THE STANDING SENATE COMMITTEE ON BANKING, TRADE AND COMMERCE
EVIDENCE
OTTAWA, Tuesday, May 17, 2022
The Standing Senate Committee on Banking, Trade and Commerce met with videoconference this day at 6:30 p.m. [ET], partially in camera, to study the subject matter of those elements contained in Part 1 of Bill S-6, An Act respecting regulatory modernization; and the subject matter of those elements contained in Divisions 5, 10, 11, 15, 16, 17 and 30 of Part 5 of Bill C-19, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on April 7, 2022 and other measures.
Senator Pamela Wallin (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: Welcome to this meeting of the Standing Senate Committee on Banking, Trade and Commerce. My name is Pamela Wallin and I’m the chair of this committee.
I would like to introduce the other members of this committee beginning with the deputy chair, Senator C. Deacon; Senator Bellemare; Senator Gignac; Senator Loffreda; Senator Marshall; Senator Moncion, who is replacing Senator Massicotte; Senator Ringuette; Senator Smith; Senator Woo; and we are hoping for Senator Yussuff. We have not seen him on the screen yet.
Today we are continuing our examination of elements contained in Part 1 of Bill S-6, an act respecting the regulatory modernization of many pieces of legislation that effect many government departments. That bill was referred to the committee on April 28.
We will continue our discussion this evening with Laura Jones, Executive Vice President of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business; Robin Guy, Senior Director, Transportation, Infrastructure and Regulatory Policy at the Canadian Chamber of Commerce; and Hugues Bourgeois, Executive Director of Co-operatives and Mutuals Canada. Welcome to you all.
Before we begin our proceedings, I want to remind senators and witnesses to keep microphones muted at all times unless specifically recognized by the chair. And I would like to ask senators and witnesses to keep interventions brief so we all ask questions and cover as much ground as possible.
We will now begin with opening remarks. Please go ahead, Ms. Jones.
Laura Jones, Executive Vice President of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business: The Canadian Federation of Independent Business represents 95,000 small businesses across Canada in all sectors of the economy. I also served as the chair of the federal External Advisory Committee on Regulatory Competitiveness. This was a group tasked with giving advice to the government on regulatory competitiveness and modernization.
One of the things we discussed at length on the committee was the opportunity to make regulatory excellence a key strategic advantage for Canada by reducing red tape and fostering conditions for innovation, while at the same time improving the health, safety and environmental outcomes that Canadians care about.
Making regulatory excellence a strategic advantage for Canada is not, of course, a foregone conclusion. It will require an ongoing concerted effort. Bills like Bill S-6 are part of that effort. This year, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business recommended that all senior governments — provincial and federal — have an annual opportunity for an omnibus bill to clean up regulatory irritants in legislation, and we’ve added that to our annual regulatory report card.
Bill S-6 furthers the work that the federal government is doing along these lines, which started in 2019 when it modernized 12 pieces of legislation, including digitalizing many paper-based processes. Without a regular opportunity to make these changes, antiquated regulatory requirements that are found in legislation accumulate and become cumbersome to navigate both for those trying to comply and also for those in government tasked with compliance.
For example, until recently, many small businesses told us that they kept a fax machine for the sole purpose of dealing with governments and meeting their requirements. Bill S-6 fixes many such antiquated requirements, such as requiring notices of bankruptcy to be published in newspapers and changing the Canadian Food Inspection Agency Act to allow businesses to interact with CFIA through electronic rather than paper-based means.
Regulatory modernization is about many things, including an opportunity to promote innovation, economic growth and recovery. As importantly, modern regulations create the conditions for a strong relationship of trust and cooperation between governments and the citizens it serves. Dated, confusing rules do the opposite. They waste time, create unnecessary frustration and undermine confidence in government.
While I can’t speak to every specific element of the proposed legislation, we support the intention of Bill S-6 and much of its content. Further, we recommend that regulatory modernization be a high priority for the government going forward across all departments and agencies, including this annual opportunity to have a regulatory cleanup of the nature of Bill S-6.
We would also like to see more progress in developing regulatory measures and faster work to resolve the many irritants in the system that have to do with communication, for example, more plain-language websites that are easier to navigate and better opportunities for governments to get feedback from the citizens they serve, all would be welcome.
In summary, this is an important step forward on regulatory modernization, but there is much more work to do. Thank you very much.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Ms. Jones. We heard that from small businesses already. We will come back to you on those issues as we get into our questioning.
Robin Guy, Senior Director, Transportation, Infrastructure and Regulatory Policy, Canadian Chamber of Commerce: Honourable senators, it is a pleasure to be appearing here for the first time. The Canadian Chamber of Commerce welcomes the opportunity to provide comment on Bill S-6 and on how we believe the federal government can improve Canada’s regulatory system.
Regulation continues to be a growing concern for many businesses and to our members. As the pace of change facing Canadian businesses accelerates, companies must remain agile and adapt to remain competitive. The right policy environment sets industry up to succeed in this rapidly changing context and generates long-term economic growth. Making Canada an attractive destination for business investment that will support economic growth requires getting the fundamentals right. Regulatory effectiveness is an integral dimension of competitiveness.
Bill S-6 represents needed change to the federal regulatory system and the need for continued commitment to its modernization. The Canadian Chamber of Commerce welcomes any incremental steps towards regulatory modernization. While I commend the government for pushing a regulatory modernization agenda, I would challenge the government to move more boldly and more urgently.
I would like to commend the government for opening the government’s Let’s Talk Federal Regulations portal. The ability for business to provide feedback on regulations is critical in moving the file forward.
In the time available, allow me to focus on a few points of interest moving forward. First, the government must look to implement an economic mandate to federal regulators. Too often, regulators do not give sufficient consideration to economic and impacts on business when making decisions. To remain competitive, this cannot be the case. We would urge the government to adopt an economic and competitive lens mandate for regulators to ensure it does not hinder growth for Canadian business.
Second is regulatory alignment across jurisdictions including both international and within Canada. When regulations are more consistent between jurisdictions, Canadian businesses are better able to trade within Canada and beyond, while also giving Canadian consumers greater choice. The government must actively work to improve collaboration and alignment to ensure Canadian businesses are not at a disadvantage in the global economy by made-in-Canada regulatory approaches that won’t undermine our ability to compete with other jurisdictions.
Third, and lastly, the government must publicly pledge to provide regulatory certainty to Canadian business. While unpredictable and burdensome regulations hold back entrepreneurial businesses, sound and effective regulation can both protect the public interest and promote market success. Uncertainty and changing expectations in the regulatory process are a poison pill to those looking to invest billions of dollars developing new pipelines, new mines and other large-scale nation-building infrastructure projects. The government needs to focus on facilitating and safely removing unnecessary barriers to level-up Canada’s competitiveness with other jurisdictions.
The bill before the committee is a positive step forward. Honourable senators, the status quo can’t be used as an excuse not to act. Modernizing Canada’s regulatory system provides an opportunity for the government to work with business on becoming more competitive. It’s an opportunity to grow our economy coming out of the pandemic. It does not require expensive new programs.
Thank you again for the opportunity to address the committee and I look forward to your questions.
The Chair: Thanks very much, Mr. Guy. We will be looking at those regulations very closely. We appreciate that.
Hugues Bourgeois, Executive Director, Co-operatives and Mutuals Canada: Thank you, Madam Chair. I am pleased to represent Co-operatives and Mutuals Canada.and provide our thoughts on Bill S-6.
CMC is an association that represents co-operatives and mutuals across Canada in sectors such as agriculture, housing, health care and more. The sector generates an activity of more than $85 billion per year and provides employment for approximately 174,000 people. This is not including its major benefits through socially responsible activities.
Based on our review of Part 1 of the bill, I can offer a few comments with regard to the provisions related to co-ops and bankruptcy.
The proposed change to the Canada Cooperatives Act is minor in nature and should not have a significant impact on cooperatives. It should be noted that fewer than 100 cooperatives are federally incorporated and those will be impacted by the proposed changes. The vast majority of Canadian cooperatives are registered under either provincial or territorial statutes.
The change from requiring an annual return to requiring an updated statement should have little impact on our members. However, in its implementation, it is important that officials work to maintain a low regulatory burden on co-ops, in order for co-ops to focus their resources on meeting the needs for which they were established, generate economic opportunity and support the regions in which they operate.
Further, the changes to the bankruptcy and insolvency provisions are also minor in nature. It is our position that bankruptcy and insolvency provisions should always respect members’ rights and acts under which the cooperatives are incorporated. We encourage government decision makers to continue creating policy and regulations that supports those values and ensure that co-op members are protected.
We would encourage this committee and individual senators to reach out to co-ops in your regions to consult on future changes. We would be happy to make those connections for you.
In conclusion, I wish to offer my thanks for the invitation to appear before you tonight, and I hope we can continue our engagement on these and other issues in the future. Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you very much. This is most helpful. We are off to a good start. We will begin our questioning now with the deputy chair of the committee, Senator Deacon.
Senator C. Deacon: Thank you to our witnesses. You have all really hit on the point that we’ve been most focused on, which was well said by Ms. Jones of the CFIB, and that is turning Canada into a centre of regulatory excellence in the world. We are currently at the other end of that scale, though. I’m wondering if you could get quite specific.
It sounds like there are no concerns over Part 1 of Bill S-6, so why don’t we dive into some specifics around how we can really put forward observations that will be quite helpful in expanding this process. This is a great and wonderful but very incremental start. Perhaps each of you have specific thoughts that might get the committee going on how we make this better, faster, bigger, stronger and win the gold medal in regulatory excellence globally.
Ms. Jones: If we are serious about regulatory excellence, it has to be a priority across all government departments and agencies. The thinking around this has to be very broad. This cleans up some regulatory problems that exist in legislation, and that is important because those can be hard to change and they can last for a long time, as evidenced by the requirement to deal with government by fax. Some of those things are very important, but it also comes down to what is in policies and government customer service. When you can’t get an answer to a question on the phone easily or you can’t navigate a website, those are all very important.
Making sure there are ways that citizens can easily communicate with government, those things being taken seriously and a continuous improvement loop would be one thing I would suggest is important.
The second thing is overall measurement. We have our annual fiscal budget, but shockingly we still don’t have a very good understanding of the entire cost or quantity of regulation, if you include not just the regulations but all of the regulatory requirements. That’s something we’ve been suggesting for many years so that we can get a sense of where the burden is getting worse and where it is getting better. Maybe I will stop with that. Those are two concrete things.
Mr. Guy: I mentioned a few suggestions in my opening. Getting the fundamentals right is an important step in making us more effective, efficient and competitive. I mentioned three examples that I thought of as being a good start. In terms of an economic lens, it is imperative that regulators and business work hand-in-hand together to develop that optimal regulatory approach. We can’t simply ignore the economic impact of a project, nor can we only look at the economic impact of a project. It is expanding the tool box of a regulator to be able to paint that full picture.
In terms of alignment —
The Chair: We have your points there and that’s good. When your members come to you, is there anything — like the fax machine example — that jumps out at you or are they bigger?
Mr. Guy: It is bigger, but it is obviously the same irritants as were previously mentioned; I think the same thing. How applications and grants are put forward is another thing. Small businesses struggle with actually understanding what tools are available to them from the government.
There are tools that exist but they may not necessarily be communicated in the most effective way. Like I mentioned, that is something that you see anywhere from applications for grants, or even going into other things like we’re seeing at the border with some of the struggles that we’re seeing at Pearson or Vancouver International.
The Chair: Believe me, all of us who fly to come to Ottawa can do that list for you.
Mr. Bourgeois, we will have you jump in on this as well.
Mr. Bourgeois: Yes, thank you. From CMC’s point of view, what is most important in terms of regulatory excellence is consultation, fairness and recognition of all the different types of organizations out there. Often in the past, cooperatives are ignored or they are put to the side. We’ve done a lot of work to educate government in terms of what a cooperative is, what they bring and what kind of an organization they truly are, and we continue to do that. To me, it is taking the model of the organization in consideration and all across the board.
In terms of other issues facing cooperatives, some are regulated by different acts, like a banking and insurance act, so the causation or cross-wiring or complications arise. An alignment of those key acts would be very beneficial. Thank you.
Senator Ringuette: This is very interesting. I certainly enjoy the challenge proposed by Senator Deacon of owning the regulatory podium, as one would say. My question is more to Mr. Guy and Ms. Jones. Your organizations are national in scope, as are your members.
If you find that this process is promising — and from a previous study, this committee has found that interprovincial trade barriers and regulations were quite an issue in the Canadian committee — would you say that this process should also be implemented at the provincial and territorial levels?
Mr. Guy: Yes. Thank you very much for that question. It is definitely something that needs to be implemented at the provincial level as well as the federal level. You’re starting to see provinces champion that across the country. There are a few out West. You have some governments out East as well who are really challenging that from an economic growth standpoint. Like I mentioned previously, as we look at our fiscal situation and as the government may look to tighten their belt, this is a prime way to keep economic growth moving. It is definitely something that can be done without expensive programs which is, I assume, where we are going in the next little while.
Ms. Jones: I would say that, if you are talking about an omnibus bill to address irritants, many provinces actually have, in recent years, created their own version of this bill. Something that we look at in our regulatory report card is whether you have this window for regularly cleaning things up so that you don’t have the problems accumulated where you have antiquated rules that are getting in the way. That’s just one small thing that can be done for regulatory modernization.
The provinces have also moved on regulatory measurement in a fairly substantial way. That’s something that we are encouraging everyone to do, because it is a basic foundation of accountability to have measurement in this space; this gives us hope, too, that Canada can be a leader in terms of regulatory excellence because there has been some good work done.
On the point about interprovincial trade, we are coming out with a report card on this piece of it soon. Again, the provinces have work to do in this area, as does the federal government.
One specific piece that I would encourage the federal government to look at is a very long-standing irritant for many small businesses, which has to do with meat inspection across borders and having to meet federal requirements.
With the B.C. requirements, if you don’t also meet the federal requirements — which are quite onerous — then you can’t sell into other provinces. Now, this was relaxed during COVID so that you wouldn’t have empty shelves in the grocery stores and have people panic.
One of the other things we have recommended is that governments look very carefully at some of the flexibility that was put in place to deal with the COVID challenges. What can be kept from that? Allowing the sale of meat across provincial borders is one that’s squarely in the federal government’s domain; it is a long-standing irritant, and one on interprovincial trade where more progress could be made. I believe there is some produce that also falls into that same category.
Senator Ringuette: Thank you.
The Chair: That’s great, thank you.
We have heard testimony at this committee in the past that if the rules were to be stuck to strictly, trucks would have to change tires at provincial borders. It is that crazy.
Senator Loffreda: Thank you to our panellists for being here this evening.
My question is for Laura Jones of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business and Robin Guy of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce.
I came across an April 2020 letter to Minister Duclos co-authored by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business and the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, along with other organizations, which was calling on the government to postpone all non-essential, new regulations and unnecessary consultations that would detract from the members’ ability to manage the current crisis, arguing that business and industry do not have the capacity to respond adequately to ongoing regulatory consultations. I wondered if that was corrected along the way.
Do you feel your associations and your members were given fair and satisfactory opportunities to provide feedback on the regulatory reviews?
Mr. Bourgeois did mention that, to own the podium, what is important is consultation, fairness, recognition of all associations.
I was wondering if that problem was corrected along the way. I do understand that, when the crisis did hit, you wanted businesses to manage their businesses. But can you elaborate on that? Was that corrected along the way? Do you feel you were properly consulted?
Ms. Jones: I think things have changed fairly dramatically — thankfully too — in the last little while. We’re coming to a much better place with respect to the pandemic.
But when you go back to 2020, businesses were worried about their survival. Associations like ours that were on the front lines of helping businesses, we have an advisory function. We typically take about 40,000 calls a year from businesses across Canada to help them navigate everything from employment standards to some of their other regulatory obligations.
Our call volumes doubled overnight. We took over 80,000 calls when we usually take 40,000. So we, ourselves, were underwater. We had to put all our resources towards helping our members, and then having regulatory consultations on top of that, it just wasn’t manageable because we were in a crisis. I do not feel that we’re in that situation any more today. We certainly wouldn’t want to delay progress towards simplifying and making things easier.
Speaking for our organization, we’re just coming out of it and feeling like we’re back to a more normal pace. For the last two years, we’ve been helping our members navigate the complexities of understanding both the restrictions and also the support programs. That has not been easy for businesses at all.
Mr. Guy: Yes. I think in this climate, we had supply chain troubles. That was something where the chamber, along with some of our other partners, did call upon the government not to provide any unnecessary, new regulatory burdens. I think some of these tend to be poison pills where the impact may not be fully understood sometimes when these things are rushed through.
Making sure that government is able to consult on some of these decisions and that there is enough runway in order for businesses to adapt is always key.
The one thing I will stress is that businesses want predictability. I think that they won’t invest; you will see a lot of struggling when this predictability is not there.
The Chair: Mr. Bourgeois, do you have a comment?
Mr. Bourgeois: At this point, I would like to come back to the consultation aspects.
A large issue is that most cooperatives are either provincially or territorially incorporated, so for the large number of co-ops, it would be aligning federal and provincial regulations and laws. Thank you.
The Chair: That’s a good point. Thank you.
[Translation]
Senator Bellemare: My question is for all the panellists, as we are discussing the whole of Bill S-6.
I’d like to hear from you on the principle of incorporation by reference into regulations. Are you familiar with this practice? This practice had a resurgence in 2014, when there was a bill on this subject. Do you support this practice or are you critical of it? What are your views on this technique of incorporation by reference?
[English]
Ms. Jones: I think it can be very helpful. It also has to be done in a transparent way and it has to be kept updated. It can be helpful.
Sometimes there can be a bit of a disconnect in timing. If things aren’t updated or it is not easy to find what else you need to comply with because it’s incorporated by reference, it can be problematic.
I’m not an expert in this area at all. I know it came up as part of the external advisory committee; that was something we spent a little bit of time discussing. I believe we have a recommendation on that in one of our letters. My best recollection is that it can be very useful, but there are some devils in those details.
Mr. Guy: I apologize on this one. I may have to consult with one of my colleagues, as that one would fall outside of my expertise. If there are any further comments from the chamber on this one, I would be happy to follow up with the clerk.
The Chair: Yes. What you could do is literally just send a paragraph. If you have written a report on it, that would be good, and just forward that to us.
Mr. Bourgeois: I am similar to Mr. Guy. I would have to consult with my staff in terms of providing proper comments because I am not an expert in this particular area. I would be willing to come back to the committee.
The Chair: We unfortunately don’t have time for more hearings at this point because we have two pieces of legislation, but if you could send us a note or if you have a formal position on it somewhere, that would be useful.
Mr. Bourgeois: Thank you.
The Chair: Thanks very much.
Senator Marshall: Your comments are very interesting, but all of you gave the impression that most of these changes are minor and are not of a comprehensive nature.
You’ll have to correct me if I’m wrong, but if I’m right, are any of you aware of any type of comprehensive review by government of regulation?
For example, if the government came out now in the Budget Implementation Act and said they’re going to conduct a very comprehensive regulatory review, and you would have an opportunity to put forward some suggestions as to how this should be done, I’d be interested in hearing your views and recommendations.
The Chair: That’s great, so what kind of process?
Senator Marshall: Would you do it by lines of business, for example, where the credit unions would be done with one group and food products by another group? How would you approach it? What would you recommend?
Mr. Guy: It’s definitely something that the chamber would be interested in. As I said, the number of businesses that bring up regulatory burden is growing as opposed to shrinking, so it’s definitely something that we would want to do.
I will commend the government. Since the economic statement in 2018, they have mentioned regulation and have been working on the file. I think from our side, again, it would be that we are looking for it to be done a bit quicker than perhaps it’s being done right now.
In terms of priorities, I highlighted in my opening statement, including an economic lens mandate for federal regulators. That would be key. The alignment with jurisdictions, both international and domestically, as we’ve heard today, and the regulatory certainty piece are definitely things that we would be pushing.
The Chair: Are you saying by sector?
Mr. Guy: Yes, the government has been doing it by sector. For example, transportation, I believe, was one of the first ones reviewed. I think that works. It’s just a matter of maybe two or three departments at a time are a little bit slower than what we would be looking for.
Senator Marshall: Is it the speed that you have a problem with, or is it the speed plus it’s not quite comprehensive enough?
Mr. Guy: I think it’s the speed right now. In terms of the comprehensiveness, an overall review of how the government enacts federal regulations is something that we would also push.
The Chair: Ms. Jones, do you have a comment as to how you would like to see the process set up?
Ms. Jones: First of all, just a comment on the idea that maybe this isn’t doing as much as we would like. Of course, one of the challenges with regulation is that there are the regulations that we all agree we need for human health, safety and protection of the environment, and then there are the others, and those rules that probably fall into what we would call a “red tape category.” Cleaning that up on a constant basis is a challenge, and it feels like we’re not making as much progress, maybe the one-step-forward two-steps-back feeling.
Something bolder that I’ve seen as successful at the provincial level, in particular, is to set a target for reduction and engage every department and agency in hitting those targets. That requires measurement. It requires setting a target. It requires political leadership.
But if I take you back to 2001, British Columbia did just that, and they said, “We’re going to reduce our regulatory burden by one third in three years.” They exceeded that target, and they started with saying that for every new regulatory requirement that comes in, two will be eliminated. Once they hit their one third target, we said, “Don’t stop measuring. You don’t have to keep reducing, but one in, one out.” They have continued to reduce, and the latest that I’ve seen, they are close to a 50% reduction. I don’t think anyone would argue that the human health, safety and environmental standards in British Columbia are lower than other provinces. That shows you what’s possible, but that takes a considerable amount of political will.
That has been a model for many U.S. states. In fact, I have met with a lot of governors who are very interested in that model because it is one of the most successful models of regulatory reform, although in true Canadian spirit, we haven’t bragged too much about it, so it doesn’t get a lot of attention. But it has gotten some international attention.
The federal one-for-one policy, the Red Tape Reduction Act — and Canada was the first in the world to pass this kind of legislation — is based on the British Columbia model.
But the federal model is much narrower in that your one-for-one federally only applies to those regulatory requirements found in regulation. It would exclude those found in legislation and in policy. That bill could be expanded to include that, and it only includes business requirements, whereas in British Columbia, all the rules are one-for-one. There have been a lot of great reforms to things like when it’s difficult to get your welfare payment because of the paperwork and that kind of thing.
There’s all kinds of room to reduce red tape to affect not just business but also health care or welfare, and this benefits all Canadians.
So that’s the model, if you’re interested in something bolder, that I would look at, what happened in British Columbia. It’s a model for many jurisdictions around the world.
The Chair: That’s a very helpful frame.
Senator Marshall: Yes, thank you.
The Chair: We promise we won’t try to ask for a federal-provincial conference on this. We’ll try to keep it to the committee.
Senator Smith: Earlier on with this legislation, we had two witnesses from associations who said to us that clearly there is an open disconnect between government and business. I think all of us found that to be a very direct comment.
Listening to you, Ms. Jones, and all of our witnesses, you suggested customer service, easy communication, overall measurement, cost of regulations, provincial regulations, federal regulations — how do we get a sea change in government to accelerate the speed of action and to actually be customer service oriented? Because I have a big problem with one concept: I’ve heard consultation, consultation, consultation. How about negotiation? How about clear communication? Because consultation doesn’t mean clear communication or negotiation. Consultation means, “I’m going to tell you what we’re going to do.”
Ms. Jones: I think it comes down to transparency and accountability. Again, I will use an example from the Province of British Columbia, although other provinces have also done this. I don’t think anyone has done a fabulous job of this, and unfortunately, British Columbia didn’t continue its exercise.
A number of years ago, they said, “We want to hear from you, citizens. What are your irritants? What are your complaints, big and small?” What they got back was interesting. I remember talking to the deputy minister at the time, and he was quite nervous because he said, “What have we opened up? What kind of Pandora’s box have we opened up?”
He is no longer in government, but he has told me it’s one of the best and most rewarding things he ever did in government because some of the things were easy to fix. There were broken links on websites, which can be incredibly frustrating.
Some of them weren’t so easy to fix, but they were important, and they went into the lane where they were going to be fixed. Others they couldn’t do or existed for a good reason, but they reported back on every single thing they heard. It was great for the minister. The minister went out and was able to say, “We’re doing this. Bring us your headaches, and we’ll report back.” There was a lot of transparency. They fixed a lot of things, and the specific problems went into each department, so the departments had to hear it and report back on what they were doing.
I think governments are sometimes afraid to do that, because they feel like maybe the private sector will expect that they fix everything. I don’t think there’s an expectation that you’ll fix everything, but opening those lines of communication was done as a web consultation with the minister promoting it with a simple “send us your issues.”
There are ways to get at the customer service, but that should be permanent. We have recommended that, and in fact, the external advisory committee also recommended that. I would recommend for anyone who’s really interested, there are four letters. The last one was published just last year, but there are two pre-pandemic and two post-pandemic. The advice in those letters is pretty good.
The Chair: Letters from your organization?
Ms. Jones: Those letters are from the External Advisory Committee on Regulatory Competitiveness.
The Chair: Oh, great.
Ms. Jones: It was academic and consumer voices. There was a broad range of voices on that committee.
The Chair: Okay, good.
Senator Smith: Thank you.
The Chair: That is great. Mr. Guy, would you like to jump in on consultation versus negotiation?
Mr. Guy: Yes, and I’ll stress the fact there’s an open portal right now from the government through their Let’s Talk Regulation portal. I understand that we can’t consult to death, but at the same time, having an open avenue for business to talk to government and to address some of their concerns is a step forward.
As Ms. Jones said, it’s a new portal, but we have to see how these things work operationally. It can’t just be business putting in feedback without response. There needs to be a two-way conversation, which, I guess, you could call a negotiation. From our side, we would hope that it is a two-way street and that it’s not just information going into a system and never coming back out.
If we’re looking at our international trade partners, it’s important to be able to understand if we are doing things differently than, say, the EU, the U.S., Australia or New Zealand, and what the reason is. Are we putting ourselves at a competitive disadvantage by using this regulation or are we not?
That goes back to having that conversation through an economic lens.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
[Translation]
Senator Moncion: The question I want to ask is about the power that is in the hands of trustees, and I am going to talk about the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act. This act gives a lot of power to trustees in bankruptcy and protects the largest creditors.
Can you tell me — especially as it relates to industries, that is, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business — how the proposals in this act can help or hurt you?
I put the same question to cooperatives. We know that when a bankruptcy is settled, it is often the smallest businesses that bear the losses associated with the insolvency of a business. How can the proposed changes to the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act help you? Are the changes really minor and have no impact on co-ops?
[English]
The Chair: Mr. Bourgeois, do you want to start us off this time around?
[Translation]
Mr. Bourgeois: Absolutely. When you look at the changes that are proposed, as I said earlier, they are really minor. What we need, more than ever, is to look at our members, pay attention to the powers of the members and not just treat a cooperative like any other business.
Senator Moncion: You’re thinking about the Mountain Equipment Company case?
[English]
Mr. Bourgeois: Yes, Mountain Equipment Company is a good case that showed that vulnerability and lack of understanding — or even ignorance — of the structure of the organization in that it was member-owned, right? It’s a different type of organization that is not well spelled out and was treated just like any other business.
Mr. Guy: From my side, this has not been an issue that has come to my attention, but I’d be happy to ask some of my other colleagues to see if there is anything to add from that standpoint.
Senator Moncion: Thank you.
Ms. Jones: There’s certainly no issue with replacing the requirement to publish a notice of bankruptcy in a newspaper, which is likely a big nuisance.
In terms of the other issue, we haven’t heard any concerns. It doesn’t mean there aren’t some unintended consequences, but I haven’t heard any concerns about that. Unfortunately, I suspect there are more businesses that will be in this position with the federal support programs coming to an end. It may be that some of this does start to surface.
Senator Moncion: Agreed. Could I just add a little something, Madam Chair?
The Chair: Quickly, yes.
Senator Moncion: It doesn’t help your businesses, but it might impact some of these businesses, because the information is not always available to people who use your businesses or who are owners of these businesses. In any case, it’s just extra information that may not be available to others.
Senator Gignac: My question would also be for Ms. Jones, since I know more about this organization from my previous life as a Minister of Economic Development, and I was responsible for reducing the burden of regulation. I’ve dealt with your organization.
I like your example of B.C., but from my own experience, what I found very difficult is the fact that each department or deputy minister is not aware of the burden of regulation and costs, and I like your measurement approach.
Do you have another example of a province in Canada — not B.C. — that has improved their process? How could you bring it to the attention of the deputy minister, because they may not realize the burden their department imposes on small businesses?
Ms. Jones: You are asking a good question. To start with the easy part of your question, are there other examples in Canada? Yes, there are. British Columbia is the longest-running example of a consistent approach to reform that has survived a change in government, which I think is important.
Manitoba has also set and met those reduction targets. Quebec has a different measure, but Quebec has done some interesting things. Now, according to the measures that we do, Quebec has more regulation than many other provinces and has a bigger job to do, but it has started measuring. Though, they have a different measure.
Nova Scotia has also done some interesting things, not just in their measurement but also in their customer service. They have, for example, a business navigator service that is very popular. They have also done some interesting recent work to estimate how much red tape doctors face and the number of patient visits that would be freed up, and they worked with doctors to do that. They have done some very innovative thinking and made changes along those lines.
For the second part of your question about the deputy ministers, this is our challenge. How do you get people to take this seriously? It does require political leadership. I really think measuring and setting a target focuses people. In the absence of that, I’ve heard from many people both in government and outside of government that one of the silver linings of the COVID crisis was there was a need for stakeholders in government to get a lot closer and to be doing a lot more of that real-time communication.
Often within government, regulators think that they can’t talk to those outside of government until the regulations and decisions are fully baked, and the problem is then they don’t understand the unintended consequences. That changed in COVID. Everything was moving faster, and I think there was a bit more appetite to take some risks in order to make sure there was food on the shelves. Some of those things were important, so maybe the labelling requirement and meeting all of the checkmarks on that were less important, as an example.
I think there’s an appetite on both sides to see that closeness continue, but the challenge is how do we make sure we’re not snapping back to our old ways of doing things and keeping some of the things that actually were really good about the pandemic in place, including that better communication at earlier stages in the regulatory process.
The Chair: That was one of the issues we heard earlier about this. Now government is back to a kind of staging thing. We will make these changes now and then in four years we will do more, and then that just creates more uncertainty.
I will put a question here from Senator Woo who is talking about the machinery of government. We have talked about how it can be approved. He is asking, is there a need for a central agency beyond Treasury Board? Perhaps a competitiveness agency?
I’d be interested in your comments on that, whether there’s somebody easier or a way that might be easier to deal with the government on this.
Ms. Jones: I think there’s a real need. The External Advisory Committee was a good approach because it was a group outside of government giving advice and they were in the form of letters that went regularly to the minister and were public, so there’s some accountability in that. Whether that needs to be pushed even further along the dimension, I hate to suggest another bureaucracy.
The Chair: That was my fear too.
Ms. Jones: I hesitate about that. But one of our final recommendations to government from the External Advisory Committee was that something like that should continue to exist in one way, shape or form. I do think it needs more profile, and I’m not sure how exactly to do that. But even on this committee, I’m referring you back to some letters. There has been a lot of work done, and that tells me we didn’t do a good enough job of making sure that the advice that we were giving had a profile beyond just the minister and Treasury Board staff.
Mr. Guy: If you look at some of the mandate letters that appeared from this government, one of the things that I looked for was how many times regulation or regulatory appeared, and it wasn’t very many.
The one thing that you are seeing some provincial governments do — previous governments and the governments as well — is having that political leadership on that red tape reduction or that regulatory piece, which could always be an option to look.
I think I smiled as soon as the question was asked of another government agency. It’s probably not something that I would be supportive of, but having that political leadership is an interesting aspect.
The Chair: Political will is much different than another department. Mr. Bourgeois, do you have a comment?
Mr. Bourgeois: Yes, I do. In terms of the co-op sector, having the cooperative secretariat be re-established would be a great help. It helped in terms of knowing what co-ops were. They were inclusive, and they could help us make inroads and educate, as well as putting a co-op lens on regulatory policy and programs that are about to come out.
The Chair: Excellent. Thank you for that suggestion.
Senator C. Deacon: Ms. Jones, could you send the clerk the names and contact information of any former public servants in the province of British Columbia, if you have it, who we could speak to about the processes there? It’s great to learn from those who have actually done it and have the experience, and so we would really appreciate that.
I would also like to follow up on the incorporation by reference comment that you were making earlier. Bill S-6 includes just two of the 100-plus acts and associated regulations from 2 of the 18 federal organizations that have outdated standards incorporated by reference. We have a lot of work to do.
In terms of the points, you have said Bill S-6 is great, it’s a great start. You’ve given us some great suggestions, but are there any other elements for really increasing awareness of this process and the importance of this process?
One of the things you pointed to was deputy ministers actually hearing from the public about what’s going on in their department probably as being a good learning and education tool. Any other specific suggestions about how to get this moving up the political priority list?
The Chair: We will try and reference the letters from the External Advisory Committee, because I think that is important to educate people on that system.
[Translation]
Senator Bellemare: I would like to hear from Ms. Jones about the advisory committees.
I am interested in issues of consultation as opposed to negotiation or lobbying. The processes have often been tight in the past and not very transparent. Do you think that today, with the technology we have, we could have advisory committees where all the people would be involved in the consultations organized by the departments about the regulations? That way everyone would know what we are talking about.
[English]
The Chair: Would technology make the process easier, Ms. Jones, for these advisory committees?
Ms. Jones: One of the things that the External Advisory Committee spent some time on, actually, was consultation, and how we make consultation better. It is not an easy question.
However, with new tools — another silver lining from the pandemic — things like this become much more possible without having to fly to Ottawa. For business owners and for some of the people affected by regulations, and also the policies and things that come from those regulations that you have to comply with, one of the challenging things is that for business owners and citizens more generally — because I think that regulatory modernization should be about all Canadians — it’s very difficult to participate in some of these roundtable events and things, especially if you have to take time out of your busy schedule or your busy business.
These tools are very promising in terms of allowing for people to hear from a broader group of stakeholders, geographically and not just always the association heads, but the business owners and citizens themselves and how they are impacted.
I would say that is promising.
Senator Ringuette: Ms. Jones, if we could have copies or the link to those four letters that she mentioned, I think it’s very important for us in regard to recommendations. Thank you.
The Chair: That’s great. We will do that for sure.
Senator Loffreda: Bill S-6 is proposing changes to the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act, which includes amendments that would provide more flexible publication options for licensed insolvency trustees. We’re told that this measure could save $2 million to $3 million per year.
Will the businesses that you represent benefit from this measure? Will this take away from the red tape?
Mr. Guy: This hasn’t been one of those things that in my conversations with our members on regulation has really been called for. Again, similar to the other request, I can ask the appropriate person at the chamber for comment on that.
Ms. Jones: I would suspect it won’t make a huge difference, but the challenge is that we often get governments coming to us saying bring us your top 10 and make them big and make sure that all of them make a big difference.
The challenge is that’s not the nature of the problem you’re dealing with. It’s much more like being swarmed by mosquitoes than saying that I will pick one mosquito and when you get rid of that one, everything is fine. It is partly the nature of the problem that we have to understand, which is why we think that you need measurement, reduction targets, so that there is an incentive to control the total burden. Because when we go through these top 10 exercises, what happens is we will identify 10, maybe there will be progress on 5. In the meantime, there will be 500 more new things that businesses have to worry about.
The challenge for governments is how you create a reasonable budget, where you are not saying there should be no increase in regulation, but what is the increase? How about one in and one out, but across all things, not just across a narrow? Right now you have that in place federally, but it applies very narrowly. It is only to regulations and only certain types of regulation. If that were applying more broadly, you would have a lid.
The Chair: Thank you for that. You’ve really given us some insight here. We have to deal with a piece of legislation, but then you have whetted our appetite to go bigger, to be bolder in our response to all of this. I really want to thank you all, Laura Jones, Executive Vice President of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business; Robin Guy, Senior Director, Transportation, Infrastructure and Regulatory Policy at the Canadian Chamber of Commerce; and Hugues Bourgeois, Executive Director of Co-operatives and Mutuals Canada. You have been most helpful. We appreciate your time. At some point we will be back to you. Thanks very much.
Ms. Jones: Thank you.
Mr. Bourgeois: Thank you.
Mr. Guy: Thank you.
The Chair: Senators, we are at the end of our time. We will suspend the meeting to move into an in camera session.
(The committee continued in camera.)