Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-53, the Canada small business financing act at third reading. It is clear that the government's passage of this bill has been driven by its need to have the regulations in place by December 1. That is why the bill was rushed through committee, faulty regulations and all. That is why the Liberals moved time allocation and limited debate at report stage and third reading.
This bill has many faults which Reform MPs were willing to help correct. The principled amendments concerning the regulatory process that we brought forward will not be dealt with. Efforts to stop the program from expanding into the volunteer sector will not be given due consideration.
The government has shown a willingness and is all too eager to ram through legislation at the expense of reasoned debate. Its rationale seems to be that there is no need to hear what anyone else has to say, that it knows what is best and pass the legislation as is. It is typical Liberal arrogance.
I wonder if the irony of this situation is not lost on Liberal members of this House. After all they were the ones who cried foul every time the Progressive Conservatives used closure during their nine year reign of error. To date, after five years the Liberals have used this procedural hammer twice as often as their Conservative counterparts ever did. I never thought I would see the day when the Conservatives would look more democratic than the Liberals, but there it is. Another example of the Liberals saying and doing one thing in opposition and then doing quite another once in power.
Indeed the Liberal government has entirely failed this House. By moving time allocation it has once again shown its utter contempt for the democratic process. It has once again moved to limit debate and consultation. In doing so the Liberals have failed Canadians once again.
In relation to Canadian small business, the government has also failed miserably. Within this legislation which will replace the Small Business Loans Act, the Liberals are using a band-aid approach when what is really needed is major surgery.
According to the Canadian Federation of Independent Business and the auditor general, access to reasonable financing is an impediment to growth in the small business sector. The other major obstacle is high taxes and this government's irresponsible approach to economic planning.
What the Canadian Federation of Independent Business and every small business owner will also tell us is that entrepreneurs need access to equity, not more debt. Let me see if I can make this any clearer for the Liberal members of this House even though they are usually not prepared to listen anyway.
Let us say that a Canadian wishes to open a small business. The problem is, like many other hardworking Canadians, they do not have the capital resources to do so. If they do manage to open a business on their limited resources, tax and spend Liberal governments will ensure that it is not a profitable venture.
The point I am trying to make is that in addition to killing jobs, taxes also kill business ventures. High taxes reduce the opportunity for existing small businesses to expand. High taxes kill individuals' dreams to open up a business. High taxes, not access to debt, are the problem.
What do the Liberals offer as a solution? One would think they would offer to cut personal income taxes so that individuals would have access to more of their own capital equity. One would also think that the government would cut payroll taxes such as employment insurance or CPP. A reasonable person might also believe that a government interested in stimulating growth in small and medium size enterprises would cut capital gains taxes. But no, rather than tackling the fundamental economic problems inherent in this economy, Liberals instead choose to apply a taxpayer guaranteed loans program, the result of which is to skewer the playing field in the marketplace.
What is the legitimate role for government? The first thing that should be done is to determine whether there is a legitimate market failure. In that regard the performance of this government is abysmal.
What has the government done to quantify the degree to which access to financing for small business is a problem? How extensively has the government reviewed the performance of Canadian banks in this respect?
Instead of answering these questions, instead of being proactive and demonstrating leadership, what do we see from this Liberal government? We see it tinkering with yet another fundamentally flawed government program. Despite the fact that the government has not quantified the problem of access to financing by small business, we can safely assume that a problem does exist.
Improved growth of small business would clearly have a beneficial effect on the economy, lower unemployment, more disposable income, et cetera. How do we achieve this? Again we need to ask ourselves what are the obstacles which truly inhibit the growth of small business?
Once again, in case the Liberal and NDP members of this House missed it, the obstacles to growth are excessive employment insurance premiums, high levels of taxation and a banking system that lacks competition. It is also a regulatory burden that hinders the growth of small business. The obstacles to growth are not a lack of government programs or a bureaucracy that is too small. Unfortunately this Liberal government has been unable to recognize this very simple fact.
Instead of taking measures that would clearly have a positive impact on every small business owner in Canada, the government is more preoccupied with changing the name of the Small Business Loans Act to the Canada small business financing act.
The fundamental flaw with this Liberal government is that it does not understand the most basic economic principle. A dollar left in the hands of a consumer, investor, entrepreneur or taxpayer is far more productive than that same dollar sent off to Ottawa to be dealt with in the hands of a lobbyist, a bureaucrat or a politician. I rather doubt that the Liberals and their socialist NDP allies will ever figure that out.
I also want to comment on how the government has shoved the bill through the House so rapidly. It has had due process, introduction, second reading, clause by clause, report stage and now third reading. However the Liberals do not care what knowledgeable criticisms there are. They just want to get the bill passed so that they meet the December 1 deadline to have the regulations published in time. The government needs the regulations in place by January 1, 1999, so that the banking industry can have the requisite 90 days to implement changes.
The government never really cared what stakeholders and opposition parties had to say on the bill. The only thing that mattered to the industry minister was getting it passed to meet his own deadlines. In fact witnesses that appeared before the committee explained the inherent flaw in the approach the government was taking. They explained the distorting effects that government interference in the marketplace has on the economy. They explained that the proper approach was to cut taxes and reduce the regulatory burden on business. The minister was not present to hear any of that. During all the debate on the bill he has not been here once either. The significance of that should not be lost.
The regulations were just as hastily conceived as the legislation. Indeed we saw proof of that in committee three weeks ago when it came to life that the draft regulations were flawed. That is pretty much par for the course when it comes to the legislative agenda of the government.
The government needs to think about its approach to the economy and to small business in general. The bill does nothing to improve the economy or to reduce the burden placed on small business by government. As such the bill is fundamentally flawed.
In closing I urge my colleagues on both sides of the House to take time to consider the flaws in the legislation carefully before voting to support it at third reading.
