FINA Committee Report
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A well-thought out policy, badly implemented, can be worse than no policy at all. It definitely negates the benefits of a good policy that is well managed and delivered. This is largely the message the Committee heard in its hearings on federal government’s User Charge and Cost Recovery Policy.
During my tenure as Chairman of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance, the Committee has been very much focussed on "getting government right." Whether it be with respect to the structure of the tax system, the regulation of financial institutions, the features of an infrastructure program to protect against natural disasters, the thrust of the Committee has been to ensure that government initiatives provide real net benefits to Canadians and are delivered efficiently. These initiatives have economy-wide effects on productivity and our standard of living.
We bring to the study of the Cost Recovery Policy the same concerns, namely real benefits and efficient delivery. But in this case, our concern zooms in on the individual citizen or firm that conducts business with the government. While there are ultimately economy-wide impacts, it is the price and quality of service that concerns us. Making government more businesslike, making it service oriented, is a difficult task but it is something that Canadians should expect.
The Policy of Cost Recovery was intended to foster such a change in mindset. It is not working as well as it should, nor is it working as well as it could. But this study has highlighted the fact that the challenge of designing and implementing good policy goes well beyond the subject of user charge and cost recovery. It is at the very heart of everything government does and every interaction between government and its citizens.
We often measure the size of government by its budget – how much does it spend and how much does it tax. But government, through laws and regulations, affects our daily lives in ways that are not revealed by spending and taxation. The budget does not reveal that in just over 20 years, Canadians were subject to more than 100,000 new regulations. One quarter of these were new federal regulations.
This is where it is important to get government right, because there is so much government to get right.
As Chairman of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance, I would like to take this opportunity to thank the members of the Committee for their hard work and dedication to this study.
At the same time, I would like to thank the many witnesses who took the time to prepare briefs and appear before the Committee.
Finally, I would like to thank the staff of the Committee. It is only because of their dedication that this Report could come to be. From the Committees and Legislative Services, I thank Pat Steenberg, Clerk of the Committee. I also thank the interpreters, sound technicians and other members of the House of Commons staff.
The members of the Committee would also like to thank the research staff provided by the Parliamentary Research Branch. These include Blayne Haggart, Jean Soucy and Marion G. Wrobel.
As always, my special assistants Jennifer Demers and Carole Fournier deserve thanks for their efforts in keeping my office running during this process and their help in producing this Report.