NRGO Committee Meeting

STANDING COMMITTEE ON NATURAL RESOURCES AND GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS

COMITÉ PERMANENT DES RESSOURCES NATURELLES ET DES OPÉRATIONS GOUVERNEMENTALES

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Thursday, February 26, 1998

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[English]

The Chairman (Mr. Brent St. Denis (Algoma—Manitoulin, Lib.)): Colleagues, I would like to call this meeting of the Standing Committee on Natural Resources and Government Operations to order. Appearing today we have Mr. Gorman, assistant secretary, Treasury Board Secretariat, and with him Diane Boland, senior project officer. They will brief us on efforts and successes thus far in reducing the red tape, or the paperwork burden, imposed by the federal government on small business. We all know our small businesses have difficulty in dealing with forms and statistics and the need for information by all levels of government. It's important that ongoing efforts be made to reduce that burden for small business at the federal level at least, and maybe our witnesses can tell us if similar efforts are being made at the provincial level and even the municipal level. But certainly it's important that the federal government show some leadership.

With those remarks, I want to welcome you both to our committee. We would ask that you spend a few minutes bringing us up to date on what has happened so far. Then we'll take time for questions. Thank you.

Mr. Bernie A. Gorman (Assistant Secretary, Treasury Board Secretariat): Mr. Chairman, I sincerely do thank you for the opportunity to appear before your committee. We feel, and I feel personally, because I've been very much involved in this initiative for the last couple of years, it has been very successful in what we set out to achieve. It's something we're quite proud of.

I would like to take a few minutes to walk you through a very short presentation on how we got to where we are. I will talk a bit about the accomplishments we've achieved and also a little about the process itself. I think the process and the way we went about this particular initiative bears some mention, because that contributes a fair bit to its success.

As I said, the agenda will highlight the initiative. I'll give you a status report on where we are at this time and give you some reflection on how it went and where we think we're going from here.

On the background, as you will recall, the initiative to reduce the paper burden really started in the 1994 budget, where the government committed to address this particular issue. After that, the President of the Treasury Board took that initiative on.

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The initial work was done by Industry Canada through a committee they sponsored, but in December 1994, the then-president of the Treasury Board, the Hon. Art Eggleton, struck the joint forum between the public and the private sector to attempt to reduce the burden. The mandate of that committee, as identified at that time, was to effect a major reduction in the burden, and to do it by 1998.

There are a couple of important points there. First of all, the reduction needed to be significant, and should be done within a defined period of time. In other words, it was not a process that was going to carry on forever. We had an objective.

When the committee came together, we debated fairly extensively how we could go about accomplishing that task. Brien Gray—as you may recall, he is a senior vice-president with the Canadian Federation of Independent Business—was with me as co-chair of that particular committee. We spent a lot of time talking both amongst ourselves and with the private and public sector members of that committee about how we could go about achieving that particular aim. Our business strategy, if you want to put it in those terms, was very critical at that point in time.

The next slide shows you exactly how we came out on that particular discussion. We felt quite strongly—not just the chairs but also the members, the private sector members and the public sector people—that we really had to have a target. We couldn't simply start to do what we thought was good work and expect that it was going to get there.

So we developed four anchor points that carried us through the work of that committee. The first was to measure it, because we were getting a lot of information that we couldn't substantiate in quantifiable terms. So we felt we first of all needed to measure it.

Second, we had to reduce it, and we had to reduce it in quantifiable terms.

Third, we had to communicate it, because the small business community was telling us that we were doing things, but that message and the results of that work were not getting to the people who were going to benefit by it, the small business people.

Finally, maybe the most enduring part was to put in place a permanent mechanism so that we could deal with the burden issue as it arose again.

I should comment at this point in time that typically what we might have done inside government, in this type of initiative, was to assess how we thought the burden was quantified. We'd look at our forums, we'd look at our efforts, come up with some identification of that, and then go about reducing it. But the small business community said to us, well, that may be what you think, but the real impact is how it affects the small business person, and until you understand clearly what is the impact of what you're doing on small business, you really haven't quantified it.

So that was a very important message we received from small business.

The next graphic will give you the results of that measurement. We undertook a survey. We interviewed in excess of 700 firms across the country, from different sectors and from different sizes—up to about 100 people. This survey was conducted along with the rules Statistics Canada has in place to make sure it was statistically accurate.

We identified where the major burden was. We did that in terms of the cost and in terms of the time it took the small business person to deal with the information requests government was providing. You can see in that pie chart where the heavy-duty items, if you want to put it that way, really are. The record of employment, certain aspects in the income tax regulations, Statistics Canada surveys—those were the areas of highest priority, and that's what we set about addressing.

We didn't try to go out to every request of a problem that came to us. We concentrated our effort in terms of those areas, because the business community was telling us this was where we could make the most marks.

The next couple of pages will give you some examples of what is in the report in terms of the results of that effort. For example, Revenue Canada has in fact moved from requiring small businesses to remit on a monthly basis to a quarterly basis. That decision alone affects some 650,000 small businesses. So it's quite a significant piece.

Statistics Canada, in quantifiable terms, have cut their response burden to small business by 17% over two years. That work is continuing.

By far the largest problem for small business was the record of employment. We targeted on that. The difficulty, if you will, of completing that form was reduced dramatically over that period of time. As an example, the instruction document was about 35 pages when we started. It's now less than 4 pages. It's now much more streamlined and simplified.

The instructions on the T4 were significantly changed as well.

Those are only some examples. The report you have gives you the full list of the work that was done, but those are some of the high-point items that we felt were accomplished.

We also turned our attention to the issue of making it permanent. How can we sustain the effort to ensure that as time goes on, the burden doesn't creep back in? Departments have been asked by the Treasury Board to do a number of things. You can see that on the chart. They've been asked to evaluate the impact of their information requirements, to consult actively and regularly with small business in the course of their work, to measure progress and communicate that, and to set out their own guidelines for coordinating information requests.

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We felt that after the work of the committee was finished, we had to leave a legacy. The legacy was a permanent mechanism that is now in the hands of operating departments to do those things.

The small business community was also giving us a very clear message that the way we communicated was not doing the job. I can give you a very simple example. When the record of employment came to the committee in its new form and we put it on the table in terms of what we thought we had accomplished, the small business community around the table said to us, the government, and to the human resources department in particular, “You people are not communicating that very well. You're not communicating the impact of what you did.”

The small business community actually took charge, almost, of the communication of that particular form. If you refer to it, you'll see in there some quotes. The way in which it was communicated was very much influenced by the small business community itself. So we learned a lot from that exercise in terms of how to deal with our community.

You can see some examples there. The best emissaries, ambassadors if you will, to small businesses are the small business people themselves. The small business community, through the Federation of Independent Business and others, took on a very significant effort to do that.

As for the current status, the committee is no longer in existence in its current form. We feel we have done what we set out to do. We have made a major impact on the burden, and we have put in motion a culture within the public service that we think is sustaining.

That's not to say the work has stopped. I'll refer to this in a moment. Within individual departments, the work is continuing, and many of the small business people who were part of that initial group are in fact part of the departmental advisory committees that are now in place.

Over 70% of the initial irritants identified have been addressed. Specifically, we started with a list that was provided by small business, and the remainder are in progress.

The second-last page is on departmental sensitivity. I just want to leave you with a number of things that have happened as a result of that, which we feel are important to sustaining the effort.

Statistics Canada, as I mentioned, had a very significant reduction in the burden. They've now appointed an ombudsman within their department, and all information requests inside Statistics Canada go through that person before they're put out, and there's a challenge process.

Revenue Canada has a very significant small business advisory committee in place, and some of the members who were on the council sit on that committee as well. That meets regularly. The small business community is very much engaged in all the things Revenue Canada does.

Similarly, Human Resources Canada, a lot of whose work impacts on payroll and those sorts of things, have very significant links to the Canadian Payroll Association and small business associations.

Those are examples of things that have been put in place.

The last sheet, before I stop, just has some reflections on the process. When we started, when the business people and the government people sat around the table, there was a fair amount of skepticism. I think the government people were not sure of what the small business community could bring to some of the things we were doing, and conversely, the small business community felt they were being asked to do things they weren't sure they were prepared to do.

Over the period of that time, and I would think over the first six or eight months in particular, a real synergy developed among those people. If my co-chair were here or if any members of the committee were here, I think they would echo that in spades. They felt the process, the way we worked together, was critical to its success. If that hadn't jelled, if that hadn't happened, we wouldn't have done it. We would have had an advisory committee in a very traditional way that would have given us advice and we would have taken the advice and done whatever we might have done with it.

This turned into a partnership. In fact the people around the table and the various subcommittees—it wasn't just the committee itself—worked very hard. They were debating issues. They were understanding issues. The business community was helping government do what we were trying to do, because they understood we had to do certain things. So the dynamic was quite powerful. That's important.

The second important thing is that we were very focused. We didn't try to do everything. We identified what we thought the areas of highest impact were, and we just went at those areas and did them.

There are a couple of lessons. In fact we are looking at this process now in terms of other initiatives going on inside Treasury Board and inside the government, because we think the process itself can be emulated. It's a very powerful process.

Mr. Chairman, I'll stop there. I'm looking forward to questions.

The Chairman: Thank you very much.

Mr. Cullen, please.

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Mr. Roy Cullen (Etobicoke North, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, presenters. I'm sorry I missed the first part of your presentation.

In 1996 I was a member of a caucus task force that looked at jobs and small business. We made a number of recommendations with respect to reducing the paper and regulatory burden for small business. You may not have been privy to those recommendations; certainly your minister was.

One of the things that came up was that there was a recognition—and we saw a number of witnesses who came to our caucus committee as well—that notwithstanding the work being done by the Joint Forum on Paper Burden Reduction and some of these improvements that came out of that, more needed to be done, particularly on the regulatory burden. There was a piece of legislation, Bill C-62, the Regulatory Efficiency Act, which died somewhere, Mr. Chairman—I don't know if the people here from Treasury Board know where that is; it's really something for us as parliamentarians to consider—and it was felt that it should be brought back.

The other thing we recommended was that we maintain some ongoing accountability as parliamentarians on reducing the paper burden and the regulatory burden on small business. Actually, just for your information, Mr. Chairman, it is something we should look at. It's not really for the officials to say whether or not we should have a committee review. But we said there should be some accountability in the paper and regulatory burden reduction process by using the House of Commons standing committee structure. The idea there was that this committee would work with the departments to set some benchmarks for reducing paper burden and the regulatory burden, and that there would be a process of periodic review by this committee as to what progress was being made, what were the bottlenecks, and how we would work from there.

I'm wondering if you'd comment on what's happened particularly with respect to the regulatory burden.

Mr. Bernie Gorman: I thank you for the question. I can't comment specifically on the regulatory burden. It is a separate initiative. I know that during the course of the process the two touch each other. However, when we constructed the paper burden committee we really focused on that, not the regulatory side of it. There is another process going on on regulatory reform, and I'm not sure of the particular status of that right now in terms of where it is, but that information could be provided to the committee.

Over the course on the work on paper burden, that question did come up from time to time: should we also try to address issues of regulatory burden? We didn't, and the reason we didn't is twofold. First, we were constructed to deal with the particular issue of paper burden, and the membership and the dynamic of the committee was focused on that particular issue.

Mr. Roy Cullen: Mr. Chairman, I think it's something that.... I'll give you a copy of this report, Mr. Chairman. I think the idea of setting up some kind of benchmarking process and some kind of periodic review by this committee is a good one.

Coming back momentarily to the paper burden, our caucus group didn't really differentiate in terms of accountability processes with respect to regulatory burden or paper burden. Have we established clear benchmarks or clear goals in the sense of continuing to reduce the paper burden, and how do we monitor that? From your level, how do you monitor that?

Mr. Bernie Gorman: We did write to all departments, and if you go back to an earlier slide, we asked departments to do a number of things to put in place mechanisms to measure the paper burden. Now, at that time we were not talking about the regulatory side, we were specifically talking about paper. So departments have been asked to interact with small business, to identify what they're doing, to show what processes they have in place to do it.

Now, I wouldn't go so far as to say they have actually set targets in terms of reduction. That may or may not have happened, depending on the particular department. But there is a process in place. The departments were asked to put a process in place with their constituents, with their community, to address the burden issue and to be able to quantify that. So they should be able to do that.

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Mr. Roy Cullen: Do you have a role, Mr. Chairman, in...? It's one thing to monitor whether a process has been put in place—that's positive—and whether you actually do that, but secondly, why couldn't benchmarks be established and some kind of formal monitoring be put in place, whether by your department or by this committee, to track performance? Saying we'll put in processes and we'll have meetings and we'll talk with stakeholders is good stuff, but how do we ensure we get results?

Mr. Bernie Gorman: The departments themselves were asked to report progress. We didn't specify to whom, but they were asked to do it. Some departments, we know, are addressing that in their part IIIs of the estimates, which were tabled today. We weren't specific about the particular vehicle they used. We left that to their discretion. But they were asked to identify it and to report on progress. So they should be able to do that.

Mr. Roy Cullen: Are they doing that?

Mr. Bernie Gorman: We haven't, as a result of this exercise, gone back out and monitored it specifically, because the process has only recently come into place. We do know we have an obligation from time to time to see that it's working, but at this time we have not gone out and asked departments whether all the pieces are in place.

Mr. Roy Cullen: Mr. Chairman, I'm going to give you a copy of this recommendation. I think something this committee should look at is that we set up some accountability process on the paper burden and the regulatory burden for small business.

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Cullen.

Something of interest to me, Mr. Gorman, is that Mr. Cullen referred to the caucus committee study, and I know there was a reference to regulations and paper. Often the paper burden follows regulations. Of course regulations are a separate undertaking. Is there some kind of tie-in or attempt to coordinate, because of the integral link between regulations and the requirements for governments for data?

Mr. Bernie Gorman: I can say that during the process of the paper burden committee the people who were involved in regulatory reform were there to observe what was happening on paper burden. Similarly, somebody from the paper burden side would have been part of the regulatory piece. That was to ensure information was being exchanged. We didn't try to merge the agendas in that sense, but there was involvement in paper burden by the regulatory people in terms of their knowing what was going on in the paper burden committee.

The Chairman: Maybe that's something we can come back to.

Mr. Wood, please.

Mr. Bob Wood (Nipissing, Lib.): Just one quick question, Mr. Gorman. Has any thought been given to expanding this from the federal government into the provincial governments? There's a lot of duplication there as well. I suppose it trickles down even to the municipalities. Has any thought been given to expanding and enlarging that base? Has there been talk, or has anything been going on?

Mr. Bernie Gorman: We certainly talked about it, and certainly during the early days of the paper burden committee we did communicate with our provincial counterparts on what we were doing and what they were doing. With some provinces it was an exchange of information.

At the time we felt quite strongly we had to get our own act together and do that well. The second thing was that many of the issues in the provincial jurisdictions were not the same as we had, income tax issues. We had record of employment issues. We almost had to address the urgent items, if you want to call them that, item by item.

It's not that there wouldn't be an opportunity to mesh them together a bit, but we didn't do that. Probably if there had been a cleaner connection between the initiatives where we could have cooperated on some things specifically, that might have moved us further in that direction. Quite frankly, we didn't find that.

We do know there are similar initiatives in provincial governments. Some of them encompass regulatory reform; Ontario, for example. Some of them are doing specifically paper or regulatory. The provincial governments have similar initiatives, not in all jurisdictions but in a number of them, but they tend not to line up one to one in the mandates of the various initiatives.

The Chairman: Can we get from you or your office a list of the provinces and territories that do have these initiatives and how we might get copies of their status reports, should there be any. I think Mr. Wood's question is a really valid one if we really want to be serious as a country about small business red tape.

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Mr. Bernie Gorman: Yes. At the time we didn't go out and ask in a detailed way what the provinces were doing, so by that definition our information will be a little hit and miss. But we can provide you with what we have.

The Chairman: That would be appreciated.

Mr. Bélair, please.

Mr. Réginald Bélair (Timmins—James Bay, Lib.): Was there a response mechanism from small businesses in your process that would have enabled you to measure the degree of satisfaction with the new paperwork?

Mr. Bernie Gorman: Satisfaction of members from small businesses?

Mr. Réginald Bélair: Yes.

Mr. Bernie Gorman: Potentially there is one. As I say, when we did measure the burden itself it was very quantifiable in terms of how we did it. We sat down with a small business person and we actually clocked how much time he or she was spending on various forms.

Should that study be repeated at some point, you could do that, in very quantifiable ways. We wouldn't want to do that study too often, because it's not an easy study to do, but if you did that, you could get the measure of satisfaction.

The more immediate way is through the feedback that we're getting from small businesses themselves, and specifically from their representatives and their associations.

The Canadian Federation of Independent Business, for example, monitors that very closely and provided us with very direct feedback in terms of irritants or how things were going. As the initiatives were being put in place, they were very much advising us on how those initiatives would be received by a small business person. I can probably assure you, without asking them directly, that they would be looking at these initiatives fairly regularly and would be able to quantify in terms of the impact.

Mr. Réginald Bélair: Thank you.

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Bélair.

Mr. Jackson, please.

Mr. Ovid L. Jackson (Bruce—Grey, Lib.): Mr. Gorman, you've pretty well identified in your documentation here where the areas of concern were, like the record of employment, the audits, and so on. You said that you've had some interaction with the small business people, who have worked collaboratively with you on this work.

It's starting to look as if we're going to generate more paper after asking you to come here. There has to be a cause and effect, and I think the communication has to be transparent. I think that's part of what I've heard here. But I don't want to ask you to generate a whole bunch of other paper to show us how you got rid of paper.

So the question here, notwithstanding the fact that maybe they are pleased, from the sound of it, from what you said about where we were when you started to where we are now...and I think you must have a mechanism, notwithstanding the fact that it's in the estimates. I don't know if you want to do it in all departments or if we should be notified. I think we are to some degree being told that today.

I don't know if we need to have a whole bunch of paper telling us that. If people are satisfied, as far as I'm concerned, and that's highlighted, and if they recognize that in the general public, if they recognize that this culture is there and that it's going to be continually perpetuated, that's what we would like to happen. But like everything else, it needs to be highlighted, because our government is so far away from people and the easiest thing is always to blame big government.

I don't know if you have any answers for that.

Mr. Bernie Gorman: I think it's a very interesting observation, because as I said at the beginning, traditionally what we might have done in this study is, in a very insular way, quantified what we thought the burden was and commented on what we thought the progress was. But the small business people were telling us, “That may be your interpretation, but what's really important is what the impact is on us, on the small business person.”

So the real test, if you will, of the success will be the feedback from the small business people, I think, either directly or through their associations. If they feel that what we did is reducing either their costs or the time that is taken to complete the burden, to me that would be quite a significant benchmark or report card. I think there are associations like the CFIB and others that have the wherewithal and the means to get at that information. That's what the small business people were telling us; unless they saw the impact in terms of cost and time, it really wasn't having an impact.

Mr. Ovid Jackson: There may well be, then, a survey every year from the small businesses asking about impact, asking if small businesses are satisfied, and asking what areas need to be looked at.

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Mr. Bernie Gorman: It could be. The major departments have these links right now into the small business community. As I mentioned, Revenue Canada has a very active small business committee. So they can provide feedback pretty directly to them.

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Jackson.

Before we go to Jocelyne, have any of the partner associations, the payroll associations, the CFIB, come up with an estimate of the dollar savings to small business? Where there's a $10-million, $20-million or $100-million saving, or no saving.... Is there any guesstimate on savings with these initiatives?

Mr. Bernie Gorman: Yes, there are, and I would say there are heavily qualified estimates. Certainly Revenue Canada has some estimate in terms of moving from monthly to quarterly in terms of remittances. The record of employment—it's in the order of some number of millions of dollars, but we haven't gone down in an auditable way or in any kind of quantifiable way that would stand up to a hard challenge. But we do have orders of magnitude on not all but a lot of them, and we can certainly provide that information. It's here and there. We haven't done a comprehensive review, but each of the major departments have identified the orders of magnitude they think they would save, primarily in dollars.

The Chairman: That would be helpful.

Jocelyne.

[Translation]

Ms. Jocelyne Girard-Bujold (Jonquière, BQ): On page 6 of your progress report Reducing Paper Burden on Small Business you state:

The Joint Forum has made several recommendations in response to business requests for simplified income tax provisions relating to automobile benefits and expense deductions. The Department of Finance Canada and Revenue Canada are currently examining this issue.

Where do things stand right now? How many businesses had asked for this new approach? I know this is one issue that affects many small firms.

[English]

Mr. Bernie Gorman: There was a lot of discussion within the committee on the issue of automobile expenses, and I have to say to you that we haven't brought that to resolution at this point. There was a private sector group that was struck with government to look at it. It's actually, as you're probably aware, quite a complicated issue when it gets right down to the detail. That is one of the items where the work is ongoing with our Department of Finance and with the small business community, but it is not a piece that we brought to resolution in terms of solving that particular irritant at this point.

[Translation]

Ms. Jocelyne Girard-Bujold: Many self-employed workers in my riding have applied to Revenue Canada for refunds because they were using their own personal vehicle. There is no agreement on how to do it and there is quite a debate going on with small business in our area. You say that things have not progressed very much up to now. What can we expect now that you have struck a committee? When will we get results?

[English]

Ms. Diane Boland (Senior Project Officer, Treasury Board Secretariat): Actually, the private sector members were supposed to do a business case and support their case. There was a lot of study and discussion about it. If I recall, Revenue Canada is trying to simplify the guide, so they will do that.

One of the problems is that it became a question of equity. How could they get the right formula? Finance Canada was quite involved in it as well. As far as what Revenue Canada could do, they did try to simplify the forms and the guides, which is good.

In terms of the calculation, as I said, it became a question of what is fair, what would be fair for everybody? That's where it stood when the committee closed.

I believe Revenue Canada still might be pursuing it, but as I said, the private sector people were supposed to come up with the business case and a proposed calculation, which they weren't able to do, to make things fair for everyone.

[Translation]

Ms. Jocelyne Girard-Bujold: You are telling me that the private sector has not done the work it had been asked by Revenue Canada.

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I'm talking here about very small businesses with only a couple of employees. It's not the small firms that are having these problems now, but the self-employed workers. Will you be asking Revenue Canada to speed up the drafting of regulations that would make things fair for everyone? Many refund applications for that have been submitted to Revenue Canada.

[English]

Mr. Bernie Gorman: There was no question that in the work of the committee that was an issue. It is exactly what you are saying. It is clear from the small business community that they had an issue.

As Diane mentioned, the debate was in solving that issue. It wasn't a simple issue to solve, because it very much became an issue where, if you do this, it had to be one where there was equity so there were not winners and losers in the process. That's where the difficulty arose, and that's where the small business community was trying to work with us. I don't think we're saying necessarily that they weren't doing their job, but they were trying to help us, because they understood the equity issue. But we haven't been able to solve that at this point.

I guess that's the work. I think your question is, okay, what are you going to do to continue the work, which I think is a fair question.

[Translation]

Ms. Jocelyne Girard-Bujold: Since you are from Treasury Board, I want you to tell me what you will do to get things moving and settle the issue. Do you have the means and the authority to get involved?

[English]

Mr. Bernie Gorman: We will raise the issue again. The rules around the automobile allowances rest with the Department of Finance, but we will contact them as a result of this discussion.

[Translation]

Ms. Jocelyne Girard-Bujold: Thank you.

[English]

The Chairman: Mr. Cullen, please.

Mr. Roy Cullen: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to pick up on some earlier comments. Mr. Chairman, I'm not sure what the process is here on paper burden. Will we be calling, for example, the CFIB? We can talk about that later.

The Chairman: We can do that.

Mr. Roy Cullen: We had our task force in 1996, and I know we talked to the CFIB and the Alliance of Manufacturers and Exporters—I'm not sure if I have my facts totally right. I'd have to go back to my notes. At least one of them said this is good stuff, the task force, but more needs to be done. So I think it would be really useful to hear what they have to say.

I come back to.... For example, you have asked departments to put in place these processes. What kind of involvement is there with deputy ministers or ADMs?

The process I think would be useful—and let's face it, most officials in government are trying to do the best job they can. I accept that, but in terms of looking at the paper burden and the regulatory environment, they may not be as unbiased about how they view it. So a useful process might be where you have an issue, you have the little small business committee or whatever, and there's a dialogue with a DM or an ADM, or whatever—being a referee. Here are the arguments for why we can't reduce it, for example, and here's small business saying, well, we have to do.... Then there's some kind of accountability at the departmental level. I think we could set up accountability at the parliamentary level as well.

I wonder if you could comment on that.

Mr. Bernie Gorman: I think the way you describe the process is the way we would see it unfold. The people who were at the joint forum.... It worked because senior people came to the table: from Revenue Canada it was the ADM; from Statistics Canada it was the ADM; from HRDC it was the ADM; from Treasury Board.... So the people who can make the decisions were sitting at the table with the small business people, and that was part of why it worked.

I know for a fact that in Revenue Canada the ADM who sat at that table is the person who is front and centre with the small business community. That's surely the case in Statistics Canada and most departments. If that model moves to the departmental level, then I think we're doing what you're asking. I think it works.

If it deteriorates—if I can put it that way—too low in the process, then we lose it. So the model you're proposing, senior level people working cooperatively to solve the problem, is the winning model.

Mr. Roy Cullen: It really has to be. I've been in bureaucracies myself, and if an initiative like this doesn't have the attention of senior management it just starts to get buried, frankly, because people have other priorities. So at the departmental level and the central agency level, I think we must insist on that.

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I think this committee, Mr. Chairman, should be calling in the departments and working up some stronger communication with the small business community and insisting that this process...because it is complicated and everyone will have their own view on it. Some part of a department will say, well, it's essential we have this, but it has to have the debate in the light of day, with everybody having his or her day in court. I think there's a role, Mr. Chairman, this committee can play in that.

I have two other specific questions. On the Business Impact Test, I was involved to some extent in the private sector when the Business Impact Test.... It's a software tool, as you know.

Are you familiar with the BIT?

Ms. Diane Boland: That's from the regulatory side.

Mr. Roy Cullen: Is that on the regulatory side?

Ms. Diane Boland: The regulatory side.

Mr. Roy Cullen: Okay. I hope we'll see the regulatory people as well, so I'll leave that question. But I hope that tool is being used, because I think it has some benefit.

If we look at a specific on paper, I hear a lot from people in my riding about the scientific research tax credit. That's a Revenue Canada issue. To claim the scientific research tax credit we have in Canada, a very progressive regime, in my view...by the time they fill in all the forms, and by the time it takes them to get a refund or a tax credit, it could be a year or a year and a half. I don't know if that's an area you have looked at.

Mr. Bernie Gorman: We know it has been looked at. Maybe Diane can add more specifics.

Ms. Diane Boland: They have looked at it in Revenue Canada. We actually had a lady come to the table and talk to our small business representatives about it. They are very much aware of the difficulty with that credit. They are simplifying the forms and the guides and they are consulting the small business community.

The Chairman: If there are no other questions, maybe I could ask a small one.

The range of size within the small business community can go from the mom-and-pop retail store up to, I think, 100 employees. Was any attention paid to a gradation in forms for a one- or two-person operation and the same forms for a business person with 25 or 50 employees? There's a different impact on the owner in commitment to filling out the forms. Was attention paid to the variation in the one employee through to a hundred?

Mr. Bernie Gorman: Yes, because during the study that was done it became very clear that the percentage of time spent on the burden by a very small firm and the medium-sized firm was quite different. Through the course of the work...and again I'm looking at Revenue Canada in specific terms, because they really tried to differentiate what they were doing to the really small businesses.

I think the quarterly remittance was a case in point. If you were remitting under $1,000, then it quickly went to quarterly, as opposed to monthly.

They tried the best they could to make the burden a bit lighter on the really small businesses. Diane was saying the T4 short, for example, was specific. It didn't happen in all cases, but that was something that was continually brought to the table by the small business people. The initiatives really tried to look for opportunities to minimize, to say, well, for a very small business, does the government really need that information as regularly, for example, as it would if you were another size of business. It was a sensitivity test, if I could put it that way.

The Chairman: Jocelyne.

[Translation]

Ms. Jocelyne Girard-Bujold: I'd like to ask one last short question. Your report says that 55 of the approximately 100 irritants the small business owners had complained about in 1994 have been taken care of. What major irritants have yet to be eliminated? There are 45 left and this is still a lot. Which are the most important?

[English]

Mr. Bernie Gorman: The 55% is now actually 70%. Since the report was tabled we have moved further, so it's 70%. All the items are in progress. The remaining 30% haven't been brought to finalization, but they are in process.

Diane, would you have examples?

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Ms. Diane Boland: I would say we have the major ones, because if you look at the chart that shows the burden, the record of employment was a major one, and that was 33% of the source of the burden.

I would also say that in terms of some of the other ones in Statistics Canada, they've all been addressed. As Bernie says, some of the ongoing ones are still being looked at in departments, and they would probably be penalties and rewards, for instance. Within Revenue Canada they have a whole group set up, looking at it.

But I would say all the ones that were identified as a first priority have been addressed. I think that's fair.

[Translation]

Ms. Jocelyne Girard-Bujold: Are you keeping up communications with small business to find out whether there are any other irritants and to find a solution to the problems that have not been addressed or to improve on things that have been settled? Is there an ongoing dialogue?

[English]

Mr. Bernie Gorman: We do get information coming back through, for example, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business. They certainly make us aware of what's coming through their membership. That's a way of getting it directly from small business and the other associations.

Just to follow on your point a little bit, we do have a status report of the irritants.

Ms. Diane Boland: Yes, just a general one.

Mr. Bernie Gorman: We have a general status report that might be helpful to you so you can see in specific terms what the irritant was and what's happening, if that would be helpful.

The Chairman: That would be helpful to have.

Mr. Bernie Gorman: It goes into more detail than the report we tabled.

The Chairman: Thank you.

If there are no more questions, I'd like to thank our witnesses for taking the time today. Mr. Cullen's suggestion is that in due course we hear from CFIB or other organizations that might have been involved, just to hear their reaction to it. It's important that a continuing oversight be made of this. Whether it's this committee or some other forum really doesn't matter, as long as the continued attention of the federal government is maintained. That's important.

We all recognize that small business owners generate the bulk of the jobs in this country, and it's important that we do everything we can to support them and at least not impede them.

We thank you for your attendance today and for your efforts, and maybe we'll have you back again someday. Thank you.

I would ask colleagues just to hang on for a minute. I want to discuss future business.

We'll excuse you and do a little bit of other business here for a moment.

I just want to bring your attention to a little memo that was handed out to colleagues on a proposed work plan for the natural resources aspect of our committee. This is not carved in stone; I just want to put something out to you to think about.

There are three major study areas on the natural resource side: one, the follow-up to the “Think Rural!” report; two, pursuing the knowledge-based sector within natural resources; and three, Kyoto. There are other items as well, but these are three large topics that came out of our future business discussions.

Carmen.

Mr. Carmen Provenzano (Sault Ste. Marie, Lib.): Mr. Chair, I'm assuming that it's under the category of the first item in the memo, which relates to a study of technology development and related issues, that we would perhaps visit places such as the centres for forestry research. For example, there's one in my riding of Sault Ste. Marie; there are five in the country. Is that where we would undertake that kind of site visitation?

The Chairman: Yes, that kind of facility would come under that area, as I understand it. Others, please comment. The travel idea, as we originally discussed, was more focused on rural communities' economic development. However, that doesn't mean to say we couldn't, as a separate undertaking under the knowledge-based, do some visits as well.

Mr. Carmen Provenzano: Whether we travel there or these people come to us, it's very important—

The Chairman: Absolutely.

Mr. Carmen Provenzano: —that we hear the people from these research facilities. I've had discussions with the head of the facility and the scientists who work under that particular individual in Sault Ste. Marie, and they have very many concerns. They have things to tell this committee that will be interesting to this committee and that bear right on the issues of technological development and what we can do. We're in a sorry state, Mr. Chair, and we need to hear about that.

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The Chairman: If I had my way, I would support you on that, Carmen. I'm sure there'll be agreement around the table to hear from the federal scientists, and I would support inviting people from the Sault.

Mr. Carmen Provenzano: I'll put that on the table, then.

The Chairman: Yes.

Roy, you had a comment.

Mr. Roy Cullen: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I've had a very quick look at the game plan. It looks good to me, but I have a couple of minor suggestions.

On the knowledge-based industry we talk about technology, but there's also a services component. Something we might want to consider is that we have a lot of people in the mining and forest industries, such as consultants and engineers. We're all over the world doing it, but an argument could be made that we could be taking those services and marketing them better abroad. So technology sometimes fits within that ambit, but not always.

As well, within the knowledge-based industry is there a way to deal with—not exclusively, but at least ensure it's covered—greenhouse gas, or in other words, technologies that will help us with climate change? I don't think we should ask them to exclude everything else, but I think we should ask them to definitely include that.

In terms of Kyoto, I don't know; it may not be the privy of this committee, but there's the whole question of economic instruments. There was a study done before by Finance and Environment, so you get into these turf things. But if we're going to help, if there are ways in which we can help the natural resource economy and the natural resource sector move to a world of better control of greenhouse gases, we may need to look at economic instruments.

Maybe we can take it from the position that we'll hear from the natural resource sector on what kinds of tools they need to help them get the job done, and then maybe refer them to the relevant committee.

I throw that out for consideration.

The Chairman: Benoît.

Mr. Benoît Serré (Timiskaming—Cochrane, Lib.): I have a comment. All those proposals are very good, but instead of having three different studies, I think they could be combined in one, actually.

If you look at rural economic development, climate change, the knowledge-based research that has to be done, and the economic opportunities in the new science of environment, they're related to rural economic development. The same is true with the research council and what not. If we travel, we could combine those travels with the research.

So I think those three could be combined into one study, which would make it perhaps more thorough and more broad-based.

The Chairman: In my opinion, that's an excellent idea. When you're travelling to rural Canada—and you travelled on the last committee, Benoît, in the last Parliament—getting to the rural parts is a bit of a trick. It's not like just going to Regina or Vancouver, as you realize.

I will work with our clerk and researcher to see if we can somehow, in our travels.... Just to pick an example, let's say we're in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, for the day. Maybe the afternoon could be the small players in the communities, the small business people—the people who aren't the scientists, the people who aren't the big players—and the mornings could be more on the technology side. It would be an attempt to combine the three but split them so that we don't have our witnesses all mixed up. There will be some who will be very emotional about the problems facing their communities, and who will not be interested in the scientists or the greenhouse gases. But we can accommodate both, maybe, on the one visit.

I throw that out as an idea, but I think there is definite merit there. I would have you think about how we could combine them so that we can give rural citizens the best shot at giving us their comments.

Roy.

Mr. Roy Cullen: In terms of transportation, in the last Parliament—and there are certain economies that have to be looked at while still keeping it clear what we're doing—we went out and in the morning, say, looked at Bill C-9, on the Marine Act, and in the afternoon had witnesses on transportation, trade and tourism. They were discrete moments, but because we were there, we wanted to take that opportunity.

So there are ways of doing this. When you get into three topics it becomes more of a challenge, but certainly two would be manageable.

The Chairman: Carmen.

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Mr. Carmen Provenzano: I'm sorry to bump in here again, Mr. Chair, but I said that perhaps we could hear from these scientists from the research centres, and I have to take that back, Mr. Chair.

If we go to the sites, what we're going to see are buildings that are not being fully utilized, some of them half empty. We're going to talk to scientists who've had their budgets cut to the point where they can't function. I think we need to be on site and we need to talk to the scientists involved. These aren't high rollers, high players. They're employees who are literally unable to function within their fields because of the budgets that have been hacked at.

The reality of it when you see buildings that aren't being utilized, when you hear scientists say they can't do their work, and when you see that their numbers have been cut to the bone...when you see that, Mr. Chair, I think it has a whole different significance.

I beg this committee to go to these places, whether it's to the research facility in my riding or to a facility in some other riding. We need to go there and we need to hear these people. And certainly, we could go to a place like Sault Ste. Marie's research facility and go up to Wawa, which would fit into the rural classification very easily. I would think that would repeat itself across the country, Mr. Chair.

The Chairman: Are there any other comments?

Certainly, this is here for you to digest. We're not locking in plane travel until we've come back and discussed this more, but if we are going to be doing some travelling in early May, we want to give our staff lots of time to work out the logistics so that we can have an effective trip.

I will look forward to more input over the next short while. Maybe when we come back from the break we can nail this down.

Carmen, we'll do our very best.

Mr. Carmen Provenzano: A few pairs of running shoes and a knapsack!

An hon. member: Oh, oh.

The Chairman: Yes, Jocelyne.

[Translation]

Ms. Jocelyne Girard-Bujold: Are you actually talking about the Natural Resources Committee? I also find that this committee is inviting almost every department that is directly or indirectly concerned with the whole issue of greenhouse gas to appear.

If our committee travels throughout Canada, we will have to hear every single person who is part of the problem in order to find a solution. We won't be able to limit ourselves to the pulp and paper industry. We will also have to study the transportation industry and other things.

I think I remember someone saying around Christmas time that the Canadian government intended to undertake a study on snowmobile pollution. As you know, it has been established that people spend $50 on gas for their snowmobile each weekend. It sure means a lot of pollution.

So, I figure that we should have a really good plan if we want to embark on such a review and make sure that it is well structured. Anyway, that is my opinion.

[English]

The Chairman: Mr. Cullen.

Mr. Roy Cullen: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Without belabouring the point, I will just throw out this as an idea. When we had the minister here on “Think Rural!”, I didn't hear about any compelling loose ends that needed to be followed up on. As Carmen says, by being in Sault Ste. Marie, by being in wherever it is in a rural environment, we could be focusing on technology, services or whatever in the natural resource economy. We essentially are thinking rural.

Believe me, when you go to Sault Ste. Marie and you hear what they're doing and hear all these questions that have come out, and the impact of this natural resource sector in the rural economy...you're going to hear about what they're doing there and what is needed or what's missing, etc.

Even on climate change, we had talked before about how if we have an opportunity to be in a certain community, we could look at case studies of good climate change models that have been successfully implemented. There's a way, I think, to craft it, to engineer it, so that we're not really confused, so that we're focused and economical in the way we go about it.

The Chairman: Benoit.

Mr. Benoît Serré: I believe other committees are going to look into climate change, like environment and probably industry or some other committees. I would hope, at least personally, that we don't put too much emphasis on climate change. I think the only aspect of climate change that we should be looking at is how it relates to rural Canada and how it relates to the new knowledge-based economy and the high-tech industry.

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That's why I'm saying we should combine the three. My priority would be how we can improve the telecommunications infrastructure in rural Canada. Without this infrastructure, the knowledge-based economy cannot develop in rural Canada. The other two cannot develop.

So we need to be hooked, to start with, to the rest of the world, and then we can talk about all those other things.

I would hope that we concentrate on rural economic development, how research and the new high-tech industry relates to that, and how we can benefit from the new technologies that are going to be needed on the environment side and how they will benefit rural Canada. Environment will look at that, and they will concentrate on Montreal or the Moncton refineries and stuff like that, which might be of interest to this committee. But I think there will be other people looking at it, and we don't want to duplicate their work. That's my personal view.

The Chairman: When we come back from the break we'll have a chance to think through some of this stuff. We'll have an informal session, maybe in my office over a coffee. We're coming to a focus. Maybe we can conclude it so that we can give our staff marching orders by the middle of March, to get things put in place. We can start gathering...you'll all have ideas on witnesses.

There's a big national forestry conference in Prince George the weekend of May 9. I would like it if in our travels some members would like to go to that. If we do the western half during part of the week before and end up in Prince George, which is a big forestry community—it's a city, but it's in north central B.C. so it's a rural setting, if you want, sort of like the Soo is in northern Ontario. I have that in the back of my mind. If we can arrange it that way, then some members who would like to go to that forestry conference could stay. Then we could finish the trip a few days after; rather than lose two weekends, maybe just tie up one weekend.

Roy, back to you.

Mr. Roy Cullen: That's the Northern Forest Products Association conference in Prince George?

The Chairman: I think so.

Mr. Roy Cullen: I'll be very brief.

If we look at Kyoto, in the field if you like, we could use it as an opportunity. Rather than having a process of formal witnesses, while we're there we could go and look at some really good examples.

We all have our pet projects, such as co-generation. We could visit a co-generation project and they could take us through and tell us what it does for them, how it has increased their competitiveness, their energy efficiency. We don't have to have a formal process of witnesses. In other words, structure it in such a way so we're able to see on site what can be done at the local level to increase our energy efficiency.

The Chairman: Jocelyne.

[Translation]

Ms. Jocelyne Girard-Bujold: I'd like to have some information about the forestry conference in Prince George. Because I live in Québec, I didn't know anything about it. I am very much concerned by this issue because I have two paper companies in my riding. I would really like to know what is happening in this industry. Just today I heard that Abitibi-Consolidated wanted to swallow up Avenor. That is happening in my riding. I would like very much to receive the information so that I can see what is happening. Thank you very much.

[English]

The Chairman: Jocelyne, I just got word two days ago that it was on, and I'm getting information. If the clerk will remind me, we'll be sure to circulate it to everybody.

I think it would make sense for travelling anyway, in a non-partisan way, to make ourselves available to the conference organizers. I'm sure they would be happy to receive any members of Parliament at the conference. I commit myself to getting that for you.

Mr. Roy Cullen: I have it in my office, if you need it.

The Chairman: Roy says he can get it to me faster.

Mr. Roy Cullen: The Northern Forest Products Association.

The Chairman: It's a big meeting, isn't it?

Mr. Roy Cullen: Oh yes, it's huge.

The Chairman: Give it to Marc, probably just in English, though, for now.

Mr. Roy Cullen: Sure.

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The Chairman: With that, colleagues, we'll come back after the break and have a session together. I'll try to have a travel plan available. We won't satisfy everybody with the travel plan—let's agree on that now—but we'll do our best. There are chances in the future to pick up what we missed this time. Thank you.

The meeting is adjourned.