"a silent job killer"

Tony of Avonlea:

"Excessive red tape is a hidden tax and a silent job killer," said Minister Clement. "The Action Plan increases Canadian competitiveness and frees business to innovate, invest, grow, and create jobs—and underscores Canada's reputation as one of the best places in the world to do business and invest."

Which begs an interesting question: If the Tories are committed to fighting "excessive red tape"- and who isn't? - then what do they consider an appropriate level of red tape? Since red tape is a job killer, why not get rid of it all? You could create many more jobs and economic opportunities that way.

This isn't a call for anarchy, just a reappraisal of how many laws we actually need. The laws and regulations that Minister Clement is scrapping have likely been in place for years. Why were they passed in the first place? What's changed? At some point a politician or bureaucrat regarded these infringements on personal liberty as justifiable, now Minister Clement has decided they're not worth the hassle. No explanation. Just cutting "excessive red tape."

In days of yore new laws were debated in Parliament and tended to receive a fair amount of public scrutiny. Today Parliament is mostly a talk shop and the public is astonishingly apathetic. Government has grown so large and so complex that few private citizens, and perhaps even fewer MPs, have even the foggiest idea of what the federal establishment does. Less scrutiny means that as a practical matter mid and low level bureaucrats have a remarkable amount of discretionary power.

While Parliament still passes laws, it's the bureaucracy that implements them. How they're implemented is partly at the discretion of Cabinet and the Minister, but often it's at the discretion of the bureaucrats. Some trivial interpretation of the tax laws, the transportation safety code or any other sub-section of the regulatory nexus can cost billions of dollars to the private sector. It's not surprising that large businesses employ armies of lobbyists. Often the lobbyists have a better understanding of the bureaucratic process than the responsible minister. 

Because of its size the modern federal and provincial governments are inherently unaccountable. When something becomes that big it becomes almost impossible to manage. When something that big has the force of law behind it, the result is almost inevitably abuse. The modern regulatory state is a direct threat to the principle of responsible government.

That last line might seem a bit of an exaggeration. How are paper pushers the new Family Compact or Chateau Clique? Because in both the modern and historical cases they are unaccountable to the electorate. That unaccountability threatens the rule of law. A bureaucracy that can change the rules overnight is inherently arbitrary, especially if the rule makers cannot be dismissed or punished. Such unaccountability is also a breeding ground for crony capitalists. Why compete for customers when it's so much simpler to pressure a politician or senior official? It worked for Bishop Strachan's former students, no doubt it works well for Tony Clement's pals.

This is not an accusations of illegality. Minister Clement learned politics at the fear of Bill Davis and served as a senior minister under Mike Harris. There are few more experienced pols in the country. I'm sure all the laws have been carefully obeyed. Rules that Minister Clement and those like him have established.

Thing is that something can be perfectly legal, yet morally questionable. Cutting red tape sounds great in principle, but how is it being cut? An "if" here and a "but" there in a regulatory edict and you can make some people very rich, and others very poor. Even with the best of intentions.

Here are two simple rules for government: If a current law does not objectively relate to punishing or preventing force or fraud, it should be scrapped. If a proposed law does not relate to punishing force or fraud, it should never see the legislative light of day. This approach would prevent "excessive red tape" far more easily than anything Tony Clement could do.

 

Comments

[Farmer Joe]

As far as the number of laws on the books go I think we have more than enough. I've long thought that a line in the snow should be drawn and that any new law or regulation should only be allowed if first you took an old one off the books. This would force politicians and bureaucrats to finally do their jobs by actually having to priorize what it is that should be done instead of going madly off in all directions, which is the case today.

[Cytotoxic]

The Cons haven't cut an iota of red tape aside from some environmental regulatory changes and they never will. This is all so much empty gesticulating. The machine is running itself, and it's running us.

[MikeG81]

Re: Farmer Joe

Agreed, but it isn't going to happen. When you have a Parliament full of lawyers, they aren't going to kneecap their fellows in the law industry by removing laws.

It's not only the amount of laws(which is far too much), but the wording and language. It should not take years and thousands of dollars for someone to be able to interpret the law. It puts the average person at a massive disadvantage, forcing them to spend thousands to hire a lawyer to interpret laws made by lawyers(see above).