The Progressive Conservative government of Prime Minister Doug Ford is defending its flawed new online corporate registration that Bay Street law firms warn could drive businesses out of Ontario.
“What we have done is modernize a paper-based process that is 30 years old,” Government and Consumer Services Minister Ross Romano told the legislature on Thursday.
As Star first revealed, the Ontario Business Register, dating back a month, is so problematic that 16 of Canada’s leading law firms complained that “system shutdowns, technical failures and substantive problems “are forcing companies to incorporate outside the province.
They teamed up to send a 12-page letter to Romano noting that “it is adversely affecting our companies, customers and service providers” and that it is “having a chilling effect on business in Ontario in general.”
But the minister insisted that online registration is an improvement on the old system that would see companies “literally have to fill boxes of paperwork and then take these boxes of paperwork to service counters, wait in line, Monday only to Friday, nine “. To five.”
“Now you can make a transaction in 16 seconds that used to take 16 weeks and you no longer have to hire a high-priced attorney,” he said.
Last Friday, the firms wrote to him that many of them “are now recommending to their attorneys and clients that, if possible, the creation or use of Ontario entities in corporate transactions be avoided.”
They said they were recommending registration with “federal entities or other provincial jurisdictions … so as not to jeopardize the successful completion of many year-end transactions.”
The letter was signed by: Aird & Berlis; Bennett Jones; Blake, Cassels and Graydon; Borden Ladner Gervais; Davies Ward Phillips and Vineberg; Dentels; Fasken Martineau DuMoulin; Goodmans; Gowling; McCarthy Tetrault; McMillan; Norton Rose Fulbright; Osler, Hoskin and Harcourt; Stikeman Elliott; Torys; and Wildeboer Dellelce.
NDP MPP Catherine Fife (Waterloo) said Romano was “modernizing business from Ontario.”
“Aside from the obvious political embarrassment for this government, getting this right is actually very important,” Fife said.
“Does it really sound like a province that is ‘open for business’ to this prime minister?” he said, in a bid for Ford’s widely used booster catchphrase.
Developed by Teranet and operated by the Ontario government, the new ledger system has processed more than 120,000 transactions since its launch on October 19.
Rate distance from $ 25 to dissolve a business to $ 150 to register a non-profit entity and $ 300 to incorporate a business.
Law firms complain that the system hangs during business hours and there are data migration and document formatting issues.
He also seems to have a mind of his own: A renewal draft that seemed correct online was returned to a law firm with a “confirmation … authorized by an attorney who had retired from the firm seven years ago.”
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Reference-www.thestar.com