Government Operations committee  I think there is. I know that in the past there have been some privacy concerns for people not necessarily wanting government departments to share information, but I think that's an area where we need to continue to advance and check in with Canadians. Appropriately, I think a lot of Canadians would be fine with sharing information if it were to simplify forms.

Government Operations committee  Yes, of course. In very general terms, the pricing approach would be preferred, but a pricing approach that is revenue-neutral and whereby we're taking the revenue from carbon taxes and putting it into tax reductions in things like income tax reductions is the approach that we would, in very general terms, prefer.

Government Operations committee  When you think about new...where you might be likely to have less regulation than is optimal is in that lower quadrant that we're talking about in the diagram I gave you. It would tend to be in emerging industries. That's where you get debate. When you think about how long it took to put some regulations in place around vaping products or things like that, we're sometimes slower than we need to be with emerging products.

Government Operations committee  It's important to be a little more nuanced about this. It isn't always the case that reducing regulatory burdens will increase competitiveness. In some cases, our competitiveness is enhanced by the fact that people have a lot of faith in Canadian products being safe and healthy.

Government Operations committee  That is another very good question. I think in some cases it's obvious. When we look at the Nova Scotia example I gave earlier, employers, doctors, patients— everyone was agreeing that the sick note requirements were not adding any value, and they were taking a lot of time. That's an example of the obvious.

Government Operations committee  I think we're fortunate to live in a country where we have good institutions and standards around that. Of course, it's important that we're always mindful of this. Having healthy debates and conversations about this is part of it. However, respect those boundaries. You mentioned the ones between the Bank of Canada and politicians.

Government Operations committee  The top ones that I would like to highlight are, first of all, that we need a kind of a North Star, an idea of what it is we want our regulatory system to do. I think that too often we equate more rules with better protection and fewer rules with less protection. That's sometimes the case, but it's not always the case.

Government Operations committee  Thank you. I think you're pointing out that there are lots of opportunities to simplify without undermining the objectives. Certainly, paperwork forms are something that we heard a lot about at the external advisory committee. Our advice on that was that every department and agency needs to get very focused on what it can do.

Government Operations committee  I am more of an expert in productivity as it relates to the regulatory topics we're talking about. Productivity, simply put, is the amount of output per worker. The more efficient we can be, the more we can produce. That translates into being paid more, which is something that's important for all Canadians.

Government Operations committee  I apologize, but my audio failed temporarily. I know that you were asking about productivity, but perhaps you had a more specific question.

Government Operations committee  I don't think you have to look very far before you find examples of overly complicated language that would be difficult for people to understand in most government forms and processes. That would be one that is high on the list there. One of the interesting things they did in Nova Scotia with that doctor's example that I looked at was a lot of shadowing.

Government Operations committee  That's another very good question. One of the first things we did as a committee was to shift the frame. In the committee's name was “regulatory competitiveness”. We agreed very quickly that might put too much emphasis on the need to reduce and might not be the right balance between protection and minimizing burden.

Government Operations committee  That's a very good question. Actually, it's a pretty broad-based group of Canadians. There are several academics on the group, a few who are representing business interests and one for civil society, but what I would say, as one of the reasons I was really proud to be the chair of this committee, is that I think all of us are Canadians first when we come into that room.

Government Operations committee  Yes, but first I might like to touch on your other question, about AI. We did hear one really good example at the external advisory committee. The City of Kelowna is doing a pilot whereby they're looking at taking housing approvals from weeks and months to a matter of seconds for those basic approvals.

Government Operations committee  We're still looking at the capital gains inclusion rate. We certainly have heard some concerns from some members, particularly in the biotech sector, so we'll be looking carefully at that. Our broader concern, in terms of what's going on in our budget, is that the numbers for GDP per capita are looking very bleak in Canada.