Business leaders have high expectations now that Prime Minister Stephen Harper has the “strong, stable, national Conservative majority government” he urged Canadians to elect on May 2.
Harper repeatedly promised that he would cut corporate taxes to 15% by 2012 and return to a budget surplus by the 2015 fiscal year.
And while analysts also expect him to liberalize rules on foreign investment in Canadian companies, local business leaders are more concerned that he reduce red tape and streamline regulations.
According to the most recent BIV-Ipsos quarterly business confidence survey (see page 7), business leaders identified the issue of excessive bureacracy and cumbersome processes as the most important issue they wanted discussed in the campaign.
None of the federal parties obliged, however, prior to the Conservative Party’s majority election win on May 2, even though Harper created the Red Tape Reduction Commission in January. That commission’s only B.C. representative, Kamloops MP Cathy McLeod, did not respond to Business in Vancouver interview requests by press time.
But Laura Jones, vice-president for B.C. and Yukon with the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, provided several examples of where Harper should start cutting. Foremost on her list: Canada Revenue Agency’s (CRA) “crazy” rule that requires business owners to send a letter via snail mail to Ottawa if they want written advice on how they should navigate CRA’s procedures.
“If you phone them and they give you advice, you should be able to say, ‘I want that in writing, please.’ They could then just send an email,” she said.
“What’s more is that if CRA gives you advice and it turns out to be wrong, you shouldn’t be on the hook.”
Jones said the B.C. government agreed years ago that if its staff gave business owners inaccurate advice about the provincial sales tax (PST), business owners would not be liable for penalties when they followed that advice.
Jones also suggests:
- streamlining the application process to get the scientific research and experimental development (SR&ED) tax credit;
- getting rid of the problem-plagued T4A tax form that’s intended to ferret out the underground economy but, in reality, is “incredibly complicated”; and
- working with provinces to standardize the definitions for “contractor” and “employee” when it comes to deducting taxes, conforming with employment standards and paying workers’ compensation board dues.
“Many business owners are frustrated by the labour market opinion process for hiring temporary foreign workers. Why not allow renewals of the labour market opinion without having to repeat the entire process?”
Jones added that employers are forced to prove they have advertised positions and that the wages being offered are comparable to what they would pay a Canadian.
Elsewhere, BIV has covered winery owner frustrations about not being able to ship alcoholic products across provincial boundaries (see “Wine activist blasts liquor law for restricting interprovincial trade” – issue 1121; April 19-25).
Kelowna Conservative MP Ron Cannan tabled a motion in the House of Commons last fall to assess support for revamping the 1928 law that bans interprovincial alcohol shipments, and Jones hopes the Conservative government will allow that motion to come to a vote and then follow it up with action.