Thank you, Mr. Chair. It's nice to see you again, along with members of this committee.

It's my pleasure, once again, to appear before you on behalf of 400 chambers of commerce and boards of trade and more than 200,000 businesses of all sizes, of all sectors of the economy, from every part of the country.

Now, I've already had a chance to share an opening statement with this committee, so I'm really looking forward to the discussion and questions. Therefore, I'll keep my opening remarks fairly brief.

Having said that, as I mentioned in my last appearance, the regulatory burden is an ongoing issue for Canadian businesses. It stifles business growth and investment in Canada. According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, or the OECD, Canada ranks second to last among a group of 31 countries in terms of business investment growth. The relatively poor investment performance of Canada compared to other countries suggests that businesses see less opportunity in Canada, spelling trouble for the country's future economic growth prospects.

While our members frequently bring forward specific regulatory challenges, they all lead to a broader general theme. The government is moving too slowly on regulatory modernization, while taking a piecemeal approach. As a result, the complexity of our regulatory system continues to stifle economic growth.

Canada also has a complex network of overlapping regulations from all levels of government that make a lot of things more expensive and more difficult than they need to be for businesses. Every hour and every dollar businesses spend dealing with redundant paperwork and confusing compliance issues is an hour or a dollar not spent running and growing a business. This is especially true for small businesses, which often lack the specialized staff and the financial resources of larger companies to deal with regulation and compliance.

Moreover, while some steps have been taken to strengthen interprovincial trade with the launch of the Canadian internal trade data and information hub, we have missed opportunities to reduce interprovincial trade barriers. Interprovincial trade barriers cost Canada's economy more than $14 billion each year. Progress on strengthening internal trade is necessary to reduce barriers and to ensure an open market and the free flow of people and goods across Canada.

Regulatory modernization does not mean deregulation or a lessening of environmental, labour, safety or any other important societal standards. Rather, it means writing regulations smarter, more efficiently and in a manner that focuses on economic growth and business investment.

Now is the time for the government to move boldly and urgently on a collaborative, transparent, whole-of-government approach to regulatory reform. The three recommendations I put forward in my last appearance were as follows. First, the government must move to implement an economic and competitiveness mandate to federal regulators. Second is regulatory alignment across domestic and international jurisdictions. Finally, the government should pledge to provide regulatory certainty to businesses.

The Canadian chamber, though, also recently submitted recommendations to the President of the Treasury Board regarding the reignition of the Canada–United States Regulatory Cooperation Council, or RCC. Our relationship with our most important trading partner is of the utmost priority, and it was good to see yesterday that Canada and the United States reaffirmed their shared commitment to regulatory co-operation.

In such a competitive business environment, we need to streamline and align regulatory processes, promote trade, pursue mutual recognition and enhance the efficiency of cross-border operations between our two countries. A reinvigorated regulatory co-operation council will do just that, while promoting Canadian prosperity, sustainability and safety. With nearly $3.5 billion of trade crossing our border every day, we must do everything we can to ensure that regulatory alignment will support further growth in trade and market access.

That said, I cannot stress enough that for Canada to be a competitive trading partner globally, we must have our own house in order. This will require not only regulatory harmonization with the United States but also addressing the web of overlapping regulations between Canadian jurisdictions. As I said previously, when regulations are more consistent between jurisdictions, businesses are better able to trade within Canada and beyond.

I thank you for the opportunity to bring further testimony to the honourable members of this committee today. I look forward to the questions and the discussion.