While government isn't solely responsible for infrastructure investment, a federal commitment to major, strategic, long-term investments is key to building Canada’s trade infrastructure.
The government's national trade corridors fund is a positive step forward. While it is supporting worthwhile projects, the government must work to increase the speed at which projects receive funding. It must work with business on ensuring transparency for projects and by continuing to demonstrate how funding is helping to address the supply chain challenges of both today and tomorrow.
We need government to lead the development of a vision for Canada's trade infrastructure. This committee's 2019 report on the topic included a number of important recommendations, including protecting industrial lands along trade corridors, the need for regulatory harmonization across jurisdictions and the imperative to ensure environmental assessment timelines do not hamstring our ability to move goods across the country.
A 2021 European Court of Auditors comparison of frameworks for large transportation projects in Canada, Australia, the United States, Switzerland, France, Norway and the European Union noted all but Canada had an overarching transport infrastructure strategic framework.
In addition to vision, we need government to protect our critical supply chains from predictable and preventable threats. While government can't solve all of our supply chain issues, it must put in place policies that will enable trade and strengthen supply chains.
The introduction of Bill C-58, which aims to prohibit the use of replacement workers during strikes, suggests that the government actually wants to move away from preserving stability. In fact, it is doubling down on Canada being seen as an unreliable and unstable trading partner.
Lastly, we need government to commit to accelerating its regulatory modernization agenda.
Regulatory modernization continues to be a growing concern. Businesses who trade interprovincially cite increased red tape and differing certification and technical standards as major obstacles to doing business within Canada. Unfortunately, Canada has a complex network of overlapping regulations from all levels of government that diminish competition, discourage open trade and make everything more expensive.
Regulatory effectiveness is integral to a competitive environment and requires smarter regulation to attract new economic opportunities to Canada. We believe it is imperative that regulators and businesses work together to share perspectives to develop optimal regulatory approaches. An economic lens mandate for regulators would add a new tool that would encourage stable, manageable regulations that support economic growth.
Thank you for your time. I look forward to your questions.