Evidence of meeting #99 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was across.
A video is available from Parliament.
11:05 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kelly McCauley
Good morning, everyone, and welcome back.
I call this meeting to order.
11:05 a.m.
Conservative
11:05 a.m.
Conservative
Scot Davidson Conservative York—Simcoe, ON
Okay. Canadians and small businesses are waiting. Thank you.
11:05 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kelly McCauley
I'll go through my preamble first.
Welcome to meeting number 99 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates. The committee is meeting to consider matters related to committee business.
This is just a reminder to please not put your earpieces next to the microphone, as this causes feedback and potential injury to our very valued interpreters.
Before we start, I want to welcome Mr. Taylor Bachrach to OGGO.
11:05 a.m.
Some hon. members
Hear, hear!
11:05 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kelly McCauley
We've had the pleasure of working over the years with many of your colleagues, Mr. Johns being one of them. We will miss him, but welcome to OGGO.
Mr. Davidson, did you have something?
I'm sorry. Very quickly, we will go in camera to discuss the letter that was received and distributed. Then we have to get through a couple of the budgets very quickly, with a quick conversation regarding travel and whether or not we wish to try to revive the shipbuilding tour.
Go ahead, Mr. Davidson.
11:05 a.m.
Conservative
Scot Davidson Conservative York—Simcoe, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and good morning, colleagues.
Mr. Chair, given that it is Red Tape Awareness Week, I would like to urgently move the following motion. I will read it in full this morning for the benefit of my colleagues and Canadians, especially small businesses, watching these proceedings:
Given that government regulation and red tape impose higher costs on Canadians, making the cost-of-living crisis worse, and that excessive regulation and red tape are felt by small businesses, entrepreneurs and throughout the entire economy, including housing, health care, energy and more, the committee recognize the following negative impacts caused by government red tape and regulation and report to the House that:
i. The 2024 red tape report card, the federal government received a “C-“ on the regulatory burden it places on businesses, according to the CFIB,
ii. 92% of small businesses want the government to reduce regulation and red tape, according to the CFIB,
The CFIB is the Canadian Federation of Independent Business.
iii. Canada ranks 34 out of 35 OECD countries in time it takes to approve a building project, while the United States and the United Kingdom approve projects three times faster than Canada, according to the Ontario Housing Affordability Task Force,
iv. The Canadian Home Builders' Association says the average development approval timelines in some of Canada’s most unaffordable cities have continued to worsen, with Toronto increasing from 21 months in 2020 to 32 months in 2022, and Vancouver increasing from 13 months in 2020 to 15 months in 2022,
v. 54% of foreign trained doctors and 64% of foreign trained nurses do not work in health care, according to Statistics Canada,
vi. The Government of Canada says it takes up to 25 years—
You can work an entire lifetime.
—to build a mine in Canada,
In order to lower costs, and improve services for Canadians, the committee call on the government to immediately reduce the regulatory burden and red tape across all sectors in the economy and table a plan within 30 days of this motion being adopted showing reductions in red tape and regulation.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
11:05 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kelly McCauley
Thanks.
I'll start a speaking list. I have Mrs. Kusie and Mr. Jowhari.
I understand that you have sent in a translated copy already, Mr. Davidson. We'll distribute that. We'll suspend for a couple of seconds while it gets sent out and everyone has a chance to read it.
It has been sent out electronically to your P9s, colleagues.
We'll start with Mrs. Kusie and then we'll go to Mr. Jowhari.
11:05 a.m.
Conservative
Stephanie Kusie Conservative Calgary Midnapore, AB
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, for entertaining this motion.
I very much thank MP Davidson, who is our shadow minister for red tape, for being here today and for bringing forward this important motion at such an important time. It's at a time when so many Canadians and businesses—small businesses in particular—are suffering. I truly appreciate his being here today at the government operations committee and bringing forward this motion.
I want to provide some statistics in support of this motion. The 2024 Fraser Institute energy sector competitiveness report says, “Overall, the US performs better than Canada in 13 out of the 16 policy factors.” Also, more than half of investors “indicated that uncertainty concerning environmental regulations, regulatory duplication and inconsistencies...were more concerning in Canadian provinces than in US states.”
Mr. Chair, I know that you come from the great province of Alberta, as I do. This province has suffered greatly in its production capacity as a result of this government's red tape initiatives. Thank you for being here today, MP Davidson, on behalf of Albertans as well, to bring this motion forward.
The July 12, 2023, Toronto Sun says, “almost 90% of federal managers received bonuses averaging $17,000 a year [since 2020], even though under half of federal departments and agencies achieve their annual production targets.” One of the targets should be to reduce red tape. We have individuals receiving compensation bonuses when they are not achieving their objectives, and that's another struggle we see against the abundance of red tape.
This is from the January 13, 2024, Toronto Sun:
When Trudeau came to power in 2015, 43,424 federal bureaucrats were collecting a six-figure salary. By 2022, that number more than doubled to 102,761.
The Trudeau government also dished out more than $1 billion in bonuses, despite government departments tripping over themselves while attempting to deliver services.
Next I'm going to bring up a very concerning anecdote regarding children's adoption:
Backlogs within Canada’s immigration bureaucracy are creating what one observer calls an “impossible situation” for families adopting children from outside of the country, with processing delays now far outlasting their children’s visas and rendering the kids ineligible for provincial health coverage....
Children adopted overseas are usually granted a six-month temporary residence permit, essentially a tourist visa, upon entering Canada. That used to be sufficient to allow IRCC to finish processing their citizenship applications. But delays for processing citizenship for adopted kids are now running close to two years, well past the expiry of temporary visas. That is leaving parents scrambling to get extensions and the children ineligible for basic social programs.
Once again we see the government struggling to deliver on the most basic services for Canadians, and for new Canadians in particular, which is no doubt a result of red tape.
Service Canada's passport delays netted CFIB's worst red tape award. The Canadian Federation of Independent Business awarded the 2023 Paperweight Award for worst red tape service to Service Canada's passport mess, something I just alluded to in the example that I indicated regarding adoption. A public opinion poll by the CFIB found that 80% of passport applicants experienced some level of frustration as they applied for or tried to renew a passport in this past year. I know that my NDP colleague will appreciate this statistic given their recent work with CFIB on the CEBA extension. That's an incredible number—80% of passport applicants had dissatisfaction as a result of red tape.
It would be nice to say goodbye to red tape and hello to green, but as the Financial Post notes:
“No fewer than four times on a single page...of her fall economic statement, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland, or the anonymous finance...scribe writing for her, says the federal government is intent on cutting red tape.” It's unbelievable.
It goes on:
Only one problem. There are deals with nine cities and one province. The cities have a combined population of just over four million people. So that’s about 10 per cent of the country’s population....
And a second problem: federal-municipal agreements, even to cut red tape, are themselves a form of red tape.
That's unbelievable.
The feds won't just give the cities an opportunity to cut the red tape. We are seeing, time and time again, problems with red tape under this government.
I mentioned the problems this government is causing for our home province, Mr. Chair, of Alberta. I'd also like to point to something positive that's going on in the Confederation regarding red tape. It is that in Alberta, the United Conservative Party has tabled a sweeping red tape bill. Isn't that a beacon of light for the nation? Wouldn't you say so, MP Davidson?
They have introduced a series of new measures that will reduce red tape through an omnibus bill. Wait a minute. Isn't it like the omnibus Bill S-6, which is still with this government and has yet to pass? We are still waiting for Bill S-6 to pass. It's the most simple of red tape cutting, not even innovative red tape cutting, MP Davidson. It's only red tape for low-hanging fruit, simple measures that need to be adjusted to eliminate the most burdensome of the smallest pieces of red tape. They can't even seem to get this through or make it a priority to get it through the government. Now we have the Government of Alberta providing this omnibus bill—which should be an example for this government—that “will change 14 pieces of legislation across nine different ministries”, per the Calgary Herald. My goodness. I think there are more departments involved in the ArriveCAN scandal than there are here that will be affected by this change from the United Conservative government in Alberta.
The article goes on: “Among the most prominent changes”—and I want to continue to provide some ideas for the government here, MP Davidson—“is legislation that includes federal employees under trespassing rules, something...[that] is wanted and necessary”. It notes push-back on “virtue signalling” because it is “clarifying that trespass legislation applies to everyone”. That's the main one listed there, but it also talks about changes to transport funding and to firefighter support. Firefighters have been in to see me on several occasions to talk about different pieces of legislation.
This is Bill 9 that I'm referring to. I really think this government should perhaps take a look at what the provincial government has done in Alberta as just a follow-up to the motion that MP Davidson has suggested here today. An omnibus bill would be wonderful in addition to the request that MP Davidson has made. So would passing Bill S-6. It would be a great little start if they could do this.
Again, I'd like to thank MP Davidson for being here today to present this motion to the committee for its consideration. I hope Canadians across the country will be inspired this week to contact their representatives and ask them to cut just one small piece of red tape, one small bit.
11:15 a.m.
Conservative
11:15 a.m.
Conservative
Stephanie Kusie Conservative Calgary Midnapore, AB
That's right. Get a chainsaw and let's cut a piece of red tape across this nation, MP Davidson.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
11:15 a.m.
Conservative
11:15 a.m.
Liberal
Majid Jowhari Liberal Richmond Hill, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I would like to request a 10-minute recess or suspension for us to review the motion and have a discussion.
11:15 a.m.
Liberal
11:25 a.m.
Conservative
11:25 a.m.
Liberal
Majid Jowhari Liberal Richmond Hill, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
This is red tape reduction week, and our government has been committed to working with all parties across all jurisdictions to ensure that we support small businesses. All of the players and stakeholders in this want to make sure that we reduce the red tape to be able to move forward.
We worked with all levels of government effectively during COVID. That's the best testimony. We managed to work effectively and protect the lives of many Canadians. We had the backs of businesses and relaxed a lot of constraints to ensure that small businesses, which seem to be the focus of this motion, were given the support they needed. Also, there was the extension of the CEBA loan and how effectively we worked with other institutions to support them, and even the reduction of the small business tax at the outset when this government came in.
Very much in the true spirit of this motion, or what should have been the spirit of it, we support the reduction of red tape. However, in general, I'll make two or three points that I want highlighted.
One, I think the intent of this is a mix of politics and a bit of promotion on social media. I think the intent of getting a motion like this to the committee and reporting to the House is to bring in a concurrence motion and hold the government back from doing what we are all here to do.
Naturally, as to the preamble about the 2024 red tape report and 92% of small businesses, a lot of this is old data from way back in 2021 and 2022, or it is not in our jurisdiction. I'm not going to get much into the preamble and the relevance of the preamble, because that, to me, is just a social media clip.
The real motion is:
In order to lower costs, and improve services for Canadians, the committee call on the government to immediately reduce the regulatory burden and red tape across all sectors in the economy...within 30 days of this motion...
The scope of this motion is going to warrant a lot of conversation. My colleagues are going to address some of the points that have been made here. As part of the preamble, I believe there's a lot of room to set the story straight.
On that note, I think the scope of this motion and the intent of this motion are misaligned. I look forward to hearing the true scope and the real intent of this motion as we continue our conversation.
Thank you.
11:30 a.m.
Conservative
11:30 a.m.
Liberal
Marcus Powlowski Liberal Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON
Personally, I am not totally averse to this and to the issue of addressing red tape. Red tape is an issue all over the world and at every level of government. It's not like you're dealing with a municipality and suddenly there's no red tape there, or dealing with a province and there's no red tape there. It's not like the federal Liberals invented red tape in the red tape act of 1934. It's been around. It affects every country.
I remember that in law school in administrative law, there was one chapter on regulations. The professor said something to the effect that we have many laws, but in our everyday lives as Canadians, the very rules that affect us most are in regulations. There is such a plethora of regulations all across society, at every level of society, and certainly in Canada we have a lot of them. I remember going to a WHO conference on health legislation where a presenter from Switzerland said that one jurisdiction actually had 35 laws applying to health. Guess where that was: It was Ontario.
We do have a lot of rules. We do have a lot of laws. However, I would point out that in your motion you're combining apples, oranges, bananas and mangoes, and you're throwing in some turnips and potatoes. There are all kinds of stuff in there. You want to look at red tape that's impeding how quickly building projects get approved, red tape involving getting foreign-trained doctors and nurses approved and red tape involving mines. Really, are we going to do this in a month?
Again, it's not like this was the invention of the Liberal Party. I'm sure that under Harper there were various kinds of red tape. This is ubiquitous all across government in general.
I think if you're going to make a good study, you have to narrow down a bit what kind of red tape you're addressing.
11:30 a.m.
Conservative
11:30 a.m.
Liberal
Charles Sousa Liberal Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
This discussion is relevant on a number of points.
In many jurisdictions across Canada.... With the way it's presented, I get it; you guys are trying to get your clip, but the preamble is just that. It's not necessarily relevant to this committee. It is relevant to businesses that are operating and to the economic sustainability of Canada.
We want to be competitive; hence there having been a lot of red tape reduction measures taking place over a number of years. It's part of the annual review to do so. Being red tape week, for us, it's a consequence of every day maintaining Canada's competitiveness in the international market so that we are one of the top destinations for FDI. Canada still attracts foreign direct investment like no other across the world. That's very telling.
It's also very telling that we've taken measures to reduce red tape, yet the Conservatives voted against those very measures, like the accelerator fund. Here we have an opportunity to accelerate, by its very name, the building of new developments. The Conservatives don't see that as worthy, yet that is a measure by which we reduce red tape.
We have had many discussions with provinces to try to facilitate their reduction measures as well. We have aboriginal communities. We have municipal governments that also have consequences of red tape. The collaboration among these different levels of government is crucial to going forward.
Your motion, in essence, is just the last paragraph. I have to read it for those watching on TV so they can appreciate how frankly ridiculous it is. It reads, “In order to lower costs, and improve services for Canadians, the committee call on the government to immediately reduce the regulatory burden and red tape across all sectors in the economy”.
The Canadian government doesn't have jurisdiction over the Alberta government or the Ontario government, which, in collaboration with the federal government, are taking measures to reduce red tape. They want that plan developed and tabled within 30 days of this motion. Well, a plan is already in place. What is happening here, for those who are watching, is the Conservatives are trying to play with the regulatory burden that all of us feel and get frustrated by. We want to take measures to reduce it to improve our competitiveness. That is always the case—not just this week—and it's being done already. They're just duplicating that which is already under way.
Furthermore, you have independent regulatory bodies out there that are at arm's length of government for a reason, like the Ontario Securities Commission. One of the things we wanted to do was bring forward a national co-operative securities commission across Canada. What would that do? It would reduce red tape, lower costs and be competitive for Canadians and foreign investors coming to Canada.
Who voted against that? Conservative provincial governments did. They were opposed to it because they were afraid of losing jurisdictional power, yet what was at stake? It was the competitiveness of Canada and businesses doing work in Canada, including in Alberta and the oil industry.
They had an opportunity to be much more competitive by having a collaborative securities regulator across the country reducing red tape, reducing regulations and reducing government, yet it was the Conservatives who wanted that government to have dual status. Why? It was to create greater burden.
They're speaking from both sides of their mouth. On the one hand, they don't want red tape. On the other hand, they want their little domain protected and they want us to continue to regulate those respective industries. That is a dichotomy.
We will continue, on this side of the House, to look at ways to reduce red tape in a collaborative and efficient manner, and here's why: We already have a number of measures under way to modernize our regulatory process. We have made changes over time and there have been amendments to try to find ways to simplify the process. It is a huge undertaking because there is so much activity across this country with regard to regulatory issues and, for that matter, economic activity. It's a very vibrant country and jurisdiction in the world that competes with other nationalities and other nations, and Canada is winning in many of those cases.
However, I agree we need to be more efficient and reduce some of the burden. We need to find ways to be more competitive. That is always a priority.
They mentioned that there was nothing in the economic statement, but my goodness, there have been red tape discussions in budgets 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021. Every time we talk about the competitiveness with which Canada can attract investment, we talk about red tape reduction and finding ways to be more efficient. We need to be, and it's not just Canada. It's the provinces and the municipalities as well.
We will continue to collaborate, but let's be practical. What's being proposed here is just a show. What needs to be done is something more practical for Canadians and businesses. We also need to protect the very measures for which red tape exists. There are some regulatory matters that pertain to the environment and to people's social well-being and they enable us to protect the lives of Canadians as well.
We have to balance those measures, but you should have accepted the accelerator fund. You should accept measures that are taken to try to speed up some of the process and reduce costs. We have to try to find a way to maintain a better process for supply chain costs so that we can get into the marketplace and be competitive.
Listen, during the 2008 recession, there was a national crisis and a financial crisis across the globe. At that time, a lot of manufacturing was hit and was hit very hard, and a lot of jobs were lost. If it weren't for some of the regulatory engagement that existed with our Canadian banking institutions, we would have been in real trouble. Because of those measures, Canada responded and reacted much more quickly than any other nation. In fact, some of the very holdings and assets that Canadians held were protected as a result of some of those regulatory issues.
We also took steps to support the auto sector. We took steps to further enhance our industry. The federal government at the time stepped up, and so did the Province of Ontario, which was under a Liberal government at the time. We took those steps, contrary to the Conservatives in the province, who said, no, they didn't want to do those kinds of things because we were increasing supports for this industry and were bailing out companies where they didn't feel that should be the case. In the end, we had over a million net new jobs throughout that time. All those jobs that were lost, plus a million more, were brought in because of some of the measures we did to expedite the industry, to stimulate economic growth and to enhance activity, and we did it by being more efficient with less burdensome aspects around the regulatory system.
We need to continue to be that way. We need to continue to be nimble and vibrant. What we don't need are measures and steps that would only create havoc in the system. When I look at the preamble, we get all that stuff and have those discussions, but what you're suggesting by this motion is to get rid of regulatory aspects completely. The idea is, well, which ones? How do you do it and under what conditions? What do you do to protect those individuals?
Alberta wants to be protected as well. When we were trying to reduce the regulatory burden, they were the ones that fought it, and now they're saying, “My gosh, we need to reduce red tape.” Well, of course we need to reduce red tape, but we need to collaborate and we need to work in conjunction with one another to make it effective.
I just find the motion, which is really only the last paragraph, undoable. The plan that exists is the plan we have, so it can be provided in no time, but with regard to adopting certain reductions in regulations, that's an ongoing matter. That will continue to be the case, and we'll continue to make Canada much more competitive as we go forward. Also, it is more appropriate for this to be at the industry and small business committee, where they're dealing with these issues constantly. I would move that we cancel this motion.
Let's continue to fight for a reduction in red tape and continue to be competitive, and let's put the proper committee in place to review this as we go forward.
Thank you.