Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. The pronunciation was very good.

Good morning, everyone.

The Quebec Employers' Council, the CPQ, would like to thank the committee for the opportunity to comment in the context of its study on federal regulatory modernization.

Reducing the regulatory and administrative burden is a major concern for Quebec employers. The CPQ believes that an overly rigid regulatory regime can interfere with businesses' ability to boost their performance and productivity and create wealth. It's clear that, in many cases, well-intentioned regulations can lead to unintended and undesirable consequences.

In addition, administrative tasks and paperwork consume a significant amount of managers' and business owners' time, and that directly impacts operations. Long wait times for project approvals, duplication and complex processes are all irritants and barriers to investment. Streamlined procedures and more efficient regulations would encourage investment and improve business productivity and competitiveness at no cost to the government. That's why the work you're doing here is so important.

If we look at any single bill or set of regulations, the procedures and their impact may seem reasonable. Taken together, however, they're a heavy burden for businesses. That's why a big-picture perspective is essential. It's important to consider the cumulative effects of the entire administrative burden on businesses, especially small and medium-sized businesses, or SMEs, and to do everything possible to lighten that burden. Regulatory regimes must prioritize efficiency, results and predictability. I have a few specific recommendations along those lines.

For starters, the government's approach to developing regulations must be improved by ensuring consultation periods and timelines that optimize stakeholder participation and involve independent experts.

Once new regulatory and administrative requirements and laws passed by the government are implemented, there must be thorough and continuous analysis of their actual impact on businesses and a mechanism to put forward suggestions for necessary reductions to the regulatory and administrative burden.

In addition, impact studies that accompany new legislative or regulatory provisions must be based on input from the sectors concerned and on-the-ground realities.

The government must also provide businesses with basic guidelines to facilitate compliance and consistency and ensure greater predictability.

Harmonization and avoiding duplication among departments and agencies and between multiple levels of government is essential. In budget 2023, the federal government said it was prepared to work with the provinces and territories to enhance federal-provincial co-operation to achieve the “one project, one assessment” objective, but that has not yet materialized.

The government should also eliminate the need to repeat certain applications and procedures for identical situations or when a company has demonstrated exemplary compliance in the past.

The federal government must also work with the provinces to remove more interprovincial trade barriers by facilitating mutual recognition of standards and regulatory harmonization. It should follow the example set by the Government of Quebec, which committed to introducing a specific bill every year in favour of regulatory and administrative relief and adopted an ambitious action plan to reduce this burden. The plan includes quantifiable red tape and cost control targets.

Equally important is following the one-for-one rule, which states that regulators must remove a regulation every time they introduce a new one. This rule covers regulation only, but laws, policies and guidelines are having an increasingly significant impact on both businesses and individuals.

Finally, we must avoid new counterproductive regulations that are not based on a proven need.

Consider Bill C‑58 on replacement workers. This may not be part of the committee's mandate, but we still wanted to bring it up.

My colleague and I would be pleased to answer any questions you may have. We may also have a few examples to share about temporary foreign workers or child labour in supply chains.

Thank you.