moved for leave to introduce Bill C-682, An Act to amend the Department of Industry Act (small businesses).
Mr. Speaker, it is my honour today, along with my colleague from Thunder Bay—Superior North, to present for the consideration of the House a bill to, for the first time, create a system of orderly consideration of the impact on small businesses of legislation, regulations, and policy.
This is loosely based on something I first heard about from colleagues in the Green Party in the European Parliament, where they have what they call “think small first”, a lens that looks at the policies being undertaken by the European Parliament to see what impact, unintended, there might be on small businesses.
This act would require the Minister of Industry to consider whether measures require that analysis. It is essentially similar to an environmental impact statement, only this would be a small business impact statement so that small and medium-sized enterprises would not inadvertently have further hurdles put in their way through unintended consequences of government policy.
I hope that this bill will receive support at first reading and proceed to second reading and that it will eventually become the law of Canada.
(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)