A new Fraser Valley licensing system to allow businesses that operate across municipal boundaries work in any of nine municipalities under a single business licence is good news for those in the catchment area – but leaves those outside the zone struggling to be competitive.
Mobile businesses – such as builders, plumbers and also larger companies such as developers – have until now been required to obtain a separate business licence for each municipality in which they work and grapple with varying levels of documentation and fees. For larger companies that's not usually an onerous obligation, but for small businesses it can result in lost jobs if they can't get the paperwork done in time after a work offer.
Nine Fraser Valley municipalities consequently decided to band together to deal with the problem. On November 8, Minister of State for Small Business Naomi Yamamoto announced a pilot program that would create a common city bylaw allowing businesses that operate across municipal boundaries to apply for a single intermunicipal "mobile" business licence.
Beginning January 1, 2013, businesses operating across Surrey, Langley, the Township of Langley, Abbotsford, Chilliwack, Mission, Maple Ridge, Pitt Meadows and the District of Hope can apply for a single licence covering all these areas.
There's no similar program in Vancouver or the other Lower Mainland municipalities, although Vancouver is considering becoming part of it.
Terry Pepin, president of RooFix, a Burnaby-based roofing company that does most of its work in Vancouver, Burnaby, the North Shore and Richmond, is likely to benefit little from the new system and will continue to apply and pay for separate business licences each year.
Pepin, whose annual bill for renewing his licences is around $2,500, said he would like to see a licence that covers the entire Lower Mainland, right up to Whistler.
"[The requirements] differ from municipality to municipality," he said. "You have to provide, in some cases, your incorporation documents and all sorts of information on what kind of a business you're running, the employees that you have, what vehicles you have out there and how often you work there. And, of course, there's endless forms to fill in for whatever level of government you're dealing with."
Laura Jones, executive vice-president of the Canadian Federation for Independent Business, said the hassle of dealing with all the paperwork can be prohibitive for some companies.
"Sometimes businesses will get a call from a customer in a municipality where you don't typically do any work, and you might just choose to say no to that customer," she said. "So it affects people's ability to get plumbers and painters and contractors.
"Alternatively, the businesses might do the job and forget to get a business licence."
Pepin agreed.
"I know several firms that do all those things but don't have licences everywhere," he said, explaining that it's a risk he's not willing to take and that RooFix always complies with licensing requirements.
"When residential customers are checking your credentials, they look at, for example, your insurance coverage and your workers' compensation coverage, but typically they won't check whether you get a business licence or not."
Tom Hammel, Vancouver's deputy chief licence inspector, said the city is currently working with Surrey and Richmond to implement an intermunicipal licence. He said the one-year pilot will begin some time in 2013 and that the cost of the licence will be between $150 and $200.
Hammel said the main objection to such a program has been the potential revenue loss to the municipalities.
The city, he said, is therefore working to ensure its impact is "revenue neutral."
But Jones pointed out that, because implementing intermunicipal licences results in many more businesses complying with requirements, licence revenue increases for municipalities.
"It's very, very well received by business owners."
Jones said that many municipalities continue to drag their feet on adopting a similar pan-municipal business licence, even though it should be a "no-brainer."
"It really does leave us a little frustrated with the attitude of some municipalities around this, because it does suggest that small business concerns, for some of them, are pretty low on their priority list."
