Mr. Speaker, I commend the member for Churchill on her impassioned speech and her reference to the Westray disaster in Nova Scotia. As a Nova Scotian it means a great deal to have members of parliament from other parts of the country recognize the call for action that is represented by what happened in Westray.
I learned a great deal about consumer power and the power of consumer advocacy from the hon. member for Churchill, even about ethically raised grapes. I would suggest that any farmer or jurisdiction which allows grapes to be raised in an unethical manner will be subject to the wrath of grapes from the hon. member. Further to that I will also recognize that we have global leadership provided by some companies, for instance, on issues of the treatment of animals and animal testing and that sort of thing.
An interesting question dawned on me the other day. There are companies that for years have marketed against animal testing. I think the Body Shop was probably the first company. The other day I was in a pet supply store buying shampoo for my dog. I looked at the label of the dog shampoo and was shocked and appalled because there was no warning against human testing. Perhaps that is another issue for another day in this place and for now we can move forward, but right now my dog is using shampoo that may have been tested on humans. That is clearly a loophole we should seek to fill.
Bill S-11, an act to amend the Canada Business Corporations Act, is a very important and long overdue act. The bill comes to us from the Senate, where it should be noted that a very important amendment was put forth by my colleague, Senator Oliver, and adopted by that House.
Senator Oliver's amendment corrected a major flaw in the act. Before the amendment there was no statutory review of the act, an act that has a major impact on Canada's business framework and indeed on our competitiveness. The amendment was proposed because it is recognized that in a global, hypercompetitive, ever changing economy we cannot leave legislation or a regulatory framework like this untouched for 25 years, as was the case in this instance.
When we are looking at the types of policy frameworks that companies or investors look at when determining where to invest in the world, not only is tax policy important, and it is, or regulatory burden important, and it is, but increasingly issues of corporate governance are moving to the forefront as being extremely important in every country in the world. We need to ensure that we have clear, consistent, up to date policies in that regard that are reflective of those that exist in other countries.
While I am glad to see the government finally move forward on this issue, the fact that it has been 25 years since we have had major updates is unfortunate. I heartily commend the initiative and the amendment of Senator Oliver which will ensure that this does not happen again.
Canadians are battling on a daily basis to attract investment and capital to our country. If we look at the secular decline of the Canadian dollar over the last 30 years, much of that has to do with declining levels of productivity. Productivity is closely related to levels of investment, and when we fail to attract investment usually the consequence is that we fail to develop greater levels of productivity in our country.
Of course that is reflected in our limp loonie, our falling dollar, which continues to be a source of concern if not embarrassment for many Canadians as Canadians see their standard of living decline with the declining dollar. In fact, Canadians are taking a pay cut every time our dollar drops relative to that of the U.S. These are some of the issues we have to consider.
Certainly corporate law administration in Canada has been consistently quite good. On the issue of corporate governance addressed by the legislation, Canada has not had a bad record, but we have failed in many ways to keep up to some of the trends that have occurred in other countries and with our trading partners.
In researching our response to the legislation, I was shocked to find that a 1996 recommendation by the Senate banking, trade and commerce committee to institute a review within 10 years was actually rejected by the industry department. The government's reasoning at the time was this:
The increased recognition of corporate law and corporate governance issues as factors affecting the competitiveness of corporations will likely ensure the continued improvement of corporate laws.
That is a great leap of faith coming from the government. I would argue that where government does have a responsibility in a market driven economy is to set in place the framework within which the private sector and in fact the public sector can work and develop. In not rigorously maintaining and updating its regulations relative to corporate governance issues, the government has clearly abdicated its responsibility in this regard.
This is just one part of competitiveness and one part of the framework required to ensure to investors looking to make investments anywhere in the world that Canada is a good place to do business and that in fact, along with tax policy and regulatory policy, along with these other issues, corporate governance is increasingly important. I would hope that the government would become much more vigilant in evaluating the threats and opportunities in this competitive global environment and would move more proactively in addressing them with legislation in the House.
Again this legislation came to us from the Senate and again it is reflective of some of the very positive benefits of our Senate and of some of the forward thinking and visionary approaches taken by our members in the upper House. I would commend them for their input on this initiative and for their amendments, which in fact have improved the legislation.