With summer break over, MPs roll up their sleeves
The daylight hours are getting shorter. The temperature has dropped a few degrees. By the time you read this some leaves will have already turned into bright autumn colours. What was for many of us a record-setting summer of heat is over.
In Ottawa, that means primarily one thing: Parliament is back, and politicians’ long, hot “barbecue circuits” on the road in their ridings have come to an end. They are now back to the grueling travel and Parliamentary schedules that make their jobs so challenging. For the federal government, it means that an agenda must be set for the remainder of the year.
Any financial planner will (or in any case should) tell you that past performance is no guarantee of future returns. Despite this maxim, we can be certain that the government’s focus as it returns to the business of legislating will be, as it has been since taking office in 2006, the still-shaky national economic outlook.
GOOD POLICY OR GOOD LUCK?
The Prime Minister and his senior cabinet colleagues will work hard to convince voters that the only thing between us and economic ruin is 308 Parliamentary noses to the grindstone in Ottawa. And there will even be some truth to such proclamations: much of Canada’s recent outperforming of other advanced economies can be chalked up to mostly sound regulation and legislation.
But unfortunately for the government and the story it is trying tell, a greater share can be attributed to good fortune. Whatever the causes, Canada’s been as sound a port as could have been hoped for during the storms of the past few years.
That we have so much of what the world needs buried beneath our soil explains more of our economic success in the recent past than a banking sector that didn’t get high on NINJA loans, those given to people with no income, no job, or assets. However the latter factor hasn’t hurt.
Still, sound government policy is a vital ingredient if the standard of living to which we’ve become accustomed is to continue.
Economic policy will be the main focus of the government’s efforts this fall. More specifically, the feds are likely to provide more detail on their Red Tape Reduction initiative for Canadian businesses, having received a report outlining dozens of recommendations that would reduce the paper and regulatory burden on business in this country just a few months ago.
As one of the pillars referred to by the Prime Minister in a speech in Davos, Switzerland early this year, the reduction of the regulatory burden — particularly for small businesses — is a real priority for the government.
If enacted in full, these measures would simplify the significant regulatory hoops businesses of all kinds have to jump through to set up shop in Canada. The challenge will be overcoming the bureaucratic inertia that inevitably greets any such efforts towards the simplification of rules.
DEFICIT REDUCTION
The government will carry on its course to reduce and eliminate the deficit in the next two years. This will be a particularly challenging goal. Current projections that lead to the deficit’s eventual elimination rely on optimistic economic growth projections and spending reductions that will not be easy to accomplish. Still, at only a couple of percentage points of GDP, the current federal deficit is entirely manageable and much lower than those of our counterparts in the United States, much of Europe and other developed countries.
Inevitably, issues will come up that derail even the best plans of the government and as always, it will have to act and react accordingly. As it always has, CADA will continue to be the dealers’ voice in Ottawa during the fall session and in the pre-budget period, a time during which the government consults with stakeholders on the country’s economic priorities.
Any agenda is subject to the constant barrage of events and the government’s is no different. Our economic fate is tied to eventualities beyond our control to a degree that the government likely wouldn’t admit. And so we will watch with great interest what happens in China, the United States, and in Europe in the coming months.
The government has a majority mandate and the legislative freedom that comes with it. But it cannot control what takes place beyond our shores any better than you or I. Stay tuned.
