OTTAWA, Ont. – Representatives from the Western Business Coalition are in Ottawa this week, advocating on behalf of the business community in the Western provinces for more measures to keep Canada competitive.
The WBC, which is comprised of leaders from the Saskatchewan Chamber of Commerce, the Business Council of British Columbia, the Business Council of Alberta and the Business Council of Manitoba, made it known they liked the direction the Mark Carney government was taking, but had ideas to do even more.
“We've come to Ottawa with two clear messages. One, to thank government for its progress, and two, let's keep the momentum going,” said Adam Legge, President, Business Council of Alberta, in Ottawa on Tuesday.
In particular, Legge said Prime Minister Mark Carney and the federal government have “taken meaningful steps to improve Canada's competitiveness and investment climate.” He particularly welcomed the introduction this week of Bill C- 39, the Build Canada Strong Act, calling it “what Canadian businesses have been asking for.”
He said the legislation takes direct aim at two long-standing barriers to Canada's prosperity: slow and unpredictable project approvals and labour instability affecting critical supply chains.
Prabha Ramaswamy, CEO of the Saskatchewan Chamber of Commerce, spoke to SaskToday from Ottawa and said this meeting followed up on a letter written to all MPs on Sept. 1.
“One was advancing major projects. The second one was improving regulatory competitiveness. The third one was supporting trade resilience. And the fourth one was focusing on sustainable economic immigration,” Ramaswamy said.
Ramaswamy welcomed Bill C-39 as addressing the need for reliable trade corridors and stable labour relations.
She said the bill “essentially checks off a couple of the priorities that we had in our letter. Advancing major projects and supporting trade resilience. We have been calling on the federal government, and as well as the business coalition, on streamlining the approval process for projects. We became quite uncompetitive as a country because of the onerous regulatory process in relation to projects, and particularly major projects.”
Ramaswamy said that in particular Bill C-39 streamlines the project review process, and “essentially it boils down to one project, one review, one year. So the review process is now confined to one year, which will allow for more projects to be approved, more economic activity to take place, investor confidence being restored that we are an agile and nimble nation, and as a result, attract a lot more investment. So we very much support that aspect of this bill.”
A second aspect she pointed to was a “need to invest in infrastructure, trade-related and trade-enabling infrastructure, and that was really important in order to restore our reputation as a reliable trading partner. And the other aspect of restoring our reputation as a reliable trading partner was to be able to manage labour disruptions.”
One of the recommendations in their letter was to appoint a special mediator who can intervene early in a preventative way with mutual intervention to avert a national supply chain crisis and be able to continue trading functions.
“So both of these aspects have been captured in the bill and there are several other things, but we were pleased to see that the concerns of businesses were heard and incorporated into the bill.”
The other coalition leaders also wanted to see additional measures, including more reduced regulations.
At their Ottawa news conference, Laura Jones, President and CEO of the Business Council of British Columbia, said the Western Business Coalition is calling for a three-year target to reduce regulatory requirements by 25 per cent across legislation, regulation, and policy.
“This would complement the work to speed up big projects and improve our living standards by freeing up wasted time and energy to be spent more productively.”
There was also the call for further regulatory reforms in immigration. Bram Strain, President and CEO of the Business Council of Manitoba, pointed to the need for targeted immigration for targeted immigration to supplement the domestic labour force.
“We need a strong provincial nominee program. So while we applaud everything that's happened in the last two weeks, we look forward to working with the government to strengthen the provincial nominee program, to enable provinces to attract and retain workers for their labor market… Again, this is not to replace Canadian workers. This is to strengthen our economy. This is to strengthen opportunities for all Canadians.”
Overall, Ramaswamy said the mood during their last couple of days in Ottawa has been optimism about where things are headed at a policy level.
“I would say that the direction is appropriate. The vision and the direction is where we need to be,” Ramaswamy said.
”It seems like in this global race for investments and competitiveness, Canada seems to be getting back on track to play in the race, to win the race. Legislation and introducing legislation is only one part of the equation. Success is going to be measured by execution and impact and so we will be watching closely for that, but we seem to be moving in the right direction.”
Ramaswamy does see other things the country needs to work on including internal trade, saying internal trade is “one of those things that we can control.”
”We can control our own economic agenda and one way of unlocking the GDP potential that exists in our country is to reduce and eliminate internal trade barriers, so that certainly will be another issue that we will be advocating for.”
