Mr. Speaker, as always, it is an honour to stand up in the House on behalf of my constituents of Surrey North to bring forward their concerns. Today I would particularly like to inform the House that Surrey is on the list of the seven most intelligent communities in the world, so kudos to my city. We always knew that we were very intelligent and we finally made the Intelligent Community Forum list.
I am very proud of my people from Surrey and I am particularly proud of small businesses. As we in the House know, and as we have often heard, it is small businesses that drive this economy. They are the economic engines of this economy from coast to coast.
I have been in the House for over three and a half years now, and I have not seen many initiatives that would actually address the concerns of small businesses in order to ensure that we let them do what they do best, which is to create more jobs and invest in our communities. Bill C-21 has a nice name, “An Act to control the administrative burden that regulations impose on businesses”. I like the title of the bill. If it actually reduced the regulations, that would be welcome on this side of the House, but the fact of the matter is that Conservatives have failed time after time to deliver for our businesses and our communities.
NDP MPs will always look forward to days when we can reduce red tape for our businesses. I was in a business myself before I became a member of Parliament. Unfortunately, I had to sell it, because being a member of Parliament involves quite a bill of work. I can tell members that the amount of red tape and the forms I had to fill out took a lot of time that I could have more productively invested in my business and in hiring more people.
We know the system is broken. We know there is a lot of red tape that small businesses have to jump across. Big businesses have lots of employees. They have HR departments and PR departments. They have many departments. In small businesses, the CEO is the one who actually sweeps the floor at the end of the day. The CEO is the one who handles the paperwork. There is a lot of extra burden on small businesses that could be eliminated, and doing that could actually help small businesses prosper.
When we are looking at reducing red tape for small businesses, we need to ensure that health and safety issues are also addressed and that we are not stripping away the very regulations that protect Canadians. Whether they are health, safety, or environmental issues, those are fundamental. We need to ensure we do not strip those regulations away.
There is a small business group that meets regularly in my community. Whenever I am in Surrey, I attend those meetings. What those small businesses want from the federal government is, first of all, a fair system. I can say from my experience that the exorbitant amount of money we pay to the credit card companies is ridiculous. At the end of the day, we see a $10 Visa transaction, and part of that money is taken away by the credit card company. We know those are high fees. We have been advocating to the government on behalf of businesses to ensure that there is a fair system in place and that the credit card companies are not gouging these small businesses, but this has not been done because the government caved under the Bay Street bullies. It failed to protect consumers, it failed to protect Canadians, and it failed to protect the very small businesses that are the economic engines of this country.
The group also talked about mental health issues in the community. Small businesses want the federal government to provide housing for mentally ill individuals who are out on the street. Some of the businesses are being hurt because these people are sleeping in front of the businesses. These are the kinds of initiatives that small businesses want in our communities. With them, they can do what they know best, which is to grow and create jobs.
They need government assistance to ensure they have the proper tools to expand and hire more workers. Housing for mental health patients is the kind of initiative that the Conservative government has failed to deliver for Canadians and small businesses.
I want to echo what the previous member talked about when it came to postal services. If the government is truly interested in delivering for small businesses, it would not increase the postal service fees imposed, most notably, on small businesses.
Most of the business I attracted, and the business I offered, was through Canada Post. It was fairly efficient and costs were fairly competitive. It allowed me to get my message to out to my customers. The Conservative government has raised that cost. Every bit of cost that is added to small businesses hurts them. It takes them away from the very focus of creating jobs and offering their products to the communities.
Any time there is a reduction in red tape, we on this side of the House will support that. However, the plan of the government would not reduce red tape. It talks about how it would bring in one regulation and eliminate another. The government should be looking at the very regulations we have right now. Eliminate the ones that are red tape. Why do we need to have another regulation to eliminate some of the regulations that are already red tape? We could be more efficient, but the government has failed to realize that.
When we talk about regulations, the government has failed to deliver for small businesses time after time. We will always support the regulations that will protect Canadians and their health and safety concerns. We have seen the regulation of some of the very industries in front of us. If we look at the food and safety industries, we have seen the results of that in Alberta, where thousands of jobs were hurt because the government failed to provide the safety regulations and inspectors to ensure the food was safe. We have seen the cuts in the railway and to the very regulations that provide for safety along the railway corridors. We have seen this erosion not only come from the Conservative government, but from the Liberals, and it keeps going on and on.
If Conservatives were really trying to help the economic engines of the country, the small businesses, it would take the initiative. It would provide leadership.
Another example is the $500 million hiring credit that we supported. We wanted it to go beyond the 2014 budget. The Conservatives eliminated it. Instead, it put in another credit of $500 million, but it created only 800 jobs. According to my math, that is about $75,000 per job. That is how the Conservatives spend the hard-earned money of Canadian taxpayers.
I will again ask the Conservative government to ensure that it makes concrete efforts to help our small businesses, rather than put red tape up in front of them.