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View Terry Sheehan Profile
Lib. (ON)
My question is for Ryan.
Thanks again to the chamber for presenting.
With regard to the fall economic statement—the mini-budget, if you will—the chamber's response was that it was pleased, for lack of a better term, that much of what was in its report that you referenced, “Death by 130,000 Cuts”, was included.
Could you please explain to the committee which of those recommendations you thought were the most important, or could you expand on the recommendations themselves in the fall economic statement?
Ryan Greer
View Ryan Greer Profile
Ryan Greer
2019-02-05 10:05
First, I think Minister Brison and Treasury Board deserve a tremendous amount of credit for what was in the fall economic statement and their work to get that in there. Now it all comes down to implementation. These are promises, and now we'll see how these are fulfilled. We think some of these could be real game changers.
I mentioned in my remarks that I think the biggest one is giving economic growth and competitiveness mandates to all regulators. Every day our members are contending with regulators who, no matter what evidence or cost they're presented with by companies or members, will say, “Our job isn't to do that. Our job is only focused on this.” They're not trying to achieve both that protection and prosperity in their mandate. If that commitment is implemented in a way that actually adjusts proportionality, adjusts some of the ways that regulators think, and helps all regulators endeavour to promote economic growth, then that could be the biggest game changer.
That was inspired by us asking for that. The department's thinking was that the U.K. implemented something similar—a growth duty—for the same reasons that we were asking for this: that too many regulators were not being proportionate and were not considering the business impacts in their activity.
The flip side of that is if a lot of departments and regulators see it as a symbolic commitment. If it's legislated and they say they already do a cost-benefit analysis that determines why they take a certain approach, and that this won't change the way they do business, then we may not get much out of it. We think that's big, along with the CFIB's talking about a business-facing group that can propose simplifications.
I mentioned in my remarks that implementation here is key. The Danish Business Authority uses the “comply or explain” principle, which we really like. Too often governments will commission expert reports or committee reports, and then they cherry-pick the things that most closely align with their existing priorities. “Comply or explain” means either you do it, or you tell us publicly why you won't. We like that. We think those are two of the biggest....
I know Minister Brison was particularly fond of an annual modernization bill. That can be useful. Again, it depends on what processes feed into that, how that will interact with the one-for-one, whether departments will be incentivized to hold back regulations from that so they can account for their one-for-one, or how they will be reconciled. There are enough measures in there that could be real difference makers, if implemented correctly. For us now, it's about seeing how Treasury Board and regulators themselves will implement those commitments.
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