OTTAWA: Finance Minister Bill Morneau failed to reassure members of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce that his tax reforms won’t hurt their businesses, says Perrin Beatty, the group’s CEO and president. Beatty said Morneau’s speech to the business group at its annual meeting in Fredericton over the weekend had “just the opposite effect” and the chamber is not backing down from its fight against the reforms. “We’re very much worried about what the impact would be on family farmers, small business people down the main street of all communities in Canada, and what it would do in terms of discouraging job creation, growth in the economy, and so on,” said Beatty, a former Progressive Conservative MP and cabinet minister. “And we’re very, very concerned about the process they’ve followed. It’s not been listening, it’s been one-way transmission.” Now, Beatty said, the chamber plans to “double down” on its fight against the proposed changes by working with local chambers of commerce across the country to gather more feedback from small business owners.
“The minister can cut off the consultations, but he can’t prevent us from giving a voice to Canadian business,” he said. Guillaum Dubreuil, a public affairs official with the chamber, said the organization plans to deliver that feedback to the federal government. Beatty, who served as a cabinet minister under Joe Clark and Brian Mulroney, said he had a chance to meet with Morneau over the weekend. Beatty said he told the minister that, among other things, the government needs to have a consultation process that is more fair and transparent. “This 75 days in the middle of summer, so-called consultation process, is anti-democratic, and the government needs to take a fresh look at what it’s doing,” he said. The federal government has said it plans to accept comments on its proposal until Oct. 2.
