Debates of Feb. 3rd, 2015

Red Tape Reduction Act

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is interesting that the member would dispute the numbers of the World Economic Forum and the organizations I referenced, who are bringing forward these numbers, including Stats Canada. It is interesting that the Liberal Party would disagree with these numbers.

With regard to the budget, I can guarantee that we will continue to bring in budgets that will foster economic growth in this country. We will continue to lower taxes for small business. We will continue to reduce taxes for Canadian families.

We know the Liberals have not put out any policy on much, but we do know that they will raise taxes, that they will raise the debt, that they will raise the deficit and they impose a level of taxation that will be unsustainable for Canadian businesses and Canadian families.

[Djaouida Sellah, NDP, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to my colleague on the other side of the House, but I did not hear him talk about anything relevant to small and medium-sized businesses.

I visited SMEs in my riding of Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, and business owners all agree that unnecessary red tape hurts them financially and causes them to lose valuable time.

Why do the Conservatives not eliminate regulations that are not in the public interest, unless it is because these regulations serve their own interests? I would like a straight answer from my colleague on the other side of the House.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I think the member probably missed the opportunity to listen to the speech, because it was centred around the one-to-one rule that will now be legislated.

It is interesting, because she asks about the unnecessary burden of red tape, and I agree. As a matter of fact, when I sat on the Red Tape Reduction Commission, what we heard from Canadian businesses was that it is a costly endeavour to comply with the red tape that is required at the federal, provincial, and municipal levels. It is estimated that it costs businesses across the country about $31 billion to comply with regulation across jurisdictions on an annual basis. This is an incredible burden.

What the NDP, even in this debate, has reinforced time and time again is that it wants to see more red tape. It opposes the one-to-one rule. The one-to-one rule would actually require, as the member calls for, the removal of unnecessary red tape. If a new regulation is brought forward, one would have to be taken away, one that is no longer necessary, so that these small businesses would not have to comply with unnecessary red tape.

I believe that the member desires to see red tape reduced. That is why I call on her to split from her party and actually vote for the bill, which would reduce the amount of red tape for small businesses in her constituency.

[François Lapointe, NDP, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with my colleague from Compton—Stanstead. I will therefore be speaking for just 10 minutes, in order to leave him the other half of my 20 minutes.

I have the honour today to address my colleagues, and those who are kind enough to be watching us on CPAC, on the subject of Bill C-21, An Act to control the administrative burden that regulations impose on businesses.

I would recall at the outset that for a long time, the government called this its bill to reduce—and not to control—red tape. We can already see that there has been some backsliding with respect to the government’s real intent to deal with the problem.

Over the last seven years, a number of ministers have made numerous announcements at various locations in Canada, with much fanfare, to express how eager the government was to attack the administrative burden. The Conservatives said they wanted to reduce what they called “red tape”. They made it into a major obsession, which has unfortunately produced very little in the form of Bill C-21.

However, this is an important issue, not to say a major problem. Roughly $30 billion in time and costs are imposed on SMEs and entrepreneurship in general in Canada with forms and various other requirements. That is a lot of money. For an SME or a business, the situation is even worse in terms of its resources.

When you have more than 100, 125, 200 or 300 employees, you can set up human resources or administrative services where people can focus on administrative requirements. The business thus becomes more efficient, and in proportion to the company’s overall operations, such requirements pose less of a problem.

However, for the owner of a small business that has generated 5, 10, 15, 20 or 30 jobs through hard work, whenever a form or a request from a public servant appears, it is always handled by a single person: the small business owner. It is a heavy burden, especially for small businesses and microbusinesses. It is also a burden for medium-sized businesses, but it is even more serious for small and microbusinesses.

We have to deal with this problem, because 98% of our active businesses in Canada have fewer than 100 employees. Ninety-eight per cent. The category includes people who work very hard and have created jobs, but do not yet have sufficient turnover to have human resources and administrative departments. These people have to shoulder the administrative burden themselves.

Sixty-four per cent of employees in the private sector work in an SME; 64% of people in Canada who are not employed by provincial governments or the federal government work in an enterprise with fewer than 100 employees.

This is the sector of the Canadian economy that creates and maintains the most jobs, and it is these enterprises that have to come up with most of the $30 billion invested in time and trouble because of good old red tape.

In addressing this major and important issue, we unfortunately have serious problems with respect to the bill that is before us at third reading today. The bill embodies the government’s desire to apply the one-to-one rule, which is designed to eliminate a regulation for every new regulation made by the government.

I do not know how many times I have to drive this home. The one-for-one rule always gives nothing more than zero. We are faced with a solution whereby the sum total of what was to be an attack on red tape to liberate Canadian businesses still amounts to nothing more than zero. That is the major solution offered by this bill.

A few weeks ago, we were fortunate to have Kevin Page with us in Parliament. He gave a speech to my colleagues and me. He made a very accurate observation to the effect that when there is a complex issue, someone always thinks of a simple solution. The problem is that it is often a very bad solution.

When I think about the one-for-one rule, I cannot help but think about what Mr. Page said that day. That is exactly what we have here: a simplistic measure.

Another problem with this bill is that the President of the Treasury Board could decide to eliminate regulations. The member for Parry Sound—Muskoka is currently President of the Treasury Board and his record is not entirely spotless when it comes discretionary decisions. Take for example, the $50 million invested in gazebos in Ontario when the G20 leaders were visiting.

It is a serious problem when a bill places so much power in the hands of a single representative of government, particularly when the person who currently holds that position does not have a completely spotless record when it comes to discretionary decisions.

The Conservatives also have a poor track record with respect to workplace health and safety, and the bill says nothing about the environment.

We would not want Bill C-21, which gives the government power to tinker with forms and abolish regulations, to be exploited by a government with a very bad track record. Just think about the train tragedies that have occurred in recent years in Canada. The regulatory management that preceded those accidents was part of the problem, and it was the Conservative government that was in charge. We would not want want Bill C-21 to be used to do away with regulations that are for the common good or important for the environment.

The NDP would like the report to contain clear obligations on how we will ensure accountability in how the government will use this law and in how the stakeholders will be consulted before a regulation is eliminated. It would be very important to give that responsibility to an organization and not just to the President of the Treasury Board.

However, the nine amendments presented by my colleagues in committee were all rejected. That is just another problem with this bill, which seeks to address an important issue. We need to cut red tape, but we do not want to adopt a solution that has no effect. It is therefore difficult for parliamentarians to determine whether this is a worthy bill.

In short, according to a document produced by Industry Canada, red tape decreased by about 11% between 2005 and 2008. The report concluded that employment trends and the decrease in workers' compensation claims were the primary causes. This shows how complex the situation is.

If people are being injured at work and there is no job stability, even if we reduce the administrative burden, we will not decrease red tape. If business owners are constantly having to replace employees and if these employees are getting injured every three days, there will be no decrease in red tape. Business owners will have to deal with all kinds of hassles. This is a much bigger and more complex problem.

There are solutions, but they would require a lot more work and co-operation. For example, Belgium is working on digital solutions. Business owners send their papers in electronically, so they are not forced to send them every time a government official has a question.

Furthermore, some European countries have created statuses for microbusinesses. These countries are trying to cut red tape for people who are getting into business and who have only about 10 employees. These companies get a special tax status to make their lives easier. There are solutions that would have an impact.

Those solutions are not in this bill, and it has a number of problems. I will have to continue to think on this bill.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to my hon. colleague.

Bill C-21 is yet another bill in which the government passes off fluff for action. It is as if the government has created itself as Don Quixote and is going to go after windmills called red tape.

The government has systematically attacked the basic systems that are in place to ensure a viable economy. One example is its attack on the environmental legislation, which stripped all of the water protections, and the government's dumbed-down idea that it would somehow make it easier to get the pipelines approved. Then it has run into one bit of opposition after another because there are no clear rules in place.

The Conservative government is afraid to bring in a budget. It cannot have a plan and cannot even count the money, and yet it has created this false attitude that it is going after red tape.

Could my hon. colleague tell me why he thinks we are wasting time on a bill like this flop, rather than dealing with clear issues like the budget and protecting citizens?

[François Lapointe, NDP, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for the question. He shares my concerns.

I said before that we fear that this legislation, which can be used to play around with the regulations, might be exploited once it gets in the hands of the Conservatives. We saw them do this with the environment. For example, I do not know how many hundreds of rivers were protected in Canada. Now there are hundreds that are no longer protected. My colleague shares my concerns.

The other part of the problem is the incredible inaction on the part of this government when it comes to finding real solutions that could help small businesses. Taxes have been greatly reduced for big business.

However, practically no tax cuts have been given to SMEs. The opposite should have happened over the past seven or eight years. Why? Because when we give SMEs some breathing room, then they are less likely to take their money and invest it somewhere in Asia or who knows where. They are more likely to create jobs. That is what the government should have done.

Again, this is a meaningless solution for SMEs. Nonetheless, there are some really great structural solutions that would truly help SMEs, which the Conservatives are doing absolutely nothing for.

[Marc-André Morin, NDP, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I think the reality must be the same in my colleague's riding.

Red tape is not the only problem small businesses are facing. In my riding, what I have seen and what entrepreneurs have told me is that people have lost seasonal employees because of the cuts to employment insurance. Those entrepreneurs have had a hard time getting workers to come and fill an essential need. There are plenty of ways to hurt businesses in addition to harassing them with endless red tape.

I would like my colleague to say a few words about that.

[François Lapointe, NDP, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague referred to employment insurance reform, which is totally out of touch with what is going on in so many industries, particularly in eastern Canada and Quebec. That is certainly causing problems. It also relates to another comment I had.

If circumstances are such that a business has to hire new employees every six months, there could easily be a shorter form for when employees are replaced. However, if the form has to be changed every time, that will result in more paperwork, not less. It is like I was saying before.

There is another unbelievable phenomenon happening in my riding. It is so hard to manage the innovation tax credit that a significant proportion of small and medium-sized businesses no longer bother to claim it and have given up on some of their efforts to innovate.

In many cases, it is medium-sized businesses, not small ones, that have managed to keep claiming the tax credit. I have asked them if it is that hard for them to do. They have told me that the administrative hassle costs them between 30% and 35% of the amount they get back. I have asked them if there is really more paperwork. They have told me no, but the government checks and double-checks their answers, and they have to call an official 18 times, and the official challenges everything they submit.

Officially, the program does not involve any more red tape. However, the program is now managed in such a convoluted way that small businesses are, for the most part, abandoning their efforts to innovate. That is really bad for the country's economy in the medium and long terms. There are all kinds of examples like that one.

Once again, Bill C-21 is a long way from fixing this problem.

[Jean Rousseau, NDP, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the subject today affects many more businesses across Canada than we might think.

I am simply going to take the example of the manufacturing sector, which plays a key role in Canada. It once accounted for 65%, but it is now 50%; it is declining somewhat. In that segment, we find not just companies with 500 or more employees. From one end of my riding to the other, there are companies with five or 15 or 50 employees. These manufacturing entrepreneurs need an appropriate operating framework. They have enough competition at the international level. Today, no sector of economic activity, whether in Canada or elsewhere on the planet, can be exclusive to one region, one riding or one country any longer. Everything is global these days. You produce something, a natural resource, and it can be processed or manufactured anywhere on the planet.

I am talking about the manufacturing sector, but there are other sectors such as agriculture or retail, which now has to adjust to e-commerce. What is needed is a genuinely flexible framework. Bureaucracy and red tape, as it is called today, are certainly part of operating a business. However, I have sometimes had businessmen or businesswomen tell me that they had to spend one day a week doing nothing but administration. They had to fill out reports: one for the environment, another for workers’ compensation, because there is also bureaucracy at the provincial level. Put it all together and it adds up to a lot. People have to be able to operate their businesses in a sound environment and, most importantly, a competitive environment.

Bill C-21, An Act to control the administrative burden that regulations impose on businesses, is intended as a response from this Conservative government to the Canadians and the small and medium-sized businesses that have often voiced their concerns about the expanding administrative burden that regulations impose on the cost of doing business in Canada. If we want to prosper, we must really have an attractive framework.

The government therefore wants to institute the one-for-one rule. As my colleague said earlier, plus one minus one equals zero. You do not have to be very good at mathematics to understand that calculation: 1 - 1 = 0. However, the one-for-one rule must not interfere with public health or safety. There is an environmental framework and a framework for public health and safety. It applies mainly to employees but can also relate to the cleanliness of food processing. This must all be as transparent as possible.

Once again, they are going to give a minister, Mr. Gazebo, some latitude, rely on his judgment, and trust him to reduce administrative burdens and make decisions about this subject. I am sorry, but the Conservatives and Liberals really do not have a good track record in this regard, particularly when it comes to regulations that protect Canadians’ health and safety. I stress this again. We have seen very clearly the disastrous consequences for the environment and public safety that deregulation has had for the Canadian public in recent years.

Regulations that are in the public interest should be retained, of course. What needs to be done is to closely monitor the aggravating factors and the factors that are mitigating and user-friendly for businesses and business owners.

Bill C-21 seems to disregard that obligation. We would have liked to have assurances that deregulation will not apply to regulations that affect health and safety and, most importantly, the environment.

If the Conservatives really wanted to help small businesses, they would have supported the NDP’s proposal to create an ombudsman position to deal with issues such as the excessive credit card fees that the big banks unfairly charge merchants. This is an ineffective injustice that my colleague fromMontmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup has been battling vehemently since he first came to the House.

Small and medium-sized businesses create most of the new jobs in Quebec and Canada, not only in the major centres, but also outside the urban areas. In addition, small businesses make those regions thrive. Unfortunately, small businesses and the regions outside urban areas get very little attention from this Conservative government. The Prime Minister and his key ministers have completely ignored them at the expense of big businesses, the ones that have been given billions of dollars in tax cuts. We see what happens when you favour a single sector of economic activity, with the price of oil falling. The Conservatives find themselves in a precarious position, making it up as they go. They are no longer even capable of producing a budget in real time, something that is essential to help Canadian business owners across the country.

I talked about the fiscal and administrative environments as well as the actual environment. When someone operates a business, we want them to do so in a way that respects the environment. Of course, the government also deregulated that. It said it would let project proponents self-regulate. Canada is one of the only countries in the world that lets everyone do almost whatever they want, wherever they want, whenever they want. Furthermore, the provinces have tried to protect themselves when it comes to natural resources, just in case the federal government is unable to impose an environment that is not highly regulated, but that people respect.

Thinking clearly about what is happening also means having a healthy, clear and successful framework. I am thinking of future generations. That is what is so aggravating about this. Future generations do not have an environment in which they will be able to develop our natural resources without polluting. If you add this to our changing demographics and our aging population, it is going to be a disaster. We were talking earlier about renewing our workforce. Businesses have a real challenge on their hands. The workforce, the next generation, the men and women who want to be part of this prosperous Canada should have the opportunity to do so, and they should be able to run businesses even in areas where crops cannot be grown as they once were here in Canada. There are areas where climate change is preventing people from farming the same way they did in the past.

The regulatory framework in which most businesses in Canada will operate is made up of nearly 2,500 regulations spread over more than 15 departments. These cover everything from agricultural businesses to R and D companies researching the energy of the future. Business people across Canada need to dedicate a huge amount of time, money and consultation to complying with these regulations.

At present, red tape is preventing the collective growth of entrepreneurship. The need to prove that they comply with regulations by collecting, processing and retaining information, preparing reports and filling out forms is such that it discourages many people from actively taking the reins of businesses across the country. I talked about demographic changes. That will be the result if there is not an appropriate framework.

This small bill, which is truly small, contains about 11 clauses. In actual fact, there are only four. It is a question of semantics. It does not address the real problems, which cause quite a few headaches for Canadian entrepreneurs.

In closing, it is not until the NDP comes to power in 2015 that things will change and entrepreneurs will prosper.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board]

Mr. Speaker, I have to say to the member opposite that I really enjoyed his speech. He was all over the map, just like his party is on this issue.

On one point, we had a member get up previously to say how filling out EI forms is red tape, yet the NDP is constantly saying that it supports having a strong EI system so that people can get the help they need. We try to balance everything so that at the end of the day, entrepreneurs can do what they do best, which is build their businesses.

However, I will just come back to this member in particular.

First of all, the NDP has been completely unclear as to whether or not it is going to support this bill. Could that member show some leadership and please say yes or no? Could he say whether the NDP will be supporting or not supporting the bill?

Second, the NDP claims to be the party that supports evidence-based decision-making. The one-for-one rule has reduced 250,000 man-hours of work that entrepreneurs needed to do in order to submit forms to the federal government. It has saved over $30 million. Does the member realize that the administrative burden is decreasing on small business or not?

[Jean Rousseau, NDP, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

Mr. Speaker, when it comes to the math, you will really have to bring the Conservatives up to speed because the one-for-one rule always equals zero.

Although my colleague says that $30 million has been saved with a bill such as this one, that is surely not enough to save the hundreds of thousands of jobs lost after the economic downturn. That is a fact. It means that they did not do enough.

The NDP will be the only party to do enough to restore Canada's international reputation.

[Robert Chisholm, NDP, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my colleague's intervention and the wisdom of the advice that he offered to this chamber, especially in the face of some of the rather insulting questions that came from the other side.

In particular, I want to ask him to expand a bit more on the fact that if the government was convinced that it could reduce red tape and could get rid of useless regulation, why has it not done it? Why does it need to bring in another bill, with more regulations, at more cost to government, and with more delay? Why is it that the current government just cannot get the job done?

[Jean Rousseau, NDP, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

Mr. Speaker, business owners tell us that it is always the same story: the federal government keeps asking them for more. What they want is less. One-for-one will always equal zero. Zero does nothing to help business owners who want to their businesses to prosper.

As I said, international competition is fierce. Business owners want to keep their businesses, they want their businesses to remain prosperous and they want the regions across Canada to thrive and contribute to Canada's economic prosperity. However, that is not what is happening at all.

Earlier we heard about employment insurance. Are members aware that it is not eight out of ten but just three out of ten applicants who receive the EI they are entitled to? That is because the decisions almost always have to be appealed. It is always a long administrative process. In the end, people get discouraged and give up. That is not what we want for Canadians across the country

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board]

Mr. Speaker, I certainly appreciate that the member gets really jumpy when we ask him to make a decision. Does he support a reduced burden upon small business?

The previous member who asked him a question gave him the biggest softball I have ever seen. Does the member realize that this bill would enshrine a policy that has been enacted by the government for two years, saving entrepreneurs over 200,000 hours and over $30 million collectively? Would the member stand in his place and say whether or not he supports small business, yes or no?

[Jean Rousseau, NDP, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I think that the member has spent far too much time in his senior minister's gazebo.

That is not what business owners across Canada are telling us at all. They are telling us that we need to be aggressive about the current situation. This means cutting red tape for them. That is not what is happening. the government wants to reduce the administrative burden. I can confirm that. We support that goal, but not with a bill like this one. This bill does not do anything meaningful to ease the burden on administrators and accountants.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Joe Comartin]

Order. It is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 38, to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord, Employment; the hon. member for York South—Weston, Rail Transportation.

Resuming debate. The hon. member for Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel.

[Mylène Freeman, NDP, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, before I begin, I would like to let you know that I will be sharing my time with the member for Chambly—Borduas.

I am pleased to rise to speak to Bill C-21 because this gives me an opportunity to talk about how important small businesses are to me and my riding and about why we should support them.

Specialized industries and big businesses should not be the only beneficiaries of our desire to support our economy. We need to recognize that small businesses are central to our economy. I will explain why. Small businesses are one of our biggest drivers of economic growth. We have to help them thrive. Small businesses already account for nearly half of Canada's GDP, and they are responsible for close to 60% of all jobs in Canada as well as 75% of net new jobs. When the economy is in a downturn and fewer jobs are being created as we lose big companies, small businesses are the ones making a difference and creating jobs, especially in rural and remote areas. As a result, they are very important and create 75% of net new jobs.

We in the NDP believe that SMEs should be a priority for any federal government, because they directly support job creation. That is why we proposed reducing the small-business tax rate from 11% to 9% during the last federal election. That measure directly targeted SMEs. We also proposed other simple, concrete measures to help SMEs. For instance, we proposed expanding the hiring tax credit for small businesses. The Conservatives cancelled it in 2014, which was really sad to see, because it meant taking away a tax credit that created jobs and helped people enter the workforce. There are 1.3 million unemployed Canadians. Eliminating this kind of hiring credit that created jobs was a move in the wrong direction. At the same time, in the most recent budget, the Conservatives spent $500 million to implement measures that, according to the Parliamentary Budget Officer, will create only about 800 jobs. Clearly, that is not a good investment.

Furthermore, youth unemployment is very high. It is actually double the national average. We need to take a closer look at that in order to reverse that trend. Everyone knows that our youth are Canada's future. As parliamentarians, we have to invest in their future. That is why we proposed a tax credit worth up to $2,000 for hiring young people, in order to help businesses train young people aged 18 to 25 and provide them with good jobs.

In addition to all of that, as part of our campaign to make life more affordable, we proposed ways to reduce operating costs for our retailers and merchants, by directly tackling the anti-competitive credit card fees imposed by credit card companies. The Conservatives introduced a voluntary code of conduct recently, but that is not enough to reduce credit card transaction fees. We in the NDP are concerned about the excessive fees that businesses have to pay, since they can amount to 1, 2 or 3% of sales.

The exorbitant fees charged by credit card companies do not help our communities. That is money that comes directly out of our communities and will not be reinvested. A ceiling needs to be imposed to make these fees more equitable for the companies, but especially for our merchants. That would be fairer to the families who are trying to make ends meet.

These proposals truly support the entrepreneurs in my region whether they have just started their company or have been in business for decades. I travel around my riding and talk about these proposals, which are very well received by the Vallée de la Petite-Nation chamber of commerce and the chamber of commerce and industry of Deux-Montagnes, Saint-Eustache, Sainte-Marthe-sur-le-Lac, Mirabel and Argenteuil. These proposals will directly affect business owners in my riding.

In a riding like mine, a big part of the economy is based on agriculture and agri-food, and most of the business owners work in that field as well. These farmers are at the heart of our rural areas and a job creation strategy in the rural areas and small communities. I wanted to point that out because we have to think beyond taxes and red tape. We also have to think about what we can do to encourage and support our farmers.

The bill before us, Bill C-21, An Act to control the administrative burden that regulations impose on businesses, is meant to reduce red tape for businesses. The Conservatives are proposing to do that by giving more power to the Treasury Board. That is where they start to take away the SMEs' power to create jobs.

We still want to find ways to reduce the administrative burden on SMEs and allow them to focus on what they do best, namely growing their business and creating jobs. However, the NDP wants to prevent the government from eliminating rules regarding health, food safety, transportation safety, management systems and the environment. It is not unreasonable to ask the government to protect the environment, workers and our food.

We are concerned that the measures introduced to concentrate power in the Treasury Board are not steps in the right direction. We do not trust that the Conservatives will do a good job. In closing, I will provide two examples.

First, in the October 2013 budget implementation bill, Bill C-4, the Conservatives made changes to the Canada Labour Code in order to gut the powers of health and safety officers in federal workplaces. They are directly compromising Canadians' health and safety.

Second, they do not necessarily want to reduce red tape because they increased the paper burden with the building Canada fund. We do not know how they can be trusted. When they have the opportunity to take occupational health and safety seriously, they do not do so, and when they say that they want to reduce red tape, they make more for our municipalities, which also create jobs.

For all those reasons, I cannot support this bill.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the member made a great deal of reference to small businesses and how we should support them, and she referred to taxes and so forth.

Last fall the federal government came up with its so-called initiative, the small business job credit program, which in a bizarre way encouraged some small businesses to look at laying off staff.

On the other hand, the Liberal Party came up with the EI premium exemption, which was widely accepted outside of political circles as a program that would have generated tens of thousands of jobs for every region of the country. The NDP balked at the Liberal proposal back then, and we raised concerns with respect to what degree the New Democrats were committed to supporting small business.

This is a fairly small and relatively insignificant bill in terms of moving forward on dealing with regulations. However, from what I understand, the small business community has come out in support of the legislation.

My question to the member is this. When the small business community supports the legislation as a small step forward, why would the NDP not support that initiative?

[Mylène Freeman, NDP, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, unfortunately, I did not have a lot of time to consider that, but I believe that it is simply because we do not trust the Conservatives when it comes to Canadians' health and safety.

Why would we trust them to abolish regulations? We have to give SMEs more power to create jobs, but we have to do that by investing in them, as I clearly outlined in my speech. That is what SMEs really want.

I always find it interesting to hear the Liberals talk about employment insurance. We must remember that they raided the employment insurance fund. Honestly, in a riding like mine, many seasonal workers must now live with the consequences. They are told that there is no more money in the fund or that they will not have access to it, or they are treated as though they have not been looking for work. It is very insulting.

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate my hon. colleague on her speech and on the excellent work she is doing for her constituents and small businesses, as she explained. She has been travelling around her riding, which is her job, and meeting with chambers of commerce.

She talked about what would help small businesses, and it is not this little bill, which is a real joke, a total farce. It is a fraud, actually. It will not really cut red tape. Yes, we need to cut red tape, but we also need to help small businesses.

The member did a good job of explaining several concepts, and I would like her to clarify how we, the New Democrats, can help small businesses. What is the NDP's plan for helping small businesses?

[Mylène Freeman, NDP, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the worst part is that the Conservatives know what they could be doing. They cancelled the hiring tax credit for small businesses. We wanted to enhance it because it would have created direct jobs.

It would be easy for the government to change the credit card fees that big corporations charge businesses, and that would have a direct impact not only on businesses but on all Canadians.

Regulation is not bad in and of itself, but the Conservatives see it that way. Unfortunately, that attitude has gotten us into some difficult situations. For example, if the rail safety reports produced by the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities had been implemented, then what happened in Lac-Mégantic could have been avoided.

This aversion to regulations is actually a threat to the health and safety of Canadians. We have reached the point where we can no longer trust the Conservatives. We have no choice but to oppose this bill. Unfortunately, the Conservatives are allergic to regulations. This should not be about getting rid of regulations; it should be about finding the best way to protect Canadians and create jobs at the same time.

[Matthew Dubé, NDP, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

Mr. Speaker I also have the pleasure of speaking to Bill C-21, which addresses the administrative and financial burden imposed on our small and medium-sized businesses. This is quite clearly a matter that affects all of us, because we all have such businesses in our communities.

In my constituency of Chambly—Borduas, I belong to two chambers of commerce and industry: the Chambre de commerce et d'industrie du bassin de Chambly, and the Chambre de commerce et de l'industrie de la Vallée-du-Richelieu. The latter is an example of one of the newest and fastest-growing chambers of commerce in Quebec, and indicates what a strong upswing we are currently enjoying.

With respect to the Chambly chamber of commerce, we also know that with assistance from the Quartier Dix30 centre, good work is being done to promote the services available in the regions and municipalities in the Chambly basin.

When you talk to these people, you can be sure that they will all tell you the same thing, regardless of where they come from, their riding or the circumstances on the ground. They all want us to reduce the tax burden and cut red tape. If we are going to do that, however, we have to do it right. When I talk about doing it right, the example that comes to mind does not involve small and medium-sized businesses, but it says a lot about the approach taken by the Conservatives. I am referring to the report of the parliamentary budget officer of the time, which talked about cuts the Conservatives had made. They said they had to reduce the size and cost of government. They talked about austerity, and so on. We realized, and the parliamentary budget officer demonstrated this, that because of these cuts, we reduced services to citizens but did not really reduce the size of government, improve its efficiency, or actually reduce costs all that much.

When we consider this example, we realize that we all want the same thing. We all want to reduce an unnecessary burden. At the same time, however, it has to be done in an intelligent and effective way. We supported Bill C-21 at second reading and it went to committee. Some 12 amendments were proposed, but none was accepted. The very purpose of those amendments was to make our approach more coherent.

As my colleague from Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel so rightly put it, regulation in itself is not a bad thing. We just need regulation that is intelligent. For example, when we talk about the safety of a company’s employees, the safety of Canadians, health, protection of the environment and all such matters, these are things we want to improve, things that must be in place and must be properly managed and regulated. However, at the same time, we have to find ways of reducing the tax burden.

The problem with Bill C-21 is not only that there is no oversight of those issues, but also that the bill gives the president of the Treasury Board too many discretionary powers. From what we have seen, the current President of the Treasury Board is incapable of making good decisions that effectively reduce the existing burden of our small and medium-sized businesses.

In terms of reducing the tax burden, it is important to raise a number of points to confirm and explain the NDP's approach to this issue. I had an opportunity to raise these points with the Chambre de commerce et d'industrie du bassin de Chambly. About 100 people attended a conference that I offered to the entrepreneurs of part of my riding to explain our approach. First and foremost, this approach involves reducing taxes for small and medium-sized businesses. We often talk about this, and it is extremely important.

The example that proves that we can walk the talk is Manitoba. After five majority NDP governments, the tax rate for small and medium-sized businesses is 0%. That speaks volumes about our approach. We realize that they are the economic driver of our communities. We must legislate or not legislate—or, in this case, impose or not impose legislation—accordingly.

The other issue is the hiring tax credit. This measure was introduced by this government, but unfortunately it was cut in the last budget. We wanted to see a new and improved version of it. We even used it as a basis for a proposal that I had the chance to make a little over a year ago with my colleague from Parkdale—High Park. We proposed a similar tax credit that also applied to the hiring of young people. After all, there is a problem not just with youth unemployment, but also with youth underemployment.

A Statistics Canada report indicated last year that an increasing number of well-educated young people are struggling to find work that matches their qualifications and talents. We proposed providing a tax credit to SMEs to create new jobs, not just replace their employees with younger workers.

The credit sought to encourage growing businesses to hire and train young workers, who would become contributing members of our communities and our economy for the future. This is just as important for the SMEs as it is for everyone in our communities.

After all, we can see a domino effect among young people. When families of consumers settle outside urban centres, that leads to new businesses and new schools in the area and to all sorts of positive effects that contribute to our communities. I have seen this in my constituency, which has some of the fastest-growing municipalities in Quebec. There are growing numbers of young families where I live.

We are not just talking about a tax credit to reduce the tax and administrative burden on small and medium-sized businesses; we are also talking about the notorious credit card fees. We talk about that all the time. The Conservative government is happy to rely on a voluntary code of conduct for these companies, which means that we have to rely on the good faith of these companies. That very rarely translates into concrete results.

The measures the NDP is proposing are the result of consultations with the small and medium-sized businesses that come to see us in our constituencies and in Ottawa. They come to see the NDP members and the members from all the other parties to tell us that this code of conduct is not working.

This is a concrete way of minimizing the burden that would not require major changes and that the government could implement very quickly. It would put substantial shares of profits into the pockets of small and medium-sized business, which in turn would contribute to job creation and economic growth in our regions and our communities.

There is also the question of the different employment insurance schemes. Here again, we saw a ridiculous proposal from the government. It proposed astronomical spending to create very few jobs, while at the same time dipping into the employment insurance fund to finance this measure, as the Liberals did before the Conservatives.

The employment insurance fund belongs to the employees and employers. Spending those funds in such a cavalier manner for the sake of good headlines on the eve of an election is not a very intelligent approach. They tell us that this bill is a step in the right direction, when all it does is give more powers to the President of the Treasury Board.

I will repeat what some of my colleagues have already said. We can no longer trust in the Conservatives’ approach. We have a plan for small and medium-sized businesses. When I interact with entrepreneurs, because I participate regularly in the activities of the chambers of commerce in my constituency, they tell me that they fully support that approach. We are going to continue to fight for it in the House.

We cannot support an approach that so far has not worked and has not produced the desired results. That is why we put forward our proposals.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the member made a good point when he talked about the importance of regulations, whether they be health and safety or environmental regulations. Health, safety and the environment are important reasons why we have regulations.

Many regulations complement Canada's ability to export products. We spend a lot of time talking in this place about small businesses. Regulations with respect to the qualify of our food products enable us to export much more. There is no doubt that regulations are of great value.

My question for the member relates to the literally tens of thousands of regulations. Surely to goodness the member would acknowledge that at least one regulation has become somewhat dated. From what I understand, the small business community in Canada has tentatively looked at the legislation and has said that it is not perfect. It is far from perfect. The member said that he supported the bill at second reading to try to get some amendments made to it.

The bill is a small step and one we are not overly encouraged about. Why would the member oppose the bill if it is at the very least a small step that small business seems to like?

[Matthew Dubé, NDP, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the member is absolutely right. We could definitely do a lot to alleviate some of the burden on small and medium-sized businesses.

There are some important regulations. The problem we have is that when we talk about safety, security or those good regulations, for lack of a better way of putting it, we have to regulate intelligently. There is no reason to trust the Conservatives. The President of the Treasury Board up to this point has not proven himself able to appropriately deal with more power.

The best example in the legislation is the one-for-one rule where one rule is removed for every new rule. We are being asked as legislators to take it on blind faith that the one-for-one rule will be applied appropriately when there is no guarantee that the government will not touch rules and regulations as it has done in the past, whether it was with respect to rail safety or food safety, issues that affect our everyday lives. No small or medium-sized business, no constituent of mine and definitely no constituent of any member of the House would see us get rid of those rules and regulations.

We definitely agree that something needs to be done about regulations. However, we will not find the proper solutions by letting the President of the Treasury Board go nuts on this. We will find the proper solutions by putting forward concrete proposals that will really alleviate the burden on small and medium-sized businesses in our country.

[Djaouida Sellah, NDP, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague and almost-neighbour from Chambly—Borduas.

I know that he works hard, since I have seen him first-hand, and I thank him for his relevant and logical speech.

In their 2014 budget, the Conservatives acknowledged that the transaction fees imposed on Canadian businesses were among the highest in the world and they promised to take action.

The result is that credit card companies only have to take measures on a voluntary basis. We have learned over the years that the Conservatives love self-regulation and allowing businesses to implement their own measures.

This shows that the Conservatives do not plan on standing up for SMEs and Canadian consumers when it could be detrimental to Bay Street interests.

The NDP called for the creation of an ombudsman to regulate the credit card fees that card issuers charge merchants.

Why does my colleague think that the Conservatives will not accept that suggestion?