Good morning, Chair Wayne Easter, vice-chairs, and members of the committee.
My name is Jennifer Evans. I'm president of the Greater Charlottetown Area Chamber of Commerce. With me today is our CEO, Penny Walsh-McGuire.
Thank you for the invitation to present on the 2019 federal budget. The chamber serves as the voice of business for close to 1,000 members in the greater Charlottetown area. We provide services, opportunities and advocacy support for members to enhance their ability to do business. In our August budget submission, we offered several recommendations to build on the competitive advantage of business in our region and our country.
Now, how many of us were up way too late last night following the NAFTA negotiations? This has changed our presentation somewhat this morning, but we are delighted to see that a renewed trade agreement between Canada, the U.S. and Mexico has been agreed to in principle. This, of course, is a step forward, and we look forward to assessing the details of this agreement—probably right after this meeting. We would like to congratulate Minister Freeland and Canada's entire negotiating team for delivering an agreement that remains trilateral.
While we applaud the achievement of this agreement, we must remember how overly dependent we've allowed ourselves to become on one trading partner. We must continue to diversify our markets and protect ourselves in the future, looking at our regulatory and taxation framework in support of our competitiveness. I think the lesson we've all learned is that we need to start working together a little more, so that we are not left in such a vulnerable trading position.
Let's talk about Canadian tax competitiveness and our current tax environment, and how the current realities are impacting Canadian business competitiveness. Our chamber members are worried about the growing burden posed by fees, taxes and regulations on the private sector. This is of significant concern, given the U.S. administration's move to dramatically cut both regulation and business taxes south of the border. The chamber welcomed the federal government's move to lower the small-business tax in 2018, but more must be done to reduce the tax burden if our Canadian businesses are to remain competitive.
As such, we ask the federal government to consider the recommendation to respond to the reality of the changing tax landscape in the United States by reinstating Canada's business tax advantage and removing undue regulatory burdens on businesses of all sizes.
In the fall of 2017, we joined forces with chambers across the nation to oppose the unfair proposed tax changes. Our members remain concerned with the invasive and impractical reasonableness test designed to determine if a family member is deserving of the appropriate income from the business. As such, we recommend that the federal government enhance the proposal to impose an income reasonableness test on small, family-run businesses to recognize that family members can contribute to and support family business without being directly involved.
At this time, I'd like to turn things over to our CEO, Penny Walsh-McGuire, to highlight some of our additional recommendations.