, they could use this to get rid of the regulations that they do not like and implement the ones they do. We do not have a lot of confidence in them when it comes to the environment or public safety. I completely agree with the concerns that many of my colleagues have raised since the debate on this bill began.

I would like to use the last three minutes to talk about a possible way to find a solution and to let you know about Industry Canada's evaluation report of the BizPal service. According to the report, if we were to invest time, skills and money in the short term, this system could be very profitable for everyone in the long term. The idea is that entrepreneurs can go on online. They currently go into the BizPal system, to find the regulatory forms they need to make some sort of application, to confirm that they have complied with certain environmental regulations before building their restaurant, for example. In reality, 90% of the time they find the document that they have to print, fill out by hand and send by mail. They then have to wait for a response by phone or letter from a public servant. So much for 2.0. That is not even 1.0. Is there such a thing as Web .6? We are not even close. That is an example of a direction to take that would require investment.

Allow me to give an example. When people need to fill out reports or do regulatory surveys and reports online, would it be possible to ensure, for example, that every time they type the SME business number—which would be assigned by the federal government— all of the information, including the owner's name, address, the date the business was set up, shows up on the screen? I have some news for the members opposite: if we invested the necessary resources, that would be possible in 2014-15. Crazy, right? With that kind of approach, if it is well carried out, it is feasible that small businesses could cut the time spent on regulatory administrative tasks by 20%, 30% or even 40%. There have not been any studies on it. I do not have the numbers, so I cannot tell you what it would cost. What I do know is that there are other administrations that have looked into tangible solutions like this one and that have invested good money. However, the return on investment is impressive when multiplied by the thousands of entrepreneurs who save hundreds of hours each year over decades. Altogether, it is very profitable, even if the initial investment is costly.

We absolutely have to come up with real, complete solutions that will bring this information exchange with entrepreneurs in 2015 to the Web 2.0 level, and soon. We do not want to end up in 2035 with entrepreneurs who have someone working full-time behind the scenes printing forms and typing in the company's name every two weeks instead of serving customers. We have to achieve that objective as quickly as possible. The red tape reduction goal for SMEs is a top national priority, one we all share, and we have to make it really happen with real solutions.

I am also thinking of non-profits. I have met with people who run non-profit organizations with really important missions, such as literacy and supporting people with intellectual and health problems and so on. These people spend an inordinate amount of time justifying $1,400 grants. In any discussion of red tape, we have to consider all of the administrators in Canada, whether they work for non-profits or SMEs.

When we talk about red tape, we have to consider all of the administrators in Canada, whether they work for non-profits or SMEs.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time so that as many people as possible can speak to this bill, which, at this point in time, raises more questions than answers in my mind. I have a very hard time trusting the Conservative government on this issue, even though we may agree on a few fundamental points.

Bill C-21 was introduced by the President of the Treasury Board and has two key provisions. To begin, it will implement the one-for-one rule, in order to supposedly reduce the red tape that is hampering business growth and innovation.

This raises questions in my mind. It seems to me that a simple mathematical equation demonstrates that if we take one regulation away for every one we create—or one minus one—we get zero. We are back at square one, and nothing has improved. We have simply kept the situation from getting any worse. The rule is also based on the assumption that the two regulations are equal. A company will invest a different amount of time or financial resources, depending on the regulation. That is the first problem.

Second, this bill would make the President of the Treasury Board the ultimate arbiter when it comes to eliminating regulations; it would give him a monopoly on that. That is the second problem and also very typical of this government's bills, which seek to concentrate power in the hands of ministers. This is another great example of that.

This bill certainly has to be analyzed in committee because, even though we agree on some of its general principles, it needs amendments to correct its shortcomings, particularly with respect to the environment.

We also have to make sure that regulations protecting the health and safety of Quebeckers and Canadians are not gutted. We have to ensure that the health and safety of Canadians remain priorities in the debate on businesses' administrative burden.

Small and medium-sized businesses are crucial to our economy. There is no doubt that they are essential to the job creation process, especially in Quebec, but also across the country. In ridings like mine, we want to see small businesses become medium-sized businesses. They are the backbone of our economy.

Since we know how important small and medium-sized businesses are to economic recovery, we are of course ready to explore various options available to maximize their potential. Businesses could then focus on their two main objectives: growing their resources and creating jobs.

Now that we have laid out the general principles, let us take a closer look at the implications of this bill. Let us talk about the first original sin: from the bill's preamble to its provisions, the notion of environmental safety is simply absent from the spirit and the letter of the bill. The unbelievable way this bill was conceived sacrifices all environmental issues. If there is one subject on which all Canadians agree, it is the environment, and yet it is completely absent from the bill.

The Conservative approach is to allow industrial stakeholders to self-regulate. That formula has been used in the past and has led to catastrophes. Here once again, industrial stakeholders regulate their own activities without any public power looking at the risks those activities pose to the environment

Furthermore, health and safety are mentioned only in the bill's preamble, which leaves very little room in real terms for the importance that really should be placed on issues of health and safety.

Since my colleagues opposite went to the trouble of including the one-for-one rule, the question is this: why did they not allocate the resources needed to make sure there is legislation in place to also protect the health and safety of Canadians?

By all accounts, this bill embodies the Conservatives' thinking on the environment. They seem to think that environmental safety is an administrative burden that must be reduced, when environmental issues are directly related to the safety of citizens.

Our legitimate questions on the scope of this bill on health and safety will lead the NDP to propose robust amendments to ensure the long-term sustainability of regulations protecting the health, safety and environment of Canadians. The rules that are in the public's interest must be upheld. This is not a question of exerting theoretical control over the number of rules, but of determining which ones are truly useful for the public.

We must focus on tangible measures to help small business owners expand and beware of the illusions Bill C-21 might create. The critical question posed by this bill could be summed up in these terms: it is not enough to reduce red tape for SMEs in an effort to support their potential for growth and innovation. These claims have to translate into action and these reduction measures must be consistent with health and environmental safety criteria.

When it came to moving from words to action, the Conservatives refused to support the NDP motion on the regulation of credit card fees that card issuers charge merchants, for example. However, the lack of an ombudsman and non-existent regulation in this area are having a serious negative impact on the competitiveness of small businesses and constitute an extra administrative burden for these merchants.

With regard to safety standards, we need look no further than the Lac-Mégantic tragedy, which is still fresh in everyone's minds. This tragedy reminds us of the extreme consequences that drastic deregulation can have and the risk that such an approach poses to rail safety.

Furthermore, the Liberals, who are also very timid when it comes to regulation, reinforced the principle of deregulation of rail safety by continuing to implement an approach allowing the industry to monitor the safety of its own operations instead of requiring the government to set standards that the industry has to meet.

That being said, the main focus of Bill C-21 is to implement a one-for-one rule. This approach, which was discussed by the Red Tape Reduction Commission, requires the government to eliminate a regulation every time it adopts a new one. Once again, I would like to remind hon. members that there is no evidence of any reductions in red tape.

However, the bill does not explicitly state that the regulations can apply to health and safety issues. In addition, the bill stipulates that the President of the Treasury Board has the power to calculate the cost of the administrative burden and determine how the law will apply to regulations changed when the one-for-one rule came into effect.

It is clear just how much bargaining power is being given to the President of the Treasury Board. In other words, he could be granted discretionary powers over regulations affecting safety, health and the environment. Centralizing regulating and deregulating powers in the hands of the President of the Treasury Board is, without a doubt, an unsound, undesirable way to manage the public service.

We are fully aware that we need to reduce red tape by offering balanced solutions to our entrepreneurs. However, we feel that this bill needs to be examined more closely in committee so that we can address its main weaknesses, including—and I have said this many times—the ability to protect the health and safety of Quebeckers and Canadians.

I will now answer questions.

[Bernard Trottier, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Works and Government Services]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak today on this important piece of legislation for businesses and all Canadians. I would like to start with a bit of context to help us better understand the thinking that led to the introduction of this bill.

Briefly, this bill is a direct result of the feedback we received from small businesses that are so vital to the long-term success of our country. We are debating it today because back in budget 2010, we made a commitment to review federal regulations in areas where reform is most needed to reduce the compliance burden on businesses, especially small businesses, while safeguarding the health and safety of Canadians.

At the time the Canadian Federation of Independent Business estimated that businesses in Canada spend over $30 billion each year complying with regulations, so the government took action. In 2011, we created a Red Tape Reduction Commission, which was made up of both parliamentarians and private sector representatives. Its mandate was twofold. First, it was to identify irritants to businesses that stem from federal regulatory requirements that have a detrimental effect on growth, competitiveness, and innovation. Second, it was to recommend options that address these irritants and control and reduce the regulatory burden over the long term while ensuring that the environment and the health and safety of Canadians were not compromised in the process.

The commission held consultations across Canada to hear directly from the people who are most affected by red tape. This included in particular small business owners. There was also an online consultation to allow an even wider range of business people to provide their views. Overall, people expressed concern with the unchecked growth of regulation and the costs they impose on businesses, especially small businesses. Specifically, business owners also told the commission that a one-for-one rule was necessary to control how often the government turns to regulation to address issues within industry. Then, in January 2012, the commission released its report, complete with recommendations for reducing red tape and its effects on the business community.

It did not take long for the government to take action. A few months later, on April 1, 2012, the government put the one-for-one rule in place. This rule requires regulators to remove a regulation each time they introduce a new regulation that imposes an administrative burden on business. It has worked so well that we moved to enshrine this rule into law last January by introducing the red tape reduction act, which we are considering today.

There is no better time than the present to give the one-for-one rule the force of law. Canada has weathered the economic downturn relatively well and is well positioned for sustained economic growth. We have gone from having one of the highest marginal effective tax rates on business to having one of the lowest. In fact, we are one of the few countries in the world that can boast of having both low debt and declining taxes. As a result, Canada is internationally recognized as one of the best places in the world to do business.

In December 2012, Canada cracked the global top 10 with respect to corporate tax competitiveness, according to a report by PricewaterhouseCoopers. This past January, in Bloomberg's rankings of the best countries in the world for doing business in 2014, Canada placed second, just behind Hong Kong and ahead of the United States. All of this points to an economy that continues to perform well in the global economic environment.

However, now is not the time to rest on our laurels. If we are to continue to rank among the world's most successful nations, we have to keep that international confidence in Canada up. We are taking the right steps to do that. We are on track to balancing the budget, and we have continued to take measures to create a business climate that supports growth and job creation. At the same time, federal transfers to individuals, such as old age security and employment insurance, as well as major transfers to other levels of government, including those for social programs and health care, will continue to grow. We have also taken steps to improve the fairness and integrity of the tax system to ensure that everyone pays his or her fair share.

We are also finding savings and efficiencies in the government's operations. At the same time, we are working to create an environment that is supportive of business. From 2008-09 through 2013-14, we delivered tax reductions totalling more than $60 billion to job-creating businesses. Among those measures is the reduction of the federal general corporate income tax rate to 15% in 2012, from more than 22% in 2007.

We have already taken steps to significantly improve Canada's tax competitiveness and business environment. Now, the steps that we are taking to reform the federal regulatory system are in line with these actions.

Canada needs a regulatory system that works, one that is not overly burdensome, one that does not hinder the ability of businesses to innovate and grow, and one that protects Canadians' health and welfare. The bill being considered today is part of a package of regulatory reforms designed to modernize our regulatory system. By giving the one-for-one rule the added muscle of legislation, Canada would have one of the most aggressive red tape reduction measures in the world. It would increase Canadian competitiveness; free businesses to innovate, grow and create jobs; and underscore Canada's reputation as one of the best places in the world in which to invest and do business.

Let me close by saying that the red tape reduction act is about bringing new discipline to how regulation works. It is about creating a more predictable environment for businesses, and it is about freeing Canadians and their companies to succeed.

Small businesses are the foundation of this country's economy. By removing unnecessary barriers to their success, we would be helping them focus their time and energy on seizing new opportunities for growth and job creation. This would contribute to building the prosperous future we want for Canada and our children.

I ask my hon. colleagues to support the bill.

The House resumed from September 15 consideration of the motion that Bill C-21, An Act to control the administrative burden that regulations impose on businesses, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Business of the House

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, this afternoon we will continue with today’s NDP opposition day.

Tomorrow, we will debate Bill C-13, the Protecting Canadians from Online Crime Act, aimed at combating cyberbullying at third reading.

When we come back from our constituency week, on Monday, October 20, we will consider a motion to refer Bill S-4, the Digital Privacy Act, to the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology prior to second reading. If we have extra time available that day, we will return to the second reading debate on Bill C-21, the Red Tape Reduction Act.

Tuesday, October 21, shall be the fifth allotted day. The Liberals will offer the day’s topic of discussion.

Starting on Wednesday, October 22, the House will consider Bill C-42, the common sense firearms licensing act at second reading. This bill would cut red tape for law-abiding firearms owners and provide safe and simple firearms policies. I would note that this legislation has already been endorsed by a number of key groups, such as the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters, the Saskatchewan Wildlife Federation, the New Brunswick Wildlife Federation, the Canadian Shooting Sports Association, la Fédération québécoise des chasseurs et pêcheurs, the Manitoba Wildlife Federation, and the Nova Scotia Federation of Anglers and Hunters, among others.

Mr. Speaker, I do want to wish you and all members a happy Thanksgiving, and I hope that all will share that with their families.

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have an opportunity to respond to my colleague. On the question of question period, as I have observed before, the tone of question period is overwhelmingly determined by the tenor of the questions asked.

There was a very worthwhile letter to the editor in The Globe and Mail yesterday on exactly that subject from a gentleman from Halifax, which I was most appreciative of. I am sure that if the members of the opposition take heed of that, we will see very high-quality question periods in the future.

In terms of the business of the House, for the balance of today, we will be continuing forward on the Nááts’ihch’oh national park reserve act, Bill S-5. Tomorrow, it is our intention to complete the last day of Bill C-36. This is the bill to respond to the court's decision. The court has set a deadline for us in December, and we do want to respond to that. We will be proceeding with other matters on the order paper through the following week.

I do intend to identify Tuesday as an additional allotted day. I believe that it will be an opportunity for the NDP once again.

We have had some discussion in the House of the importance of the potential matter of the mission that is under way in combatting the ISIL terrorist threat right now. There is the potential for the schedule that I have laid out to be interrupted at some point in time by the need for a motion of the House, should there be a decision by the government to proceed with a combat mission.

I do not believe that I reported to the House exactly what we are going to be doing on Monday. On Monday, we will deal with Bill S-4, the digital privacy act, and Bill C-21, the red tape reduction act.

Small Business

[John Carmichael, Conservative, Don Valley West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, over the summer I listened to many small business owners in my riding of Don Valley West, and a common concern was the amount of red tape that businesses face on a yearly basis. Administrative red tape impacts the ability of small businesses to create jobs, to innovate, and to grow the economy.

Earlier this week I was pleased to see debate on Bill C-21, the red tape reduction act, take place in the House, and I hope all members will support small business across this country.

Could the minister update the House on what our government is doing to reduce red tape for small business?

Red Tape Reduction Act

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

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Winnipeg North in his debut speech since noon today.

I do not think the irony will be lost on anyone that this bill would enable the government to craft a set of regulations about regulating regulations. With regard to the statute proposed in Bill C-21, everyone should be very clear there would be no statutory effect. The bill is about a policy. It affects a policy; it creates no statutory effect. I say that because subclause 8(1) of the bill clearly states:

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.

It goes on to say in subclause 8(2):

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

There is absolutely no enforcement mechanism. There are no teeth whatsoever behind this bill. What we are doing on the floor of the House of Commons on the very first day of the fall session is debating the creation of a policy, not a statute.

With that as the backdrop, let us talk about what this policy would do.

Its purpose is to reduce the administrative burden on businesses. We know that most regulations on the conduct of normal business will affect businesses, so this is a policy that would affect the regular practice of business. However, it goes beyond that. It would impact things that may not necessarily be front and centre or top of mind with us as parliamentarians.

It would affect the management of fisheries and the environment. It is not just the industry department, the finance department, or the Canada Revenue Agency that this measure would impact. We have to be very clear that it would impact the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and how it regulates the inspection and regulation of food products. It would affect Health Canada with pharmaceutical products and other health products. It would affect the Department of Fisheries and Oceans as to how it manages our coastal and inland fisheries. It would affect a whole range of different departments. It would affect the Department of Natural Resources in the regulation of the mining sector.

With that said, this is a policy that is meant to reduce the number of regulations affecting all departments within the Government of Canada. It is not just the Canada Revenue Agency, the industry department, and a few of what would traditionally be viewed as the more business-oriented departments, because there is no department of the Government of Canada that does not impact the conduct of Canadian business across the board.

In responding to one of my questions, the hon. minister pointed out that 2,300 regulations have already been taken off the books since 2007. Most Canadians and certainly all parliamentarians should know that the catalogue of regulations in Canada is in the tens of thousands. Tomes and tomes of regulations exist.

The idea is to take down one regulation for every regulation that is brought in. It is basically about motivation, about trying to motivate government to do something about red tape.

Here is an equally effective strategy, and perhaps a better one: why not just cull the existing regulations? Here is where this bill falls a bit short. The committee that studies the bill really needs to dig into this aspect. The Government of Canada already has many volumes of regulations on the books, so the presumption of any reasonable and fair-minded Canadian would be that it is going to be tough on the government to bring in a new regulation because it will really have to scratch heads, think hard, and figure out what regulation it is going to eliminate.

We have many tomes of existing regulation that is redundant without being culled. The government could simply pick one and remove it. That would meet the policy requirements that it proposes to enact with this supposed legislation, with this statutory instrument.

That is the key here, so is this really more about a communications exercise? Is it somewhat of a smoke-and-mirrors game for the government to try to look like it is doing something when it really is not doing a whole lot?

Is there merit behind this concept? There is, absolutely. The government is proving that with its own former regulatory red tape commission. The commission took seven years to come up with all of this. It was seven years of bureaucracy, seven years of spending, seven years of studying, and this is what it came up with.

Yes, there is a lot of fat out there. There is a lot of fat in this government. There is a lot of fat that the Conservatives just did not bother to tackle. They have come up with this statutory policy that has no effect whatsoever in law, since there is no liability or consequence to the government for not following its own legislation. It is a bill that regulates regulation.

Here we are debating a policy on the floor of the House of Commons on the very first day that we are back for the fall session, and we have already come to the conclusion that it really does not do a whole lot.

What I also find kind of funny is that I did not want to see this bill in the budget implementation act because budget implementation acts should simply be about budgets, but when we consider all the stuff that went into the Conservative government's implementation act that had nothing to do with the well-being of businesses or the economy, an argument might be made that perhaps this particular legislation might have been able to be folded into the budget implementation act. I would not agree with it, because I think budget implementation acts should be strictly about budgets.

However, that said, this bill was read on the floor of the House of Commons on January 29 of this year. We have not heard a word about it since, and we have actually passed the budget. After seven years of spending on the red tape commission and adding to the bureaucracy, if one is trying to get a signal or cue as to whether or not this is more about a communications exercise to show that this legislation to regulate regulations is a good thing, one need not look any further than that. That is what this is all about today.

What would be the most effective answer in dealing with red tape and government regulations? It would be to go through them one by one and cull any one that does not really have meaning or value. That would be the best and cheapest option, and administratively it would be the simplest and most efficient one. Quite frankly, the government could do it if it wanted to, but now there is this elaborate exercise attached to all of it to posture and create reports and add to the bureaucracy.

Our caucus is looking forward to getting this bill into committee to study some of these issues.

Coming from Newfoundland and Labrador, I will end with something that is very important to me. The Department of Fisheries and Oceans manages our coastal resources and all of our oceans almost exclusively through the use of regulation. If the government is suggesting that for every regulation it brings in it must reduce regulations by one, will government experts and outside experts be allowed into the committee room to analyze whether there might be unforeseen consequences that would actually reduce the ability of the government to do what is in the best interest of Canadians and our resources and our economy and whether this smoke-and-mirrors public relations exercise might actually cause a lot of harm?

[Djaouida Sellah, NDP, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to begin by welcoming all my colleagues back to the House. I hope this return to Parliament is more productive than previous ones have been.

I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Pontiac.

I have the honour to speak on this first day back to Bill C-21, An Act to control the administrative burden that regulations impose on businesses. The bill introduced here at second reading stage is a good idea insofar as it claims to cut red tape for SME's.

I want to remind hon. members that in April, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business said that after taxes, red tape was the second biggest concern of small business owners.

The one-for-one rule included in this bill tells businesses that every time a new administrative burden is placed on them, another will be lifted. That is a start. The bill is telling them that the administrative burden will not become greater in future. However, this rule still needs to be applied effectively, fairly and transparently.

However, like many of this Conservative government's bills, this one falls short of the mark. Government regulations to protect the health, safety and environment of Canadians should be a priority. This bill seems to completely disregard that obligation.

We need more than the government's promises and the preamble of a bill that could leave room for interpretation. We want to be assured that deregulation will not apply to these regulations.

On the one hand, the government wants to seem co-operative by introducing a bill like this, and on the other hand, its actions show that all it does is keep piling on administrative measures, whether it is through personal income tax measures or through various government programs that never reach their targets.

Last of all, this bill provides for a five-year review. This will result in a new administrative burden.

We believe in reducing the paper burden and in sensible solutions, but we need more than half-measures in a gimmicky bill, because small businesses are the drivers of entrepreneurship in our country. However, because of their limited resources, small businesses feel the weight of the administrative burden more than other businesses.

This summer, I had the opportunity to meet with the owners of small and medium-sized businesses in the riding of Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert. If it were also to meet with them, the government would realize that this bill is deficient. The owners told me that there is a real lack of co-operation among the different levels of government.

We know that this Conservative government finds it difficult to get along with its provincial and municipal counterparts. We have seen this from the beginning of its mandate. It is a serious problem.

SMEs must sometimes fill out federal and provincial forms. We need an agreement to make things easier. They should not have to fill out the same form twice and send it to different places based on different criteria. Small businesses told me that this is a real waste of time. They all agree that they have been squeezed by bank charges this year and that their profits have plummeted.

They sometimes even have to reconsider their decision to go into business. This goes for SMEs that have been in business for several years and those that are just getting started. Banking fees have gotten so high that SMEs have no choice but to take them into account. Today, people no longer pay with cash. It has become common to make small purchases with a debit or credit card. However, such transactions cost money; business owners must pay a percentage. That percentage has a serious impact. It considerably reduces profit margins and available funds that could have been reinvested in the local economy to hire a new employee or expand a store, for example.

The government says that it is prepared to help SMEs, but it does not go far enough. To date, the NDP is the only federal party to propose real solutions to this problem. We proposed regulating the fees that credit card companies charge merchants by creating an ombudsman position. Obviously, the Conservative government rejected this proposal, as usual.

Red tape is not the only thing that small business owners come to me about. They also regularly tell me that the Conservatives boast about helping small businesses, but that they did not renew the hiring credit for small business. It was not even included in budget 2014. However, SMEs have been clear that this hiring credit is important. It allows them to build their businesses and create dependable jobs.

SMEs get very little attention from the Conservative government. Perhaps the government needs to be reminded that there is a direct correlation between red tape and the long-term prosperity of these SMEs.

Unnecessary red tape puts a wrench in the smooth flow of trade and limits the exchange of goods and services that is the lifeblood of a healthy economy. However, as we know, this Conservative government would rather give billions of dollars in tax cuts to big businesses than help SMEs, which support our communities.

The NDP knows that small business owners work really hard. They create good jobs across the country and we believe that they deserve a break.

I support this bill at second reading. However, measures must be added to improve it and particularly to ensure that it meets the requirements of our entrepreneurs.

[Glenn Thibeault, NDP, Sudbury, ON]

It does, Mr. Speaker.

New Democrats are not alone in expressing our concerns about this impact. As I said, it is worrisome that there is no mention of the word “environment”. It is also reprehensible. New Democrats will specifically seek to address this in an amendment during the committee stage of the bill's proceedings.

We have some validators on this. Robyn Benson, president of the Public Service Alliance of Canada, has underscored the importance of ensuring the proper enforcement of health and safety regulations, stating that “Regulations, and their proper enforcement, can literally save lives. But sometimes only a horrific mishap will make the point”. Unfortunately, we recently had a very stark reminder of what can happen when deregulation runs amok with the tragic incident at Lac-Mégantic last summer.

The labour movement is not alone in underscoring the importance of regulations that protect the health, safety, and environment of Canadians within the context of the bill. In the lead-up to the introduction of Bill C-21, Laura Jones, from the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, who has been quoted numerous times by the other side, stated that rules that are necessary to protect health, promote safety, and protect the environment are important and should not be classified under the definition of red tape.

What is most concerning about this sloganistic approach to easing the paper burden on small business is that the Conservative and Liberal track records from the past when it comes to safeguarding regulations and standards that protect the health and safety of Canadians have been abysmal.

As I mentioned earlier, the tragedy in Quebec has put rail safety in Canada back in the spotlight after decades of deregulation by the Liberals and then Conservatives. Largely, this descent into deregulation can be traced back to 1999 when the Liberals further deregulated rail safety by continuing to implement the safety management systems approach adopted by Mulroney's Conservative government. This approach has allowed rail companies to self-regulate rather than requiring them to adhere to operational safety standards jointly established by government and the industry. Unfortunately, we have seen a shocking example of how unchecked deregulation can cut short the lives of dozens of individuals and reek havoc on an entire town in what seemed like the blink of an eye but was really the result of a slow march toward a dangerous self-regulatory approach.

Further, with its October 2014 budget implementation act, Bill C-4, the Conservatives introduced changes to the labour code that will significantly restrict the powers of health and safety officers in federal workplaces. This is yet again an attack on Canadian workers that could have serious consequences for individuals in the workplace.

Let me speak briefly as to why the issue of health and safety regulations is so important and why New Democrats believe they should be exempted from the mandate of Bill C-21. In Canada, over 1,000 people fall victim to workplace accidents every year, while a growing number of Canadians are losing their lives or suffering from work-related illnesses. Regrettably, this number has been going up for the past 15 years.

I think we can all agree in the House that any injury, any death in the workplace, is one too many. Unfortunately, all too often families are left to pick up the pieces when loved ones are suddenly taken away while on the job. No one should ever have to leave their home in the morning wondering whether today is the day they die at work. In our country, three people are killed on the job every working day. Left behind are families and friends devastated by the loss of their loved ones.

Given the sad reality of how tenuous health and safety conditions continue to be for many of Canada's workers, it begs the question: If the Conservatives are really serious about the health and safety of Canadians, why not explicitly exclude regulations that protect health, safety, and the environment from the application of the bill?

New Democrats need more than the government's word or the preamble of a bill, which is subject to interpretation. We want assurances that the one-for-one rule would not apply to regulations that impact the health, safety, and environment of Canadians.

Canada's entrepreneurs are resourceful and innovative by nature. They are well positioned to succeed in the 21st century economy. However, to help them create the jobs we need in Canada, we need to make sure government is providing new entrepreneurs with the services and the supports they need to succeed. For instance, there are a variety of government services to assist businesses, but as the Canadian Chamber of Commerce has pointed out, they are offered by many different governments, different agencies, and different departments. Finding and applying for the right service can also be time consuming, and many small business owners are forced to hire expensive consultants to navigate that bureaucracy. That needs to change. However, Bill C-21 does nothing to address this growing concern.

One aspect of this issue, which often gets lost in the conversation around the need to reduce the paper burden, is that dramatic cuts to the public service represent an additional layer of red tape for small business owners as they are forced to wait longer for the answers they need to maintain and grow their businesses.

New Democrats were staunch opponents to the cuts made by the Conservative government, cuts that have had a major impact not just on our most vulnerable citizens but also on business owners who are placed on hold in what can seem like a never-ending queue. While the Conservatives like to brand themselves as the party that is open for business, their cuts to front-line public services has left a closed sign hanging in the window of government service delivery during precisely the time when small business owners need a leg-up because of the economic downturn. This has left entrepreneurs out in the cold, not to mention the impact it has had on job recovery in our country.

That is why the bill is such a misnomer. On the one hand, the government is using a sloganistic approach to improving the efficiency of government in responding to the needs of our job creators. Then, on the other hand, it has undermined the ability of the government to deliver services and respond to inquiries from those very same job creators with its reckless public sector cuts. New Democrats believe the government should be focusing on real measures to help small business owners grow their businesses and not just half measures through a self-promotional bill.

If the Conservatives truly wanted to help small businesses they would not be dragging their feet when it comes to taking real action to curtail the excessive fees credit card issuers charge merchants. Small businesses are being gouged every day. On average, they must pay about $200 or more in fees for every $10,000 processed. Despite dismissing a recent case against Visa and Mastercard, in a rare move the Competition Tribunal called for a regulatory framework to deal with anti-competitive practices. So far, the Conservatives are really only paying lip service to the plight of small merchants by finally admitting that action is needed to lower merchant fees.

I could talk about the time when I went to the great riding of Winnipeg Centre. My colleague from that great riding and I went out to talk to small business owners in the Forks, which I think is the name of that great little place that is around there. We had business owners trying to track us down to talk to us about their concerns with respect to how much they are having to spend every year, some of them talking about tens of thousands of dollars, just to be able to accept credit cards, and the credit card fees that they have to pay. Some of them have even said they have had to stop taking them, which is having an effect on their businesses. They said they were not hiring people. They were not expanding their businesses because of these fees they were having to pay.

Unlike the Conservatives, the New Democrats have common-sense proposals to help merchants, such as creating an independent government body to crack down on the anti-competitive merchant fees that stifle small businesses.

As well, training is important. As a party, we New Democrats know that smaller businesses do not necessarily have the resources to hire human resources managers to identify training opportunities and programs for staff let alone expertise to apply for government training programs. Training new employees costs time and money, and we sympathize with business owners who do not want to pony up the money to train employees only to have their competitors poach them and reap the rewards of their investment. Canadian business owners need to have the opportunity to have their workforce improved, because we have seen it fall by almost 40% since 1993.

We have also called for a youth hiring and training tax credit of up to about $4,000 to reward small and medium-sized enterprises that would give our youth their first chances to have well-paying jobs. Eligible businesses hiring Canadians between ages 18 and 25 could get up to about $1,000 for hiring a young employee and another $1,000 to match funds for the training of said employee. This tax credit would double in regions of the country where youth unemployment is highest, up to about $2,000 for each component. That is $4,000.

In tough regions in the north, such as my riding of Sudbury, we have higher unemployment. I have been talking to many of the small-business owners in my riding, and many are saying that something like this would be a benefit for them. We have three great post-secondary institutions in my riding putting out great graduates: Collège Boréal, Cambrian College, and Laurentian University. This would actually help those graduates get those great-paying jobs.

Again, noting that this bill, in our opinion, is sloganistic, we really need to find other programs that would work to really help small businesses. It is small businesses, as I mentioned earlier in my speech, that are the economic drivers and the heart of our economy. It is the small and medium-sized enterprises.

We need access to financing to help small-business owners grow their businesses. We have a strong start-up culture here in Canada, but entrepreneurs find it hard to access the funds they need to grow their business. New Democrats hear every day from experts and business observers that Canada needs a stronger venture capital market and access to more investors to help entrepreneurs grow their innovative ventures into real successes. Unfortunately, too many promising Canadian start-ups are sold off to U.S. investors before they can reach full maturity, because their owners just cannot access the financing to bring them to the next level. Budget 2013 increased taxes on small-business-friendly credit unions by over $200 million. That is money the credit unions could be using to continue to invest in our small businesses.

The Conservatives are also planning on phasing out their discounted tax treatment for labour-sponsored venture capital funds, which provide a critical source of investment for business owners, especially in Quebec.

Looking back at all the things we have been talking about that could be done right now to help small business, we have not seen any action by the current government. What the Conservatives have done is bring forward this bill that talks about reducing some of the red tape and the paper burden.

To conclude, 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 but of determining which regulations are working for Canadians and which regulations are not working. This is a sound approach. What I am talking about is public administration.

By not even mentioning the word “environment” in the preamble and in this bill causes us great concern on this side of the House. While of course it is important to protect the Canadian economy and important to ensure that there is health and safety, we cannot have any of those three items without protections for the environment. It talks about the air we breathe and the water we drink and the places we reside. We need to ensure that those protections are put in place.

While we agree that we want to reduce the administrative burden on small businesses, we really do not have faith that the current Conservative government would do just that. It has a history of deregulation with no regard for the health and safety of Canadians. As I talked about earlier, there has been example after example of that.

One of the other things we could do right now is help businesses plan for the next generation in retirement. Entrepreneurs of the baby boomer generation are approaching retirement, and many are unsure of how they will dispose of the businesses they have spent a lifetime building. New Democrats know that entrepreneurs find it difficult to properly value the worth of a business they have poured their hearts and souls into and that finding a buyer who can raise funds to pay the right price can be challenging. A lifetime capital gains exemption protects business owners when they sell their businesses from paying taxes on capital gains of up to $800,000. These earnings will often be the source of retirement funding for many business owners.

Unfortunately, rules in the tax code can make it cost more for business owners to sell their businesses to members of their own families. Talk about red tape. New Democrats think we should make it easier, not harder, for family business owners to pass on their businesses to their kids. We support examining the tax code to make sure that a business passed from one family member to another has access to the same lifetime capital gains exemption of $800,000 as any other business that is sold. In talking about reducing red tape, we also need to ensure that we are looking at the tax code, something the government has not been talking about.

I am very pleased to stand and speak to this issue that is very important to our party. As I mentioned, my party knows that small businesses and medium-sized enterprises are the heart of our economy and are the job creators in this country. If we can find ways of reducing red tape while protecting our economy, our health and safety, and the environment, that is what New Democrats would propose.

[Glenn Thibeault, NDP, Sudbury, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise in the House today. I want to welcome back my colleagues on all sides of the House. We have important work to get to and I am looking forward to starting that important work with our discussion today on Bill C-21.

As the NDP critic for small business, government imposed red tape and the paper burden faced by Canada's entrepreneurs remains one of the primary concerns raised with me by business owners as I continue to consult with them on how government can create the conditions for them to grow their businesses and create jobs from coast to coast to coast.

Whether it is the local bakery or the flower shop, small and medium-sized businesses are the heart of our local economies and the backbone of thriving, prosperous communities. It is these small business owners who create jobs, employ our neighbours, and support our charities. I can speak to that truthfully as I ran the United Way in Sudbury before I was elected in 2008. It was the small and medium-sized business owners who came out to support our charities and support the United Way, and so many of them across our communities. That is why it is so important that the government do all it can to support the growth of small businesses and why New Democrats support common sense solutions to reduce the paper burden and the compliance costs small businesses face when dealing with the government.

New Democrats believe in reducing the paper burden and implementing solutions that would have the potential to eliminate red tape for businesses. Young entrepreneurs and family businesses are key to a prosperous economic future for Canada. We need to ensure they are using their time as efficiently as possible. The goal of reducing the paper burden for job creators is laudable.

According to a report by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, various forms of regulatory requirements spread across all levels of government cost business owners an estimated $30 billion a year in time and money. This particularly concerns small and medium-sized businesses because the annual cost of regulation per employee is highest for enterprises with less than five employees. I think of all of the businesses in my riding, many of them are what we call the businesses on Main Street. These businesses are doing great work. They start at seven o'clock in the morning and finish at nine or ten o'clock at night. They have five or less employees. However, these businesses lack the financial capacity to hire someone dedicated to regulatory compliance. Therefore, these costs often are internalized as lost opportunity costs because it is the small business owners themselves who are faced with the daunting task of filling out the piles of paperwork that a business is obligated to file.

With that being said, while we are happy to work with Canada's entrepreneurs to make their interaction with government as simple and cost-effective as possible, New Democrats also believe 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 but of determining which regulations are working for Canadians and which are not. It seems like common sense.

Most importantly, government regulations that protect health, safety, and the environment of Canadians should be a priority. Unfortunately, the bill only pays lip service to that obligation. In fact, only in the preamble to the bill does it state that the enactment would not apply to regulations that protect the health and safety of Canadians. Even more worrisome, there is no mention of the word “environment”. The preamble states, “Whereas the one-for-one rule must not compromise public health, public safety or the Canadian economy”. There is absolutely no mention in the bill of the environment.

The House resumed from June 19 consideration of the motion that Bill C-21, An Act to control the administrative burden that regulations impose on businesses, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to be able to speak on behalf of my constituents and especially to be able to provide them with information on this bill. It is important that the government stop preventing members from speaking. We are now at our 75th time allocation motion. All members of Parliament must be allowed to express their opinions on bills.

First of all, I am going to talk about my vision of sustainable development. Sustainable development involves three aspects: social, economic and environmental. Those three elements cannot be separated from each other. We can no longer talk about a pure economy if we do not think about the environmental costs. We cannot talk about the economy and ecology if we do not think about the social aspects and the people involved, for example, how the first nations and the people in western Canada will be affected by Enbridge's proposed development. Ignoring these aspects causes us a lot of problems.

The government must change its way of thinking and its ideology. We are no longer dealing with a no man's land where we can say “the economy or bust” and sweep everything else before us. We know full well that, when we build a pipeline or start a new industry in the far north, for example, we have to take into account that there will be implications. We may move the pipes a little further from caribou routes. We will also try to get consent from the local population so that no one is harmed.

Canada is a large country, the second largest in the world in surface area, but our population is only 35 million, compared to 330 million, I believe, in the United States. Canada is not a densely populated country; we have the space and we are able to make quality choices environmentally, economically and socially. We must never bypass those three criteria when we are working on economic development.

There are many young entrepreneurs and family businesses in my riding. That is one of its features. These entrepreneurs are trying to make their businesses work as well as possible. Obviously, their problem is the famous red tape. The Conservative government was elected in 2006 and, since then, it has had many opportunities to regulate and even cut the red tape that harms businesses. Small family businesses have very few employees, and time is money. They must optimize their production since they are in business. They do not have time to deal with all of this red tape.

Bill C-21 claims to cut the administrative hassle for businesses. However, that means that the President of the Treasury Board becomes an arbiter in eliminating the regulations. This trend that the government has of giving a minister these decision-making powers concerns me greatly. There is always a minister who must decide and choose. Without going so far as calling it a “dictatorship”, because that is a little strong, the government is minimizing the role of people who can make decisions within the system. A lot of power is being put in the hands of a few of our ministers, in a country as vast as ours.

Our local businesses are dynamic and innovative. Bombardier is one that comes to mind. Bombardier began developing products in a small garage and is now a multinational company. I am also thinking of multimedia businesses, which are becoming more and more renowned. There is also the optics sector in the Quebec City area. It has significant value internationally and also came from modest beginnings, with industrial clusters. It is now internationally recognized.

I am also concerned about the one-for-one rule. The government wants to cut red tape, but it is removing a regulation in order to add one. I do not think this resolves much. One plus one, or one minus one, does not equal much. One minus one equals zero, and one plus one equals two. If we create one regulation and it replaces one other, we still have one regulation.

Red tape has therefore not been reduced. There are many entrepreneurs and small businesses in my riding and they are always telling me that there is no end to the paperwork that they have to fill out, whether it is for the GST, the QST or quarterly remittances. That is a major problem for them. If they have the misfortune of making a mistake, it is even worse, Then they have to go back through everything, which requires a lot of time that they do not have.

The NDP is open to ways of helping small businesses by eliminating unnecessary red tape, and letting them focus on what they do best: growing their businesses and creating jobs. SMEs create the most jobs.

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, but of focusing on real measures to help small business owners grow their business, rather than on half measures through a gimmicky bill. That is extremely important because our businesses need that help. Many chambers of commerce and economic development businesses serve as a liaison to help our businesses and entrepreneurs.

Bill C-21 implements a promise the government made in 2006. It has taken quite a long time. The one-for-one rule was adopted by the government in April 2012 as a result of the work of the Red Tape Reduction Commission. In 2011, the commission consulted the public and businesses to identify what was working, what was not, and what were the so-called “red tape irritants” that had negative impacts on growth and innovation for small businesses, so that these things could be eliminated or improved. The government adopted a red tape reduction action plan that outlined 90 actions and six systemic reforms, including the implementation of the one-for-one rule.

Giving the president of the Treasury Board greater powers is definitely not sound public administration. That power needs to broader and we need more stakeholders who can help our businesses. The New Democrats want to reduce the administrative burden on SMEs. Young entrepreneurs and family businesses are important because they are key to a prosperous economic future for Canada. Often businesses are handed down from father to daughter, mother to son or vice versa.

If the Conservatives truly wanted to help small businesses, then they would not have gotten rid of the hiring tax credit for small businesses in budget 2014. This was very unfortunate. The NDP platform would support small businesses by giving them this tax credit.

The Conservatives claim to want to reduce red tape, but they are doing quite the opposite when it comes to the building Canada fund. Instead of helping municipalities and SMEs to start infrastructure projects in a reasonable timeframe, the Conservatives set up a long and cumbersome bureaucratic process for every project over $100 million.

The hiring credit for small businesses gave employers tax relief on their employment premiums. It is important to take care of employment insurance. The Canadian Federation of Independent Business agrees with the NDP on this. It estimates that entrepreneurs pay roughly $30 billion in hidden taxes in time and money spent on filling out forms and meeting various government requirements.

In closing, I would say that if the Conservatives really wanted to help SMEs they would have supported the NDP's idea to have an ombudsman to control credit card fees, among other things. Businesses pay a lot of fees. There has to be a ceiling. This would give them the room to manoeuvre that they need to grow.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-21, An Act to control the administrative burden that regulations impose on businesses, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the hon. member forCharlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles.

While we support the idea that unnecessary regulatory burdens and regulatory burdens that create unnecessary paperwork are a good thing to remove from small businesses in particular, which as the parliamentary secretary earlier noted are part of the driving force behind job creation in Canada, we are concerned that this notion of somehow magically replacing one-for-one in a bill would do that job without harming health and safety or the economy generally. That is somewhat worrying to us.

We can think of numerous examples of this notion that businesses have a cost associated with regulation. When a new regulation comes forward, that cost must be calculated and a regulation of equivalent cost removed somewhere in the spectrum. We do not know if that regulation needs to be removed from that same type of business, whether it is a small business or a large business. There is no distinction in the bill as to whether or not it would apply only to small business. It would appear that it would apply to anything, including the big oil companies. We could have situations in which regulations for big oil companies, regulations that the Canadian public deem appropriate for the health and safety of Canadians, are somehow going to cost them money and therefore an equivalent regulation would have to be found somewhere else that could be removed if we want to regulate these companies.

I will give the House the example of rail safety. This past year there have been four significant accidents involving trains, one of which caused 47 lives to be lost in Lac-Mégantic. The minister has issued protective directions to, in theory, prevent some of the mechanisms that were in place, but are they regulations? If so, are those regulations going to harm the Canadian economy?

The bill itself suggests that if a regulation harms the Canadian economy, then it cannot be put in place. It says that right in the bill. We cannot amend or remove a regulation dealing with health and safety or the Canadian economy. Which wins, health and safety or the economy? I could not get a straight answer out of the minister when I asked him. We have some serious reservations about the clarity of this legislation.

Another example of the lack of clarity of this legislation is the suggestion that the environment is not something for which we can demand that there be adequate regulation. Right now, Bill C-21 is silent on whether or not regulations affecting the environment would somehow be exempt from this one-for-one rule replacement.

As a result, I need only go so far as to look at the example of the bill itself, the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, which was amended in 2012 by the government. Much of the authority of the Minister of the Environment in the act itself was removed. We went from thousands of assessments down to a handful. Even in the promulgation of that bill, a portion of the bill is still empty. That is schedule 2, which theoretically would be promulgated as a regulation by the government. It is still not there.

Schedule 2 is the definition of the components of the environment that would be studied by an environmental assessment. How can we have an environmental assessment if we do not even know what we are studying, and it has to deal with several subparagraphs of the bill? If this legislation takes effect, would the government be prohibited from putting forth regulations under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act that would perhaps harm some big oil company? Would that company then be subject to more regulation, or if those regulations were to come forward, would something equal have to be removed from somewhere else?

It is a staggeringly thin bill. It is only a handful of pages. While that makes it easier to read, it also means there is not a whole lot of meat to it. There is not a whole lot of protection in it.

Essentially, it just says that if we are going to put in a regulation, we have to take one out. It does not say whether that is to small business or large business. It does not say whether that can include the environment. We on this side of the House have some serious reservations about where the government is going with the environment, particularly with the northern gateway pipeline approval that went through just this week against the wishes of many Canadians, including most British Columbians.

We have the labour issues. There are significant regulations in the labour world. The government has already removed some regulations in the labour world in some of its omnibus bills. However, if the government were to receive some suggestions from business that these labour regulations were somehow a burden, it might then be convinced to remove them as a part of the one-for-one deal. The government could put a regulation over here on rail safety, and as a result it would then have to remove one on labour issues from all businesses in Canada.

Does this make any kind of sense? It is so wide open. It boggles the mind. It is apparently left up to the President of the Treasury Board to decide.

I want to give a specific example. In my riding, where regulation is needed, it will show that this regulation could be simple and effective, but it would have a cost for some businesses and a savings for others. Will the cost for some businesses offset the savings for others, or will there need to be a regulation somewhere that needs to be removed?

I come back to the example I gave the other night of the small business in my riding that produces gluten-free bread for consumption by local citizens of the city of Toronto. The advantage this gentleman has is that he is producing it fresh. He is producing it daily, with a wonderful mixture of grains and other ingredients that are gluten free. All of a sudden, his business is starting to dry up, because CFIA, a regulator that is effectively imposing regulations on other businesses, has decided to allow big American companies to ship frozen bread to Toronto. It can be taken out of the freezer and stuck on the shelf to thaw; then a best-before date is stuck on it, and it is sold as fresh.

These businesses have said to this gentleman that the consumer does not need to know that this stuff is not fresh and the consumers should be kept in the dark. We on this side of the House do not think the consumers should be kept in the dark. We think there may be a necessity for a regulation to deal with this issue.

However, let us come back to the bill. How would that regulation work? It would harm the bottom line of the big companies that are selling cheap, imported bread and calling it fresh, even though it is frozen, but it would help the little company, the small businessman in my riding. There is no definition of what a small or large business is. I do not know whether the government would ever impose such a regulation. I do not know whether the government would actually take steps to stop the deception that is being imposed on Canadian consumers by the CFIA.

There is a real-world example of an issue that is crying out for regulation, but with this notion that it has to have a costing to it and the notion that the cost has to be offset by a savings in some other regulation. It boggles the mind how the government, any government, could ever figure this out in a way that is right and just.

We are concerned about the notion of how this one-for-one regulation trade system could somehow be effective and just and done in an effective and transparent way. We are also concerned about whether or not the environment would be harmed, whether or not small businesses would be harmed, and whether or not, in effect, we would be just giving the government licence to start removing regulations from large businesses and oil companies and the like. The track record speaks for itself.

I invite other members to ask me questions.

[Massimo Pacetti, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House today to debate Bill C-21, An Act to control the administrative burden that regulations impose on businesses.

I hesitantly support this bill. My reticence has nothing to do with the objective of the bill but about the government's reputation of saying one thing and and then failing to abide by its own bills.

I am in favour of the bill for the following reason. The one-for-one rule shows businesses that every time a new administrative burden is placed on them, another will be lifted. That is a start. We are telling businesses that their administrative burden will not grow heavier in the future.

That is why the Liberal Party supports this bill. We sincerely hope that Canadian businesses will not be hindered or penalized by too much red tape. However, much more ambitious measures could have been implemented to help companies reduce their paperwork and administrative workload. Judging by the many bills that the Conservatives have introduced to date, the government is creating more paperwork, not less. We are in favour of this bill, but the government could have been a bit more ambitious. It could have ensured that every time a regulation was imposed, there would be 1.1 or 1.2 times less paperwork.

On the one hand, the government wants to seem co-operative by introducing a bill like this, and on the other hand, its actions show that all it does is keep increasing administrative measures, whether it is through personal income tax measures or through various government programs that never reach their targets.

There are a number of initiatives that would make the administrative process more efficient for businesses and, at the same time, for individuals. For instance, the government should ensure that all the forms that businesses and individuals need are electronically available and that government websites that provide services to the public are more in line with the needs of the public. The information should be easily accessible and the documents should be easy to find and download.

All services that can be provided through the Internet should be available through the various departmental web portals. Businesses should not have to go to several offices or to make several phone calls to obtain documents or information that they need. Since red tape has a negative impact on businesses as it makes them waste time and money, we have to do everything we can to reduce it. Efficiency is paramount for businesses and that is what often makes them successful.

According to a 2013 report from the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, 68% of Canadian businesses feel that red tape lowers their productivity significantly. According to the same report, the total cost of regulation to Canadian businesses was estimated at $31 billion in 2012. Those are huge costs and we are just talking about small businesses. Instead, businesses could use that money to raise the wages of employees or to lower the prices of goods and services for Canadians.

As stated in the 2012 recommendations of the Red Tape Reduction Commission, it is important to remove information-sharing barriers related to business across departments. As we know, various forms from various departments often ask for the same information over and over again. A more conciliatory and respectful measure for businesses would be to ask for information only once and to improve the sharing of information across departments. As a result, the government would reduce red tape for businesses and provide an improved and more modern service.

There are ways to respect privacy while providing more streamlined, efficient communication between government agencies. Some administrative procedures are needed, and that is not a problem.

In the vast catalogue of current regulations, some of them could easily be eliminated without any impact. That is where the focus is needed, and in fact that is why the government is not afraid to proceed with Bill C-21. It is aware that there are a bunch of regulations that could be done away with.

However, the government should do more if it really wants to help businesses and individuals and to cut red tape. It should come up with a plan that is much more ambitious and comprehensive than what is in Bill C-21.

Furthermore, there is a lot of room for improvement when it comes to the client service provided to individuals and businesses. Red tape can be cut, but more efficient service is also needed, since wait times have the same impact on businesses as the administrative burden.

The quality and efficiency of service to individuals and businesses need to be reviewed. For example, with respect to the time it takes to deliver licences and certificates, the priority should be on setting target processing times. In 2012, during consultations between the government and businesses on red tape, businesses felt this was a priority.

The government is also talking about aiming to reduce the number of complaints and to resolve existing complaints more quickly. These improvements are an integral part of the assistance to be provided to businesses — which is completely normal — to make them more efficient and avoid needless delays, whether in terms of red tape or delays in obtaining documents.

If we look at what I have been saying up to now, a simple example would be when the government first was elected. It decided to introduce, as members well know, an income tax credit called the fitness tax credit. It announced it as being a $500 tax credit to families. Everybody was excited. As a parent, I was excited, as well. I was going to get $500 because my kids were going to be involved in a sports program. There was a lot publicity and hoopla surrounding the announcement.

All of a sudden, we realized that it was a $500 tax credit that resulted in $80.00 of actual money in our pockets. However, in order to get that tax credit, our kids had to be enrolled in a sports program, which is perfectly normal. However, the sporting association, whether it was a profitable sporting association or not or if it was a school group, had to provide us with a receipt. It had to keep track of the money, which is totally fine. It needed to have a certificate number, an attestation number, then be able to print out the receipts and balance their books. Most of those sporting organizations took two to three years to provide an adequate receipt so we were able to receive a measly $500 non-refundable tax credit. Most of the parents in areas where they had difficulty paying their bills were unable to take advantage of this because these tax credits were non-refundable. The non-profit organizations, even the ones that were profit-oriented like sports camps or privatized specialized sporting schools, were unable to generate the proper receipts that were returned by the tax department.

This is one example where the government, while introducing an initiative to reduce taxes, increased the administrative burden for all individuals involved.

Then the government also came out with the public transit tax credit, which again, was a great initiative on paper. However, even the large transport companies were unable to generate receipts. They had to change their software. They had to ensure the receipts were issued in the proper format. They went to an electronic format. My kids pay for their bus passes electronically, but they have to sit there and wait for a receipt, then they have to provide me with the receipt and I have to file it. If they do not find the receipt, then they have to go back to the bus company and ask for a proper receipt.

Again we were stuck with administrative challenges. Perhaps the government only added one extra line on the income tax return, but it created all sorts of paperwork for the people having to respond to the criteria the government implemented.

When it comes to other things, I can give a whole bunch of examples from the Income Tax Act. Any professional accountant will tell us that the Income Tax Act has grown by more than 20% in just the last five to six years. If we look at the size of the Income Tax Act, we can see why it is not printed anymore. It is so voluminous it is not even possible to print it.

I sit on the trade committee, and a couple of examples come to mind from there. We are hearing how the government loves to sign free trade agreements, but the biggest complaint is that when the goods come in, all of a sudden they are stuck there because of the paperwork. The government says it is open for business for importing and exporting, but the biggest complaints we hear are about goods getting stuck at customs or that goods are having a hard time coming in or getting out.

As one example I sort of laugh at, someone said that if we bring in a pickle, it is pickles. However, if it is pickled pickles or jarred pickles, they are determined to be in a different duty category. By the time the duty rate is decided on, the cost can have increased by 10% or 15% or 20%. Sometimes fresh pickles expire in terms of their freshness date, so there is a whole big hoopla around that. This is all an extra administrative burden that the government has created.

There are tons of other examples. We heard about the paperwork and lack of proper scheduling when the government tried to get grain shipped across the country throughout the winter. Other departments that I am not an expert on also have administrative burdens that we need to deal with.

Earlier I saw the former immigration minister in the House. When we export our services to certain countries, we need to get visas. Conversely, my colleague from Markham, the immigration critic, cited the fact that if someone wants to bring in labourers from Mexico, there are tons of problems. They are asked for their passports and they are not given back their passports. There are a whole bunch of problems when it comes to getting visas and work permits, whether it is to go or to come back.

These are all things that businesses have to deal with. Sometimes the fact that they only need a temporary worker for a temporary amount of time just defeats the purpose of getting someone, and the owners end up having to work 20- and 30-hour days, if that is possible.

The government says it is going to reduce one administrative burden before it puts in a new one. However, has anyone here ever decided to automate their bills? It is great. Now we do not get our bills in the mail anymore, but we get an email. Now we have an email added to the rest of our emails. We do not know if they are good or bad emails because there is so much spam that we may not be sure if it is a legitimate email or not.

However, let us assume we get the proper email. Now we want to get our bank statement. We have to log on. We have to make sure we log on with the right password, with exactly the right number of upper-case and lower-case letters and the right alphanumeric numbers. Once we have logged on, there is a security password and then a security question to determine if we are the proper person. Then we are logged on.

We look at our statement online and decide to print it. Then we realize that our printer is not attached or has not been downloaded or has run out of toner. Maybe we realize the kids have taken all our paper, so we have no paper. It used to take half a second to open an envelope and find our bank statement, but all of a sudden it now takes a lifetime. It takes forever.

This is what the government is doing. It is doing the same thing big business is doing: transferring the administrative burden. I just hope the government is cognizant of that fact.

I am hoping we can work toward getting the bill into committee. We are going to vote in favour of it to get it out of the House at second reading and into committee, where we will see if we can improve it. Based on our experience with this government, we have not seen much openness to improving bills or accepting amendments, but we will see. That is why we work in this place. We try to make it a better place.

One more area I would like to also get onto the record is this. The CRA has gotten its act together for a few things, and as an accountant I have to admit that, but one of the areas where it is still having difficulty is with respect to businesses that have non-resident employees. In that case, employers have to open separate non-resident accounts, which have nothing to do with their corporate account. They have to deal with a lot of paperwork in terms of withholding. They have to send in the paperwork to tell the CRA that they are withholding. They may not have a withholding tax, but because they have promised to withhold, they have to withhold at a certain rate. That rate may change based on the country the person who has been subcontracted is doing business in. The rate also depends on the tax treaty and the type of service. Then if the business is one day late in making that withholding payment, they are stuck having to pay a fee, even though they may be expecting a refund elsewhere.

Therefore, with respect to the non-resident aspects, the CRA is still lacking in certain areas. I would like the committee to study some of the issues with respect to the CRA, because that is one of the big complaints we get.

In conclusion, the Liberal Party will support the bill, which is intended to limit the administrative burden that regulations impose on businesses. However, we believe that this is just one small step in the right direction and that it provides very little to businesses. The bill is fine in itself, but it is incomplete.

I call on the government to commit to helping Canadian businesses by instituting additional provisions, and I urge them to consolidate the possible administrative changes that could improve service to businesses. I also believe it would be worthwhile to review all regulations imposed on businesses and individuals to ensure that each regulation makes sense.

Each small step toward reducing paperwork will have a real impact on the productivity and efficiency of Canadian businesses. We need to put ourselves in the shoes of small business owners, who constantly have to fill out forms and often run into red tape. We need to streamline the entire process and make it much more efficient.

[Annick Papillon, NDP, Québec, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for Saint-Jean for his question. He very clearly explained how contradictory this is.

It is worrisome that Bill C-21 puts so much power in the hands of the president of the Treasury Board, making him an arbiter who can make whatever decisions he chooses when it comes to eliminating regulations. We do not know whether the health and safety of Canadians will be protected.

If the Conservatives really cared about the health and safety of Canadians, they would have explicitly protected the regulations concerning health and safety in the bill. However, that is not what they did, and that is worrisome. This bill is flawed and does nothing to protect the health and safety of Canadians.

These issues must take priority. If not, there will be other incidents like the one that occurred at XL Foods, more controversy over the maritime search and rescue centre in Quebec City and other incidents related to nickel dust, all because we will not have adequate regulations.

[Annick Papillon, NDP, Québec, QC]

Mr. Speaker, before getting to the substance of my speech, I would like to say a few words about the fact that the NDP is the only party that takes advantage of all possible speaking opportunities in the House. As we know, we are sitting until midnight on weekdays to debate various issues.

The Conservatives must have missed about 200 opportunities to speak. The Liberals have also missed a lot. They are absent from the debates. I find that deplorable. It is really too bad that we are not using all the speaking and debate time we have to discuss and duly represent our ridings, voters, constituents and people.

As you know, I am the small business deputy critic. I therefore have the pleasure of speaking to Bill C-21, An Act to control the administrative burden that regulations impose on businesses.

Bill C-21 includes the one-for-one rule. This rule requires the government to eliminate a regulation every time it adopts a new one. The government must also offset any new burden on small businesses, that is, time and money spent by businesses to demonstrate compliance with amendments to existing regulations, in order to ease the burden for businesses.

In addition, Bill C-21 stipulates that the president of the Treasury Board may establish policies or issue directives respecting the manner in which the rule is to be applied. He may also make regulations respecting the period within which measures must be taken to comply with the regulations, the manner of calculating the cost of an administrative burden, how the law will apply to regulations changed when the one-for-one rule came into effect, and the power to grant exceptions.

Although Bill C-21 claims to reduce red tape for businesses, it will actually make the president of the Treasury Board the arbiter of eliminating regulations. A very important point here is that the government claims to deal with something that is actually not that simple. When we meet with small and medium-sized businesses, we know that they would really like to be able to reduce red tape. However, we must be careful because this bill claims to reduce red tape, but, in fact, it is giving yet another discretionary power to the president of the Treasury Board.

Personally, I remember seeing other similar bills whose intent is often to provide greater authority and greater flexibility. For instance, Bill C-31 was meant to give greater discretionary authority to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration. However, when a minister is given greater discretionary authority, this means that the rules may be good for some, and not so much for others. That is when things begin to fall apart and then, ultimately, things begin to get far more complicated and a lot harder to track. The minister has the authority to say yes in some cases and no in others, when in reality, the situations are identical. We cannot clearly rely on the rules.

Unfortunately, we cannot trust the Conservatives; we have seen this in the past. They have a habit of deregulating without any regard for the health and safety of Canadians. These are vital issues; there is no denying that. The Conservatives, and the Liberals before them, did not manage to defend the regulations protecting the health and safety of Canadians.

I must refer to the events that allow me to say today that the Conservatives are not there when it comes time to regulate appropriately. I will now bring them up. It is not easy to talk about these tragic events, but I need to.

The Lac-Mégantic tragedy put the important issue of rail safety in Canada back on the agenda following decades of Liberal and Conservative deregulation.

Let us look at other issues such as the maritime search and rescue centre in Quebec City, which was ultimately kept open. For over two and a half years, the Conservatives wanted to close it down. After they threatened the centre with closure, they realized that what mattered was saving lives and that by looking to close the centre, they were endangering the lives of Canadians. In the next election, I will be sure to remind voters that the Conservatives hesitated for two and a half years. That is unacceptable. We cannot take shortcuts when people’s health and safety are at stake.

Let’s talk about another issue, again in Quebec City. As we know, the Port of Québec went through periods when the city’s air was contaminated with nickel dust. Once again, we need to ensure that there are regulations to protect the public. Normally, businesses are proud to be involved in making and enforcing regulations that benefit the public.

XL Foods was another big one. If the government cuts the number of food inspectors, such incidents should come as no surprise. There are fewer people on the ground doing inspections. When it comes to regulations, the government needs to think twice and make sure it is doing the right thing because it cannot make mistakes that could have a direct impact on the health and safety of Canadians.

In Bill C-21, only the preamble states that regulations affecting the health and safety of Canadians will not be affected. No mention is made of the environment. It is not in the bill at all.

The same thing happened with the free trade agreements the government signed. Human rights and the environment were relegated to the sidelines even though we expected the federal government to sign free trade agreements containing clear measures. Now human rights and the environment are an afterthought. I think we can have economic development that prioritizes people's health and safety as well as their environment.

If the Conservatives really care about the health and safety of Canadians, why did they not specifically guarantee the application of the bill and the regulations that protect people's health and safety? That could have been done. The government should make it a priority to implement regulations that protect the health and safety of Canadians and their environment. This bill seems to completely disregard that obligation. We need more than the government's promises and the preamble of a bill because that could leave room for interpretation in the years ahead.

We want a guarantee that deregulation will not apply to those provisions, and we want it now. We have not been given that guarantee yet. Regulations that are in the public interest should be preserved. The idea is not just to limit, in theory, the number of regulations and determine which are good for Canadians and which are not. There has to be a reasonable way to undertake public administration. Giving more powers to the president of the Treasury Board is definitely not the way to ensure good public administration.

The many small business owners I have talked to agree that there should be less useless red tape.

The Canadian Federation of Independent Business, an organization that I have met with on a number of occasions, estimates that business owners pay $30 billion in hidden taxes in the form of the time and money they spend completing forms and following government rules, and it believes that this needs to change.

I am proud to tell this organization that the NDP is always open to helping small businesses by eliminating useless red tape and letting them focus on what they do best: growing their business and creating jobs. The NDP remains a partner to SMEs.

Red tape is not the only thing that small business owners come to me about. They also regularly tell me that the Conservatives boast about helping small businesses by eliminating red tape, but that they did not renew the hiring credit for small business. It was not in budget 2014. However, businesses have been clear: this hiring credit is important. It gives them some breathing room. Even though it had the means to do so, the government deliberately decided to ignore SMEs and eliminate the credit. That is not surprising, coming from the Conservatives. This is a very important measure to help SMEs grow and to create more good jobs.

SME owners are unanimous in asking me when this government will finally take serious action to regulate the anti-competitive credit card fees that merchants must pay to card issuers. If the Conservatives truly wanted to help SMEs, they would support the NDP's proposal to regulate the fees that credit card companies charge to merchants.

I meet with SME representatives and they show me their bills. They have been crippled by banking fees this year and their profits have decreased considerably. They sometimes even have to reconsider their decision to go into business. This goes for SMEs that have been in business for several years and those that are just getting started. Banking fees have gotten so high that SMEs have no choice but to take them into account. These fees cut into their profits and wages so much that owners start to wonder if they have made the right choice. That is not insignificant.

The Conservatives did diddly-squat. While small businesses are the ones creating most of Canada’s new jobs, they get very little attention from the Conservative government. In fact, this government preferred to give away billions of dollars in corporate tax breaks, starting with the oil companies, obviously. Even though they produce oil, they apparently need tax breaks. I have always thought that oil producers do not need any public money.

They gave away billions of dollars instead of supporting small businesses, the real job creators. This is why the NDP decided to support small business. There is nothing better than small businesses to turn around the economy of a region or a community. Profits made by a small business generally go toward developing the region. This money flows through the town or community where the small business is located. That also means local jobs. There is a lot less of a chance of outsourcing as well. This is why supporting small businesses pays off.

The Conservatives say they want to cut red tape, but they did quite the opposite with the building Canada fund.

Rather than helping municipalities and small businesses start their infrastructure projects within an acceptable time, the Conservatives created a long and cumbersome bureaucratic system for any project over $100 million. That will result in delays of 6 to 18 months, holding back major projects. Furthermore, this government has done nothing to make it easier for small businesses to secure government contracts. We saw it in committee; this should be made easier. Several associations have done their job and tried to make the government aware of this, but contracts should be broken up so that small businesses can access them. It would be worthwhile to make improvements in this area. It is practically impossible for our small businesses in Canada to compete with big corporations when bidding on government contracts, which are so long and complicated.

Over the coming months, the member for Sudbury and I intend to continue taking part in consultations with small businesses. Young entrepreneurs and family businesses are the key to a prosperous economy in Canada. That is why New Democrats will continue to work toward a pragmatic, common-sense solution in order to contribute to their success.

If the Conservatives sincerely wanted to help small businesses, they would not drag their feet and would take action against the excessive fees that credit card companies are charging merchants. Neither would they have, as I previously mentioned, eliminated the small business hiring tax credit in the 2014 budget. In this respect, I encourage all small business owners to write their MPs to let them know how important this tax credit was to them. The NDP intends to contact small businesses in all ridings and encourage them to help us make sure that the government understands once and for all that this tax credit helped create and maintain a lot of jobs. These are not unstable part-time jobs that will end in three months, but good solid jobs.

Again, the NDP believes in common-sense solutions for cutting red tape for small businesses. Allow me to mention something that the government should bear in mind: when we meet with SMEs they often tell us about the lack of collaboration between the different government bodies. We know that this Conservative majority government has a hard time getting along with its provincial and municipal counterparts. That is a serious problem. SMEs sometimes have to fill out forms at both the federal and provincial levels. There needs to be an agreement to make it easier and ensure that SMEs do not have to fill out the same form 10 times, send them to a number of different places and follow different criteria. Those who work 80 hours a week for their SME might not have the time in the evening to figure out how each body operates and so forth. To make things easier for the SMEs, we need a government that listens, that does not say that it does not care and then goes ahead without listening to a word anyone else has to say. We need a government that will listen.

When various situations came up in Quebec, I would have liked the federal government to listen more closely. Listening closely can pay off and make life easier. Today, we are all saying we would like to improve things. I think that the current approach is not exactly the one that should be used and I hope that the government will understand that. We will not approve the additional discretionary powers for the ministers. That is not what is needed here. We need to simplify the process.

If we get rid of one approach and replace it with another then the rule of “one plus one plus one minus one plus one” might further confuse the SMEs. They want us to decide on one way of doing things and keep it that way for 10 years so that they do not have to read a new instruction manual every time they have to fill out a form.

I will now take questions.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Centre-North, AB]

moved that Bill C-21, An Act to control the administrative burden that regulations impose on businesses, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Business of the House

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, after this proceeding, we will start the second reading debate on Bill C-21, the Red Tape Reduction Act. I know that my hon. friend, the President of the Treasury Board—a man with firm views on paper documents—is very keen to get this debate started.

Tonight, after private members' hour, the House will resume the third reading debate on Bill C-8, the Combating Counterfeit Products Act. Once that is done, I look forward to picking up where we left off this morning with second reading of two bills to create new parks: Bill C-40, An Act respecting the Rouge National Urban Park, in the greater Toronto area, and Bill S-5, which will establish a new national park reserve in the Northwest Territories.

If we have time left before midnight, we will continue debating Bill C-35, the justice for animals in service act (Quanto's Law); Bill C-26, the tougher penalties for child predators act; Bill C-3, the safeguarding Canada's seas and skies act; and Bill C-21 if we do not finish that by 5:30 today.

Tomorrow will be the sixth and final day of second reading debate on Bill C-32, the victims bill of rights act, a bill that, despite lengthy debate, all parties agree should be studied by our hard-working justice committee.

However, the highlight of this week will of course come later this afternoon. The Usher of the Black Rod will knock on the door and summon us to attend the Governor General in the Senate chamber where, with the three constituent elements of Parliament assembled, we will participate in the ancient ceremony of royal assent.

Based on messages read from the other place, and messages I anticipate later this afternoon, 14 new laws will be made upon His Excellency's imperceptible, or barely perceptible, nod. This will mark a total of 25 bills passing through the entire legislative process since October's Speech from the Throne. Of these, 20% are private members' bills, further underscoring the unprecedented empowerment of members of Parliament under this Prime Minister's government.

Speaking of the time passing since October, we are also marking the end of the academic year. This means the end of the time with this year's fine class of pages. Here I know that some in the chattering classes have concerns about the length of my weekly business statements, but I hope they will forgive mine today.

As we all know, the pages work extremely hard and do some incredible work, both in the chamber and in the lobbies. They perform many important duties, which in some cases go unnoticed, or at least so they think so. They show up before the House opens each morning and stay until after it closes at night. We all know that over the past few weeks, it has meant much longer days than usual, but even then, the pages have remained professional, respectful, and have started each day with a smile, and ended it with one too, although that occasionally required a bit of encouragement on my part.

I would first off like to thank them for their service. Without them and their support, members of Parliament would not be nearly as effective and efficient in performing the duties that Canadians sent us to Ottawa to undertake.

I do have some insight from being married to a former page, from the class of '87 actually, and she often refers to her year as a page as the best year of her life. Here I can say that the experiences the pages have had at the House of Commons is something they will remember for the rest of their lives.

In addition, I know that in my wife's case, some of the friends she made in the page program are still good friends to this day, including, in fact, the chief of staff to the current leader of the Liberal Party. I hope that will be the same for all of you, that is being friends for life—not that other thing.

I am sure that the pages are looking forward to the summer break so they can all take their minds off of school and visit with friends and family to share their many stories and experiences, some of which are even funny, with us here in the House. I will not be surprised one day if we find some of them occupying seats in this chamber, something that happened for the first time in this Parliament with the hon. members for Etobicoke—Lakeshore and Mississauga—Brampton South, both having been elected to sit here in this Parliament.

Some of the pages may also find employment on Parliament Hill working for members, and I know that I have, without fail, been impressed by the high calibre of ambitious young people who have worked in my office during stints as page.

Over the past three years, the House has worked in a productive, orderly, and hard-working manner, and this has not been possible without the help of the pages. I believe it is safe to say that I speak on behalf of all members of the House when I thank them for their dedication and service, and finally, give them our best wishes for success in all their future endeavours.

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have another opportunity to respond to the Thursday question from the hon. member for Burnaby—New Westminster.

I know how proud he claims to be about showing up to work. In fact, though, the New Democrats seem to have a spotty record on that. Last evening, that very member rose to speak to our government's bill to protect our communities and exploited persons—that is Bill C-36—and after one whole minute he moved to adjourn the House. He said we should all go home. Maybe that is the parliamentary equivalent of taking one's ball and wanting to go home when one is unhappy with how things are going in another meeting.

In any event, we did all dutifully troop into the House to vote on that at 6 p.m. However, what was very revealing was that only 61 of those 98 New Democrats stood in their places to vote. A few of them were missing their shifts, oddly. We did not find that on the Conservative side. In fact, we just had two votes in the House, and the number of New Democrats who were not standing in their places was very similar to that.

Therefore, when I ask myself who is not showing up for work, I can say it is not the Conservatives not showing up; it is, in fact, the New Democrats.

However, following the popular acclaim of last week's Thursday statement, I would like to recap what we have actually accomplished in the House since last week in terms of the legislative agenda.

Bill C-37, the riding name change act, 2014, which was compiled and assembled through the input of all parties, was introduced and adopted at all stages.

Bill C-31, the economic action plan, act no. 1, was adopted at both report stage and, just moments ago, at third reading.

Bill C-24, the strengthening Canadian citizenship act, was concurred in at report stage.

Bill C-20, the Canada-Honduras economic growth and prosperity act, was passed at third reading. Of course, the NDP tried to slow down its passage, but Conservatives were able to get around those efforts, as I am sure the 50 New Democrats on vigil in the House last night fondly appreciate, and we were able to extend our hours because there were, again, not even 50 New Democrats here in the House to stand in their places to block that debate as they wanted to. So we did finish the Canada-Honduras bill that night, and were able to vote on it.

The government's spending proposals for the year were adopted by the House, and two bills to give these plans effect, Bill C-38 and BillC-39, were each passed at all stages.

Bill C-22, the energy safety and security act, was reported back from committee, and several other reports from committees were also tabled. As I understand, we will see Bill C-17, the protecting Canadians from unsafe drugs act, reported back from the health committee in short order.

Finally, this morning we virtually unanimously passed a motion to reappoint Mary Dawson as our Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner.

Sadly, though, the New Democrats did not heed my call last week to let Bill C-32, the victims bill of rights act, pass at second reading. We were treated, sadly, to only more words and no deeds from the NDP.

Turning to the business ahead, I am currently anticipating the following debates. This afternoon and tonight, we will finish the debate on Bill C-36, the Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act, at second reading. That will be followed by third reading of Bill C-24 and second reading of Bill C-35, Justice for Animals in Service Act (Quanto's Law).

Tomorrow morning, we will debate Bill C-24, if necessary, and Bill C-18, Agricultural Growth Act, at second reading. After question period, we will get back to Bill C-32, and give the NDP one more chance to send the victims bill of rights to committee.

The highlight of Monday is going to be the report stage of Bill C-6, the Prohibiting Cluster Munitions Act. Tuesday’s feature debate will be Bill C-2, the Respect for Communities Act, at second reading. Wednesday will see us finish third reading, I hope, of Bill C-6. During the additional time available those days—in addition to Thursday and Friday of next week—I will schedule any unfinished debates on Bill C-18, Bill C-32 and Bill C-35.

I will also try to schedule debates on Bill C-22 and Bill C-17, as well as other bills, such as Bill C-3, the Safeguarding Canada’s Seas and Skies Act, at third reading; Bill C-8, the Combating Counterfeit Products Act, at third reading; Bill C-12, the Drug-free Prisons Act, at second reading; Bill C-21, Red Tape Reduction Act, at second reading; Bill C-26, Tougher Penalties for Child Predators Act, at second reading; Bill S-2, Incorporation by Reference in Regulations Act, at second reading; Bill S-3, the Port State Measures Agreement Implementation Act, at second reading; and Bill S-4, the Digital Privacy Act—which I understand we will receive shortly from the other place—at second reading.

[Alexandrine Latendresse, NDP, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

I have a quick question about Bill C-21, dealing with loans to political parties.

In committee, you said that the common limit for loans and donations really is a problem. From what I understand about Bill C-23, it comes up again. The limit has been increased to $1,500. Bill C-21 has been sort of integrated into it all. At the moment, loans and donations have the same limit.

Have you thought about mechanisms to tackle that matter? I do not have the exact quotation, but I remember that you said that it could cause a number of problems.

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, first let me start by acknowledging the support shown on Tuesday night for our motion to have the House work hard for all Canadians to ensure that we have a productive, hard-working, and orderly House of Commons. It was not just this side of the House that voted for this ambitious plan to let MPs reach decisions on many important issues, and I want to thank the Liberal Party for agreeing to join Conservatives in rolling up their sleeves this spring.

I know my hon. friend has a different definition of what our work is here in the House of Commons. He believes that our work here is to filibuster and fill every moment possible with as many speeches as possible to avoid decisions being made. I have encountered one or two Canadians who think the problem with politicians is too much talk and not enough action. Now we know where they get that impression.

On this side of the House, we are committed to action, we are committed to delivering results, and we are committed to decisions being made and to people participating in votes and making decisions on behalf of their constituents at home. That is why we need debates to also come to a conclusion so we can make those decisions and so we can have those votes.

Last night, for example, we had a great debate on Bill C-24, the strengthening Canadian citizenship act. That is our government taking steps to modernize the Citizenship Act for the first time in some 35 years. What is even better, we just had a vote and a decision. Every single member, not just a dozen or so who might have spoken for a few hours but every single member of this House, got to have a say on behalf of his or her constituents and got to make a decision and advance a bill through the legislation process. That is what it is really all about.

Earlier this week, on Tuesday morning—before we adopted the government's ambitious work plan—a number of New Democrats expressed their support for Bill C-17, Vanessa's law. However, they did not walk that talk.

The honourable member for Chambly—Borduas said, “we do recognize the urgency [of this matter]”. Nevertheless, seven other New Democrats then got up after him to block this bill from going to committee. Among them was their deputy leader who said, “I also hope that the bill will go to committee quickly...”.

I wish that the New Democrats listened to their deputy leader. It would be disappointing to think that the NDP might be using Vanessa's law as a political hostage by filibustering it as a means to avoid debating other bills.

I would not want to ascribe such cynical motives to the House Leader of the Official Opposition, and I trust this is not a preview of how he wishes to approach the business of the House for the forthcoming three weeks, when Canadians actually expect us to accomplish things for them.

Looking forward to these three weeks to come, I am pleased to review the business the government will call in the coming days.

This afternoon, we will carry on with the second reading debate on Bill C-22, the energy safety and security act. Once that has concluded, we will take up Bill C-6, the prohibiting cluster munitions act, at report stage. If time permits, we will get back to third reading and passage of Bill C-3, the safeguarding Canada's seas and skies act.

Bill C-10, the tackling contraband tobacco act, will be considered tomorrow at report stage and hopefully at third reading as well.

After the weekend, we will consider Bill C-20, which would implement our free trade agreement with the Republic of Honduras, at report stage.

Following Monday's question period, we will consider Bill C-27, the veterans hiring act, at second reading. That will be followed by second reading of Bill C-26, the tougher penalties for child predators act.

On Tuesday morning, we will start second reading debate on Bill C-35, the justice for animals in service act. The hon. member for Richmond Hill spoke a couple of nights ago about this wonderful bill, Quanto's law, which will have a chance to be considered, thanks to having additional debate time in the House. Since I cannot imagine New Democrats opposing this bill, the only question is how many speeches will they give supporting it, and of course, how will giving more speeches make this bill become law sooner.

Following question period, we will resume debate on Bill C-20, on Canada-Honduras free trade, as well as Bill C-17, the protecting Canadians from unsafe drugs act, which I discussed earlier, Bill C-32, the victims bill of rights act, and Bill C-18, the agricultural growth act.

On Wednesday, we will start the second reading debate on Bill C-21, Red Tape Reduction Act. After private members' hour, we will begin report stage of Bill C-31, Economic Action Plan 2014 Act, No. 1, which underwent clause-by-clause study at the Standing Committee on Finance this week.

A week from today, on Thursday next, we will continue debating our budget implementation bill. Ideally, I would also like to see us finish third reading of the bill on the free trade agreement between Canada and the Republic of the Honduras that day.

Finally, any remaining time available to us that evening will be spent on the bills on which the NDP will be able to offer more, remarkably similar speeches confirming, time after time, their support. Although I appreciate their supportive attitude towards many parts of our government's legislative agenda, it would be great if they would let all members of Parliament have their say, in an ultimate expression of democracy and to help us move from mere words to actual deeds, so that all of us can tell our constituents that we have actually accomplished something on their behalf.

Extension of Sitting Hours

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, what an odd debate. I listened with interest to the speech by the hon. member for Burlington. He is the chair of the committee and I am the vice-chair.

I found some of his statements peculiar. The fundamental problem with the motion presently before the House is not the fact of staying until midnight. The NDP team has a reputation for hard work. Anyone who wants to entertain themselves by visiting my Facebook page would see that the people of Gatineau are actually advising me to slow down because they are worried about my health. Perhaps they are right, considering the flu I have at the moment. We in the NDP work very hard. A number of bills, for example, are before the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, so that they can be debated in the House or in committee. It is not the work we are afraid of.

The cat is out of the bag. There are issues that our Conservative friends want to talk about, and they want to speak about them at length. Had I been asked, I would have said—before they even rose to speak—that I expected to see a great many Conservatives rise to speak in the House about Bill C-32. Why? Because it is an opportunity for the Conservatives to give Canadians the impression that they have been dealing with this issue—and this issue alone—for weeks, months and even years. They are the ones who stand up for victims. We are all deadbeats and have washed our hands of the problem. That is not true, though. Now, when workers’ rights were at stake, the Conservatives wanted to cut debate short.

The member said that nine bills had been passed and that he is embarrassed to return to Burlington. What I would say to him is that he is absolutely right to be embarrassed; the Conservatives did nothing with their majority aside from getting nine bills passed, and they had to resort to time allocation motions to ram the bills through. There is something not quite right with this government. The Conservatives are averse to debate. They do not like hearing opinions that do not coincide with their own. When the Conservatives too often hear something they disagree with, a red light suddenly goes on. We have had to debate many a time allocation motion. I do not know how many times I have taken part in debates in the House or how many speeches I have made expressing my dissatisfaction with the fact that we have been stripped of our right to speak.

The Conservatives made mention of Bill C-13. I am fortunate to be the NDP justice critic and to have had the opportunity to voice my opinion regarding this omnibus bill, right after the minister spoke. This is no small bill; on the contrary, it is approximately 50 pages long and has an impact on numerous other pieces of legislation. It does address the issue of cyberbullying, as the government likes to point out, but it goes much farther, so far that the committee is being flooded with requests for meetings. We hear all manner of experts warning us to be careful. That is what is missing in the House.

The Senate is referred to as a chamber of sober second thought, but we were not elected to this place in order to abdicate our duty to think. Members have a responsibility to be present in the House to voice and stand up for the opinions of their constituents. Canadians expect us to go about our work in an intelligent and thoughtful manner, to take the time to properly analyze bills. I am in favour of debating this bill in the House and referring it to committee for further consideration. More often than not, bills are analyzed at lightening speed.

The Conservatives will say that the House was given an opportunity to debate Bill C-13, the bill on cyberbullying, and thank God, especially given the time allocation motion that was foisted upon us so as to ram the bill through to committee.

Suddenly, things became urgent. Why urgent after the death of Rehtaeh Parsons, and yet not after the death of Amanda Todd? That was a question a witness asked us. The notion that the government would somehow need to act urgently does not really cut it with me; these things are more politically driven than they are concrete. It is a bit worrisome.

Bill C-13 is large and contains a number of disturbing provisions. When considered alongside the remarks made by the Conservative committee members, it leads me to believe that the Conservatives will not be very receptive to the many amendments proposed by expert witnesses. If past events are any indication, I am not very optimistic. Still, I am an optimistic woman by nature.

In light of this, I have trouble believing it when the government tells us, hand on heart, that its goal is to work harder. Working harder, for a Conservative, does not necessarily mean working more effectively and harder. It simply means that members end up working until midnight in order to discuss all the bills before the House, including those bills that have not been studied for an eternity.

For example, there is Bill C-2 on safe injection sites; Bill C-3 on marine transportation; Bill C-6, which implements the Convention on Cluster Munitions; Bill C-8 on counterfeit products; and Bill C-10 on contraband tobacco, which we finished studying in committee such a long time ago that I will have to reread all my material. Indeed, since then, we have studied so many other topics that I have almost had enough time to forget all about it. We will resume studying this bill at report stage. We could have covered it a long time ago. I have been waiting for some time for this stage to be completed in the House. Everything will have to be done over. It is a colossal waste of time for everyone concerned. There is also Bill C-11 on the hiring of injured veterans. If there is a category of people in our society who have huge needs, it certainly is our veterans.

Suddenly, the Conservatives are going to try and push all this through at once. The member for Burlington has done the math when it comes to the number of hours, and the government is going to try and give us a few hours for each bill. Then the government turns around and calls itself a champion of hard work. Well done, champion.

There is also Bill C-17, Vanessa’s law, about drug safety, an extremely important bill that must be debated; Bill C-18, concerning farm regulations; and Bill C-20, concerning the Canada-Honduras agreement, which is at report stage. I no longer even remember when I gave my last speech on that subject. It has already been a heck of a long time. The Conservatives have been in no rush, but all of a sudden, they are in a rush.

We will examine Bill C-21, concerning red tape for small businesses. The junior Minister of Tourism is travelling all over Canada to talk about the importance of eliminating red tape everywhere, while this bill is stuck in some office or other. It could have been debated a long time ago.

There is Bill C-22, concerning oil, gas and nuclear liability, and Bill C-24, concerning the Citizenship Act. These are bills that are announced to us with great fanfare at big press conferences, but then they stagnate and we do not see them again.

There is Bill C-26, about sexual predators. I expected that one would move quickly, because the Conservatives told us we had to work on this issue quickly. There is also Bill C-27, about hiring veterans in the public service. It is extremely important, I repeat, because it concerns a category of people in our society who have needs that are just as important.

Then there is Bill C-32, about the victims bill of rights. I think it is the reason why this government’s Motion No. 10 has no credibility at all. For a full year, I was treated to one press conference after another. If it was not the Prime Minister, it was the Minister of Justice with his senator from the other side. They told us they were going to work very hard, listen, set up panels and do everything we could wish for, and then they brought forth a charter that was denounced by many people, starting with victims, because they expected a lot more. That may be why the Conservatives kept their charter hidden for some time.

Apart from the minister, one Liberal and myself, no one has yet spoken on this subject. I am going to make a wager with my colleagues in the House. I expect there will be a time allocation motion on this. The Conservatives are going to rend their garments and plead that it is urgent, that it is extremely important and that it must be passed immediately, or the opposite will happen, because they will want to talk to us about it for hours on end. It becomes part of their narrative.

Every Conservative member wants to go back to their riding and have their householder and the excerpt from their speech in the House, which they made to show that they are protecting victims’ rights.

In the NDP, we want to talk about important issues and show that we could do even better than Bill C-32, specifically by amending it. We want to talk about the proposals made by the federal ombudsman for victims of crime. In fact, Bill C-32 does not contain a large percentage of her recommendations. A balance has to be struck. For every Conservative who speaks, the New Democrats will also speak.

When we want to talk about something, it is not important. That is the message we constantly get in the House, and, perhaps because we are approaching the end of the session, it is becoming extremely annoying, to put it mildly and stay within the bounds of parliamentary language.

It is appalling to see that people who are elected to represent the residents of their riding are silenced as often as we are by this government. We get told they are not interested. I have also heard the member for Burlington say—and I am going to talk to him about it again, in fact, at the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights—that sometimes we just need to go and read because members all read pretty much the same thing.

If the people of Gatineau think the same thing as the people of Laval, I think it is important that this be pointed out. Who has more right than whom to speak in the House on a particular bill? There is something indecent about wanting to constantly silence people.

Sometimes, I tell the members opposite that they should stop imposing time allocation motions and motions to get things done, as they like to say. I very much liked the expression my colleague used yesterday, when he talked about motions that are “a licence for laziness”.

This is unpleasant. If they had taken the time spent on debating those motions and instead used the time to finish the debate on the bill that they were trying to stop from being debated, we would probably have finished. The fact is that not all members in the NDP caucus or the Liberal Party or the Green Party or whatever colour you like necessarily wish to speak.

However, if the government limits the speaking time of a single member who wishes to speak, we cannot claim to be living in a democratic system. That is what is known as the tyranny of the majority. I believe we have to stand up against that, loud and clear. Every time that happens here, we are going to speak out against it, in every way possible.

We are told that we could perhaps go faster. I listened to the Minister of Foreign Affairs say that, and what he said made sense, in some respects. The way that Manitoba and the NDP government operate makes sense. Those consensus-based approaches make sense.

Quebec managed to pass a bill on a very sensitive issue, end-of-life care, with the agreement of all parties. There was an election, and the members all agreed to reinstate the bill once the election was over. That is being discussed.

The problem here is that the people on the Conservative benches are not talking to the opposition parties. All they talk about is strategies. We keep wondering who is going to pull a fast one on us. They use roundabout tactics such as counting how many MPs are in the House, catching them off guard, and forcing a party leader to go testify before a committee. This is unprecedented—and they say they are democratic.

Then the Conservatives get all offended when we say that Motion No. 10 is total nonsense. This is not about giving us more time. This is about taking all of the bills—there are more on the agenda than have already been passed, and that took much longer than the amount of time we have between now and June 20—and making us think they are giving us more time. They are not giving us a thing. I do not believe in Conservative gifts, and nobody in Canada should believe in any Conservative gift whatsoever.

The truth is that the Conservatives are going to shove their agenda down our throats because they could not get through it in a mature, parliamentary, by-the-rules way. They could have said that the House leaders would discuss it and try to see if some of the bills were more palatable or if we could agree to pass some of them more quickly. Then the real committee work could have started.

It is true, for Bill C-13, we had a lot of witnesses. However, I am not yet ready to give a seal of approval to the government in power, indicating that the bill has been studied in depth, because we still have the entire amendment stage. I believe that what the other side wants to accept is under so much remote control that the committee is not really doing the work. Instead, the higher-ups are dictating to our colleagues opposite what they have to do, while at the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, we are trying to bring out the best in the bill.

I have not even mentioned the upcoming Bill C-35, dealing with service animals. Bill S-2 deals with statutory instruments and may not seem like much. However, it is a very significant bill that is going to change an entire way of doing things in terms of regulations. We know that regulations have an impact on the everyday lives of our fellow Canadians in all kinds of areas: the environment, transportation, health and what have you. This is a real concern. I bet that we will analyze it very quickly. That concerns me.

The fact that we are extending our hours until midnight does not encourage any belief on my part that we will be having constructive debates followed by more productive work in committee. That is why the Conservatives have this problem with credibility. We are not the only ones saying so. When their measures are challenged in court, the Conservatives get slammed.

I will take a deep breath and take a little time to say that perhaps we should review our way of doing things. Our friends in the House may not know this, but the bill on prostitution may well be coming our way next week. We hear whispering in the corridors that the government wants the bill passed. It is huge, though, since it comes as a response to a Supreme Court of Canada decision. Everyone in the House knows that passing the bill will not be easy because there are people on all sides of that issue. I would bet that we are going to have just a few hours of debate before they pitch it—to put it very nicely—to the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights. We can expect a hot and heavy summer on that one.

Extending the sitting hours until midnight just to work harder is one more tactic that is just like their time allocation motions, closure motions and any other kind of motion they can think of. It is part of the Conservatives' bag of undemocratic tricks. They will force these tricks on the House, but not on themselves, as ministers. Based on how the motion is written, I think it will be quite humourous. It will be interesting to see how many of them will be here in the House to happily participate in the debates on all the topics I mentioned, instead of at a cocktail party. That is why it is extremely important that we amend this motion.

Seconded by the hon. member for LaSalle—Émard, I move:

That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word “place” and substituting the following:

(b) when a recorded division is demanded in respect of a debatable motion, including any division arising as a consequence of the application of Standing Order 61(2), but not including any division in relation to the Business of Supply, Private Members’ Business, or arising as a consequence of an order made pursuant to Standing Order 57,

(i) before 5:30 p.m. on a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday, it shall stand deferred until the time immediately before the time provided for Private Members’ Business at that day’s sitting,

(ii) after 5:30 p.m. on a Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday, it shall stand deferred until the time immediately before the time provided for Private Members’ Business at the next day’s sitting,

(iii) after 5:30 p.m. on a Thursday, or at any time on a Friday, it shall stand deferred until 6:30 p.m. on the following Monday.

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

moved:

That, notwithstanding any Standing Order or usual practice of the House, commencing upon the adoption of this Order and concluding on Friday, June 20, 2014:

(a) on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, the ordinary hour of daily adjournment shall be 12 midnight, except that it shall be 10 p.m. on a day when a debate, pursuant to Standing Order 52 or 53.1, is to take place;

(b) subject to paragraph (d), when a recorded division is demanded in respect of a debatable motion, including any division arising as a consequence of the application of Standing Order 61(2), but not including any division in relation to the Business of Supply or arising as a consequence of an order made pursuant to Standing Order 57, (i) before 2 p.m. on a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday, it shall stand deferred until the conclusion of oral questions at that day’s sitting, or (ii) after 2 p.m. on a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday, or at any time on a Friday, it shall stand deferred until the conclusion of oral questions at the next sitting day that is not a Friday;

(c) the time provided for Government Orders shall not be extended pursuant to Standing Order 45(7.1);

(d) when a recorded division, which would have ordinarily been deemed deferred to immediately before the time provided for Private Members’ Business on a Wednesday governed by this Order, is demanded, the said division is deemed to have been deferred until the conclusion of oral questions on the same Wednesday;

(e) any recorded division which, at the time of the adoption of this Order, stands deferred to immediately before the time provided for Private Members’ Business on the Wednesday immediately following the adoption of this Order shall be deemed to stand deferred to the conclusion of oral questions on the same Wednesday;

(f) a recorded division demanded in respect of a motion to concur in a government bill at the report stage pursuant to Standing Order 76.1(9), where the bill has neither been amended nor debated at the report stage, shall be deferred in the manner prescribed by paragraph (b);

(g) for greater certainty, this Order shall not limit the application of Standing Order 45(7);

(h) no dilatory motion may be proposed, except by a Minister of the Crown, after 6:30 p.m.; and

(i) when debate on a motion for the concurrence in a report from a standing, standing joint or special committee is adjourned or interrupted, the debate shall again be considered on a day designated by the government, after consultation with the House Leaders of the other parties, but in any case not later than the twentieth sitting day after the interruption.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak to the government's motion proposing that we work a little bit of overtime over the next few weeks in the House.

I have the pleasure of serving in my fourth year as the government House leader during the 41st Parliament. That is, of course, on top of another 22 months during a previous Parliament, though some days it feels like I am just getting started since our government continues to implement an ambitious agenda that focuses on the priorities of Canadians. We still have much to do, and that is the basis for Motion No. 10, which we are debating today. Regardless of what other theories that folks might come up with, our objective is simple: to deliver results for Canadians, results on things Canadians want to see from their government.

As government House leader, I have worked to have the House operate in a productive, orderly, and hard-working fashion. Canadians expect their members of Parliament to work hard and get things done on their behalf. We agree, and that is exactly what has happened here in the House of Commons. However, do not take my word for it. Let us look at the facts.

In the previous session of the 41st Parliament, 61 government bills received royal assent and are now law. In 2013 alone, which was a shorter parliamentary year than normal, the government had a record-breaking year with 40 bills becoming law, more than any other calendar year since we took office, breaking our previous record of 37 new laws in 2007 when I also had the honour to be the leader of the House. That is the record of a hard-working, orderly, and productive Parliament. With more than a year left in this Parliament, the House has accomplished so much already, handing many bills over to the Senate for the final steps in the legislative process.

Just as we had a record year for legislative output, Canadian grain farmers experienced a bumper crop with a record yield in 2013. Understanding the real challenges faced by grain farmers, our government acted quickly on Bill C-30, the fair rail for grain farmers act, moving the bill through three readings and a committee study before handing it over to the Senate. This bill would support economic growth by ensuring that grain is able to get to market quickly and efficiently. The House also passed Bill C-23, the fair elections act, which would ensure that everyday citizens are in charge of democracy, ensuring the integrity of our electoral system and putting rule breakers out of business.

Two supply bills received royal assent, thereby ensuring that the government has the money it needs to continue providing services to the people.

When we passed Bill C-25, the Qalipu Mi'kmaq First Nation Act, we fulfilled our promise to protect the Qalipu Mi'kmaq First Nation's enrolment process, making it fair and equitable while ensuring that only eligible individuals will be granted membership.

Earlier this spring, royal assent was also given to Bill C-16, the Sioux Valley Dakota Nation Governance Act, making the Sioux Valley Dakota Nation the first self-governing nation on the prairies and the 34th aboriginal community in Canada to achieve self-governance.

Next on the agenda is Bill C-34, the Tla'amin Final Agreement Act, which will implement the agreement with the Tla'amin Nation. Bill C-34 will give the Tla'amin increased control over their own affairs. They will have ownership of their land and resources and will be able to create new investment opportunities and make decisions determining their economic future.

We considered and passed through all stages of Bill C-5, the Offshore Health and Safety Act, which will enhance safety standards for workers in Canada’s Atlantic offshore oil and gas industry to protect Canadians and the environment while supporting jobs and growth.

Bill C-14, the Not Criminally Responsible Reform Act, became law just a few weeks ago. This act will ensure that public safety should be the paramount consideration in the decision-making process involving high-risk accused found not criminally responsible on account of mental disorder.

Also, this spring, our government passed Bill C-15, the Northwest Territories Devolution Act, which honoured our government's commitment to giving northerners greater control over their resources and decision-making and completing devolution all before the agreed-upon implementation date of April 1, as well as Bill C-9, the First Nations Elections Act, which supports the Government of Canada's commitment to provide all Canadians with strong, accountable, and transparent government. Bill C-9 provides a robust election framework, improves the capacity of first nations to select leadership, build prosperous communities, and improve economic development in their communities.

However, despite these many accomplishments, there is more work to be done yet before we return to our constituencies for the summer, let alone before we seek the privilege of representing our constituents in the 42nd Parliament.

During this mandate, our government's top priority has been jobs, economic growth and long-term prosperity.

It is worth saying that again. During this mandate, our government's top priority has been jobs, economic growth, and long-term prosperity. That continues. Through three years and four budgets since the 2012 budget, we have passed initiatives that have helped create hundreds of thousands of jobs for Canadians, as part of the one million net new jobs since the global economic downturn. We have achieved this record while also ensuring that Canada's debt burden is the lowest in the G7 and we are on track to balance the budget in 2015.

As part of our efforts to build on this strong track record, our government has put forward this motion today. Motion No. 10 is simple. It is straightforward. It would extend the hours of the House to sit from Monday through Thursday. Instead of finishing the day around 6:30 p.m. or 7 p.m., the House would, instead, sit until midnight. This would give us an additional 20 hours each week to debate important bills. Of course, the hours on Friday would not change.

Extended sitting hours is something that happens practically every June. Our government just wants to roll up its sleeves and work a little harder a bit earlier this year.

Productivity is not just a function of time invested, but also of efficiency. To that end, our motion would allow most votes to be deferred, automatically, until the end of question period to allow for all hon. members' schedules to be a bit more orderly.

Last year, we saw the New Democrats profess to be willing to work hard. Then, mere hours later, after the sun would go down and people were not watching, what would the NDP do? It would suggest we pack it in early and move adjournment, without any accomplishment to show for it.

In order to keep our focus on delivering results and not gamesmanship, we are suggesting that we use our extra evening hours to get something done, not to play idle, unproductive games. We are interested in working hard and being productive, and doing so in an orderly fashion. That is the extent of what Motion No. 10 would do. Members on this side of the House are willing to work a few extra hours to deliver real results for Canadians. What results are we seeking? Bills on which we want to see progress, that are of great significance to Canadians, are worth spending a little extra time to see them considered and, ideally, passed.

Of course, we have the important matter of passing Bill C-31, Economic Action Plan 2014, No. 1. This bill implements our government’s budget—a low tax plan for jobs, growth and a stronger Canadian economy. It is also an essential tool in placing the government on track to balanced budgets, starting in 2015.

We have a number of bills that continue to build on the work we have done in support of victims of crime. Bill C-13, the Protecting Canadians from Online Crime Act, is another essential piece of legislation that will crack down on cyberbullies and online threats by giving law enforcement officials the tools necessary to investigate and tackle these crimes. We are taking clear action to combat cyberbullying and I ask the opposition to join us in this pursuit.

Every day in Canada, our most vulnerable—our children—are the victims of sexual abuse. This is truly unacceptable and as a society we must do our part to better protect our youth. With Bill C-26, the Tougher Penalties for Child Predators Act, we are doing our part.

Our government's comprehensive legislation will better protect children from a range of sexual offences, including child pornography, while making our streets and communities safer by cracking down on the predators who hurt, abuse, and exploit our children.

Therefore, I ask the opposition to work with us, support this important piece of legislation by supporting this motion.

It is also important that we move forward with one of the most recent additions to our roster of other tackling crime legislation. Last month, we introduced Bill C-32, the victims bill of rights act, which will give victims of crime a more efficient and more effective voice in the criminal justice system. It seeks to create clear statutory rights at the federal level for victims of crime, for the first time in Canada's history. The legislation would establish rights to information, protection, participation, and restitution, and ensure a complaint process is in place for breaches of those rights on the part of victims. It would protect victims, and help to rebalance the justice system to give victims their rightful place. I hope we can debate this bill tomorrow night. By passing Motion No. 10, we will make that possible.

Our efforts to protect families and communities also extend to keeping contraband tobacco off our streets, so that the cheap baggies of illegal cigarettes do not lure children into the dangers of smoking. Bill C-10, the tackling contraband tobacco act, would combat this by establishing mandatory jail time for repeat offenders trafficking in contraband. Aside from protecting Canadian children from the health hazards of smoking, it will also address the more general problems with trafficking and contraband tobacco propelled by organized crime roots. With luck, I hope we can pass this bill on Friday.

Just before the constituency week, the Prime Minister announced Quanto's law. Bill C-35, the justice for animals in service act, would pose stiffer penalties on anyone who kills or injures a law enforcement, military, or service animal. I know that the hon. member for Richmond Hill, having previously introduced a private member's bill on the subject, will be keen to see the extra time used to debate and pass this bill at second reading before we head back to our constituencies.

Bill C-12, the drug-free prisons act, could also have a chance for some debate time if we pass Motion No. 10. This particular bill will tackle drug use and trade in the federal penitentiaries to make the correctional system a safer place, particularly for staff, but also for inmates, while also increasing the potential for success and rehabilitation of those inmates. As a former public safety minister, I can say that this is indeed an important initiative.

Delivering these results for Canadians is worth working a few extra hours each week. Our clear and steady focus on the strength of our Canadian economy does not simply apply to our budgets. We will also work hard next week to bring the Canada-Honduras free trade agreement into law. Bill C-20, the Canada-Honduras economic growth and prosperity act, would enhance provisions on cross-border trading services, investment, and government procurement between our two countries. It would also immediately benefit key sectors in the Canadian economy, by providing enhanced market access for beef, pork, potato products, vegetable oils, and grain products.

As a former trade minister, I can say first-hand that this government understands that trade and investment are the twin engines of the global economy that lead to more growth, the creation of good jobs, and greater prosperity. Trade is particularly important for a country like Canada, one that is relatively small yet stands tall in terms of its relationship and ability to export and trade with the rest of the world. If we are to enjoy that prosperity in the future, it is only through expanding free trade and seizing those opportunities that we can look forward to that kind of long-term prosperity.

Through Bill C-18, the agricultural growth act, we are providing further support to Canada's agriculture producers. This bill would modernize nine statues that regulate Canada's agriculture sector to bring them in line with modern science and technology, innovation, and international practices within the agriculture industry. The act will strengthen and safeguard Canada's agriculture sector by providing farmers with greater access to new crop varieties, enhancing both trade opportunities and the safety of agriculture products, and contributing to Canada's overall economic growth.

As the House knows, our government has made the interests of farmers a very important priority. We recognize that since Canada was born, our farmers in our agriculture sector have been key to Canada's economic success. As a result, Bill C-18 will be debated this afternoon. It would be nice to have the bill passed at second reading before the summer, so that the agriculture committee can harvest stakeholder opinion this autumn.

Over the next few weeks, with the co-operation and support of the opposition parties, we will hopefully work to make progress on other important initiatives.

My good friend, the President of the Treasury Board, will be happy to know that these extra hours would mean that I can find some time to debate Bill C-21, the red tape reduction act. This important bill should not be underestimated. It would enshrine into law our government's one-for-one rule, a successful system-wide control on regulatory red tape that affects Canadian employers. Treasury Board already takes seriously the practice of opining that rule, but we want to heighten its importance and ensure that it is binding on governments in the future. We want to ensure that Canadians do not face unreasonable red tape when they are simply trying to make a better living for themselves, and creating jobs and economic growth in their communities.

Another important government initiative sets out to strengthen the value of Canadian citizenship. For the first time in more than 35 years, our government is taking action to update the Citizenship Act. Through Bill C-24, the strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act, we are proposing stronger rules around access to Canadian citizenship to underline its true value and ensure that new Canadians are better prepared for full participation in Canadian life. This legislation will be called for debate on Wednesday.

The health and safety of Canadians is something that our government believes is worthy of some extra time and further hard work in the House of Commons.

Tomorrow evening, we will debate Bill C-17, the protecting Canadians from unsafe drugs act. Under Vanessa's law, as we have called it, we are proposing steps to protect Canadian families and children from unsafe medicines. Among other actions, the bill would enable the government to recall unsafe drugs, require stronger surveillance, provide the courts with discretion to impose stronger fines if violations were intentionally caused, and compel drug companies to do further testing on a product. In general, the bill would make sure that the interests of individual Canadians are looked out for and become a major priority when it comes to dealing with new medications and drugs.

Bill C-22, the energy safety and security act, would modernize safety and security for Canada's offshore and nuclear energy industries, thereby ensuring a world-class regulatory system, and strengthening safety and environmental protections. This legislation, at second reading, will be debated on Thursday.

Bill C-3, the safeguarding Canada's seas and skies act, could pass at third reading under the extended hours, so that we can secure these important updates and improvements to transportation law in Canada.

We could also pass the prohibiting cluster munitions act. As the Minister of Foreign Affairs explained at committee, the Government of Canada is committed to ridding the world of cluster munitions. Bill C-6 is an important step in that direction, but it is just the beginning of our work. Extending the relevant elements of the Oslo Convention into domestic law would allow Canada to join the growing list of countries that share that same goal. I hope members of all parties will support us in this worthy objective.

By supporting today's motion, the opposition would also be showing support for Canada's veterans. The extra hours would allow us to make progress on Bill C-27, the veterans hiring act. The measures included in this legislation would create new opportunities for men and women who have served their country to continue working for Canadians through the federal public service. As a nation, we have a responsibility to ensure that veterans have access to a broad range of programs and services to help them achieve new success after their time in uniform is complete. This initiative would do exactly that.

Of course, a quick reading of today's order paper would show that there are still more bills before the House of Commons for consideration and passage. I could go on and on, literally, since I have unlimited time to speak this afternoon, but I will not. Suffice it to say that we have a bold, ambitious, and important legislative agenda to implement. All of these measures are important, and they will improve the lives of Canadians. Each merits consideration and hard work on our part. Canadians expect each one of us to come to Ottawa to work hard, to vote on bills, to make decisions, and to get things done on their behalf.

I hope that opposition parties will be willing to support this reasonable plan and let it come to a vote. I am sure that members opposite would not be interested in going back to their constituents to say that they voted against working a little overtime before the House rises for the summer.

I commend this motion to the House and encourage all hon. members to vote for adding a few hours to our day to continue the work of our productive, orderly, and hard-working Parliament, and deliver real results for Canadians.

Red Tape Reduction Act

[Tony Clement, Conservative, President of the Treasury Board]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-21, An Act to control the administrative burden that regulations impose on businesses.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)