Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Richmond—Arthabaska.
The PC Party of Canada supports making legislation that simplifies our lives and the lives of business owners. However there are matters that need to be addressed in the legislation.
I thank the hon. member from Manitoba for acknowledging it was the Progressive Conservative Party that introduced and brought forward the free trade legislation.
We are happy to see the Liberal government has realized our initiatives on free trade in the late 1980s are so important, a lead that it continues to follow. Our initiated agreement made trade between countries competitive, boosted economic success and began to tear down the walls that hindered successful open trade transactions between countries.
At that time the Liberals did everything in their power to oppose the initiative. Today we witnessed something else. What was so profusely objected to almost 10 years ago is today the largest bill on our shelves and the biggest factor in the contributing of tax revenues to the recovery of our economy.
While we are flattered the government of the day continues to carry out our initiatives and our tariff agreements that we put in place when we were in government, there are several important factors to be considered.
Just a few weeks ago the government was reprimanded for the untimeliness of the year 2000 project. How can we expect modern innovation from the Liberals when the bill is distributed in paper form instead of CD-ROM? The documents are composed of about a foot and a half of paper. In the last couple of days we have heard about the importance of the environment. This is truly an unfriendly environmental document.
Let us look at the size of the bill. Instead of setting an example and proving that we are moving into the 21st century, our offices are cluttered with these volumes.
Perhaps my most important message today is that this is the beginning, not the end. We cannot stop now with the progress that we have made because the bill has been simplified. Work still needs to be done.
I ask the government to commit to continuing with the work in progress, to continue developing trade agreements with our partners, to look ahead to the global marketplace and to achieve a standard of excellence with our trading partners. This means the government must continue to promote trade and encourage business development in Canada. It is imperative that taxes in all areas be competitive.
While we know that industry generally supports the bill, we also know it has qualms about it. First and foremost is the sense of urgency being placed on the bill. The Canadian Importers Association is concerned with its speedy passage as it says importers will not have enough time for what will be a very time consuming and costly exercise. The Alliance of Manufacturers & Exporters also shares this concern. It states that it is a scary exercise and there is very little time to do the programming it needs.
Unlike the government that has known about the year 2000 problem for the last five years, perhaps we should give businesses a month or two leeway to implement the bill.
These are the affected parties. We demand that the government listen to their concerns and continue with the theme of simplification. If we are to simplify the process we need to continue with their agreement and simplify the lives of business owners. We will hold the government accountable and demand that it listen to the suggestions that have been received.
The recurring message we are hearing from the business community with respect to the uneasiness it faces is related to the delivery and the implementation of the tariff simplification initiative. While it supports the elimination of regulation and business procedures, it is deeply affected by the timing of the bill. It feels quite rushed and that it has not been granted enough time to prepare for the upcoming changes and enormous challenges it must face.
This is the most complex tariff system in the world. We know it and our trading partners know it. I urge the government to consider the huge tasks that lie ahead for importers in Canada and demand they be given time to adopt to the enormous changes ahead.
Since the Liberal government obviously agrees with us on the importance of free trade, why do its members not agree with us on simplifying the lives of businessmen, simplifying the lives of Canadians, decreasing red tape, lessening government interference, simplifying Bill C-11 and agreeing with changes to the complexity and short term allowances given to these important businesses?
The PC Party stands for less red tape, less government interference, less government involvement in people's lives, more power to businesses and more power to the people.