Government Operations Committee on April 10th, 2024

[Parm Bains, Liberal, Steveston—Richmond East, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to our guests for joining us today.

I'll continue with the Federation of Independent Business.

I had the chance to meet one of your colleagues yesterday and spoke openly about many challenges and barriers. I know that regulatory reform and red tape are, of course, top of mind for us as well. There were other questions around labour, interprovincial labour and how those things work. What are some of the barriers around that?

I meet with businesses all the time. Everyone says there's still a shortage of skilled labour. I know that we've increased economic immigration categories and that a significant amount of work has been done there, and then there's an impact from the investment made in credential recognition.

In terms of goods getting to service and crossing provincial lines and of skilled people crossing provincial lines, what are the barriers?

[Corinne Pohlmann]

There are lots of barriers when it comes to that, especially when it comes to the more professional levels. Interprovincially, it can be very challenging for, say, a dental hygienist to move from one province to the next and quickly be able to work. Those are some of the challenges that we face within Canada.

Of course, the shortage of labour overall continues to be a big factor for many businesses. We've seen the vacancy rates come down over the last, I'd say, six months, but they're still higher than they were before the pandemic. There are still lots of jobs wanting at the moment.

A few of the things that have been done recently—for example, eliminating the cap on the number of hours that international students can work—were actually super-helpful. A lot of small businesses are able to now hire people quickly into positions in restaurants and in the service sector, for example. That's been really helpful.

We'll see how the cap impacts them, but more important is the fact that the ones who are here will be able to work.

On the immigration side, there has been some good work done. We're a little worried about what the tightening of the temporary foreign worker program is going to look like and what it's going to mean. We understand that this is something that may be coming. That will impact certain sectors of the economy that are still looking for that as a way to find people they need to fill the jobs they have.

[Parm Bains, Liberal, Steveston—Richmond East, BC]

That does lead into regulation and the possible exploitation of these workers. We saw some of that with the international students. That's why that measure was taken. We need them to be studying.

Could you elaborate on how we can tackle some of the challenges with the governing bodies that ultimately certify and allow for certain people to get the credentials? Have you done any work there?

[Corinne Pohlmann]

It's a big challenge. If you talk to the provincial government side of the equation, they will tell you that they have fixed labour mobility and that labour mobility is not an issue. However, when you talk to the individuals who are affected by it—because the colleges that exist in each province do have restrictions—you find that it's still a big challenge in many areas of the country.

I don't know what the answer is there. I would think that these particular colleges would have some provincial oversight over them and that maybe the provinces could do more to encourage them to be a bit more loose in how they dictate who can work and who cannot in those particular professions.

That's probably where the biggest challenge rests right now—on interprovincial mobility of labour in Canada.

[Parm Bains, Liberal, Steveston—Richmond East, BC]

I'm going to shift to Mr. Swance.

I want to get into the climate events that have happened, especially those in my home province of British Columbia.

We saw a major impact on imports and exports, of course, with the atmospheric rivers. It's nothing we've seen ever before there. It wiped out a section of the Coquihalla Highway, which is a major supply corridor to the Okanagan and to the distribution centre from there to the port. That's a billion dollars per day. It's the largest port in Canada.

Can you talk about what needs to be done there with the climate events that impact us and how we need to keep moving forward on fighting climate change?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

You have about 30 seconds.

[Chad Swance]

We could spend three days on that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Go ahead, then.

[Chad Swance]

What happened during the mudslides in B.C. was actually a really good example of regulatory co-operation. In order to move goods from the port to the rest of the country, a lot of the freight had to be rerouted through the U.S. I.E. Canada and my colleague Mr. Mussar, who is joining us virtually, were instrumental in coordinating between the CBSA and the CBP in the U.S. to allow certain products to move through the U.S. on a temporary bond.

We're getting into the weeds, but the reality is that if your regulators don't have relationships with industry, you're never going to enable these sorts of emergency measures. It is very important for the government to sit down regularly with industry so that there's already a foundational relationship.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thank you very much.

Mrs. Vignola, go ahead, please, for two and a half minutes.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm going to talk about the one-for-one rule. I will turn to Ms. Pohlmann, because this may affect small independent businesses more.

My understanding of the one-for-one rule is that every time a regulation is added, one is removed somewhere. That “somewhere” makes me wonder about a number of things. Just because a regulation is added in one sector and removed in another does not necessarily mean that it will be beneficial to a company affected by the new regulation in the first place.

This is not a trick question. I would really like to have your opinion on that and for you to tell me whether I am right or wrong.

Plus, is it not better to add a new regulation if one is removed? It also has to make sense if we want to keep protecting consumers, businesses and the common good. If we remove or add a regulation, the same businesses should benefit from that. You understand the connection I'm making between the two, right?

Should we change the way we do things? If we add a regulation in a given sector, we have to remove one in that same sector, not in another.

Have I understood correctly?

[Corinne Pohlmann]

The idea behind the one-for-one rule is that at the federal level, there is something called the “standard cost model”: For every regulation that is introduced, regulators try to eliminate one that places a similar cost or burden on businesses.

This is important, because we don't do a very good job in Canada of getting rid of regulations that are no longer necessary, that may be redundant or that may no longer really work. It's a way to keep the folks who create the regulations looking at the whole pile of them and figuring out which ones are still important: Which ones should we keep, and which ones should we get rid of because they are less important and they are a burden? Maybe we can move in a different direction. That's the idea.

It's not that you have to be strict about it; it's about getting the people who create the regulations to think differently about regulations—not just creating them and creating them, but managing them and thinking a little bit more: Do we really need a regulation, or can we manage this through some other means? Is this regulation that has been sitting here for 30 years, but that nobody really ever looks at anymore, still necessary? That's what we don't do well in Canada.

This is just a means of putting those constraints on the regulators and forcing them to think a little bit more about the overall picture of the regulatory burden on businesses. Every department can argue that every regulation on its own is important, but nobody thinks about the whole burden and the impact that it has on what people are going to do.

The fact that almost two-thirds of small business owners—

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

I apologize, but I have to interrupt you there, because we're quite a bit over our time.

Colleagues, we've been going past time with everyone. I'm sure you've been watching. Please keep your questions really short. I've been letting them go long because the answers are fascinating and, I think, very important. If we could shorten up our questions—

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

The questions less so....

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Well, yes, I know.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

We can read between the lines.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Yours are right on, Mr. Bachrach. Perhaps we could keep it short, so that we can have more time.

Mr. Bachrach, please go ahead, sir.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Thank you. I will try to keep this short.

One of my colleagues down the way asked a question about carbon pricing earlier. I think this is a very topical and interesting question, because Canada is a signatory to the Paris Agreement, which requires us to do very specific things.

I'm curious if your organizations, first of all, support upholding our international commitment in the Paris Agreement.

Second, if you do support it, which I hope you do, how would you see the government better approach the question of how we drive down emissions and meet those reductions?

There are only a few ways you can get there—through pricing, through regulations or through incentives.

I'm guessing, based on your comments about the ITCs, the tax credits, that you prefer incentives. All the modelling I've seen shows that it's one of the most expensive ways to drive down emissions on a per tonne basis. The United States has invested very heavily in that, but they're also running massive deficits.

What's the right mix when it comes to pricing regulations and incentives, in your view, to meet the Paris accord?

[Ryan Greer]

Mr. Chair, I'll just jump it.

Incentives certainly are maybe more costly on a per tonne basis for our calculation, but the question we're really getting at is this: Where do we want to build the clean economy in the future? Do we want it to be built in the United States, south of the border, or do we want to be doing it in Canada and exporting it to the rest of the world? We can help them also reduce their emissions.

We see incentives as a critical part of that. That doesn't mean there's not a mix of other tools that can help contribute to it. We certainly believe there's a chance to enable global emission reductions, but also to enable great, good clean energy jobs for Canadians in this country.

The Inflation Reduction Act has sharply changed that conversation for all of the reasons that you've outlined. It is urgent that the government assess the current environment that we are in and understand how that is impacting investment. I think germane to this discussion is that it's not just incentive and it's not just investment; it's the regulatory environment in which we're asking companies to make these investments to lower burden, because it is very expensive, costly and time-consuming to introduce a new product or service or to modernize a process when you have so many regulatory hoops to jump through. It's also regulating smarter in a way that allows us to enable those clean manufacturing innovations.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thanks.

We have Mrs. Kusie, please.

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Thank you very much, Chair.

Unfortunately, a portion of the public service is in an unfortunate position again. We saw a great failure with the public service negotiations maybe 18 months ago, leading to strikes and protests outside this very House.

We now have, again, a CBSA strike vote in the next month due to a lack of a contract within the CBSA for two years.

I would like to ask you, Mr. Swance, if the strike vote is causing uncertainty for importers and exporters.

[Chad Swance]

Yes, it is.

I think the biggest uncertainty is around the timing. The strike may occur at the same time as the CBSA is starting to implement a major new software program called CARM, which is the CBSA's assessment and revenue management software program. This program has been subject to a number of hearings at the CIIT committee. There was a motion tabled yesterday at that committee around this.

A strike could be quite concerning if it happened at the same time. We're unsure of what the result of that software will be, because it's frankly untested.

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Thank you.

Mr. Greer, would you like to add anything to that, please, on behalf of Manufacturers and Exporters?

[Ryan Greer]

No. I'd just echo that the timing is of concern to us and our members for the same reasons that Mr. Swance outlined.

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Thank you.

Ms. Pohlmann, I see on your website that you are encouraging the government to pass a private member's bill, Bill C-234, in an effort to provide further carbon tax relief for Canadians.

Could you speak a little bit, please, about your organization's encouragement of the passing of Bill C-234?