What Provinces Have Achieved in 20 Years of Cutting Red Tape

The legislature building in Victoria, B.C., on Sept. 25, 2023. The Canadian Press/Chad Hipolito

As part of its red tape reduction efforts, Nova Scotia has reduced doctors’ administrative burdens so much that they are now available for 600,000 more patient visits annually. The biggest time-waster was writing sick notes, so the province said employers can’t require sick notes for the first two short-term illnesses of the year—those with absences five days or less.

It’s a strong example of how impactful cutting red tape can be, says economist Laura Jones, who helped kickstart initiatives to cut red tape in Canada, which she says began in earnest a little over 20 years ago.

She recalled some of the “ridiculous” regulations at the time. British Columbia, for example, had rules dictating how big televisions in restaurants should be or what size nails must be used in building a bridge over a small stream.

“Reducing red tape is a part of the solution to just about any public policy challenge we face,” Ms. Jones, who is now president and CEO of the Business Council of British Columbia, told The Epoch Times. In addition to helping with Canada’s health-care crisis, it can help with the housing crisis as well, she said.

“It’s not that you'll all of a sudden wave a magic wand and make a house that wasn’t affordable for you become affordable, but it’s going to help,” she said.

It was the early 2000s when a conscious effort to cut red tape began sweeping across Canada, Ms. Jones said. She was part of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) at the time. It’s an effort she’s long been interested in, and she started CFIB’s Red Tape Awareness Week 15 years ago. It’s an annual event taking place the last week of January.

Ms. Jones, along with representatives of provincial red tape reduction ministries, took The Epoch Times through the successes and challenges of red tape reduction across Canada.

At the Federal Level

The federal government took the “triple crown for most absurd regulations,” CFIB announced on Jan. 30. The worst instance of red tape use in the country in the past year, it said, is Canada Border Services Agency’s hefty import duties that have pushed a costume store in Calgary to the brink of closure.

The Costume Shoppe’s imported costumes have been reclassified from “festive wear” to “fancy dress,” resulting in an additional $100,000 in import duties and requiring the small business to refile on previous inventory.

Health Canada also won a CFIB “Paper Weight Award” this week for excessive red tape for natural health product businesses. CFIB says new regulations for the industry will result in “paperwork challenges and excessive fees to get a product into the Canadian market,” as well as challenges complying with complex new requirements including new labelling rules.

The third “award” for the federal government in its red tape “triple crown” went to Finance Canada for bringing payroll services under laws aimed at stopping money laundering and terrorist financing. It means more paperwork for small businesses using payroll services, CFIB said, and it duplicates bank measures already in place to prevent these crimes.

Ms. Jones said the federal government has taken some significant steps over the years to reduce red tape, especially with its Red Tape Reduction Act of 2015, which requires that one regulation be removed for each one added that adds to administrative burdens for businesses.

But, she said, the federal government still falls far short of what some of the provinces are doing. CFIB gave the federal government a C grade on its red tape report card released Jan. 31.

BC and the Prairies

British Columbia was the first province to really tackle red tape, Ms. Jones said. It started in 2001 and its first step was to quantify red tape so it could set clear reduction goals.

The province counted not only each regulation, but also every “shall” and “must” included under it, Ms. Jones said. Officials counted something like 400,000 such requirements, and set a target to cut one third of them, which they achieved.  The province has maintained zero net growth in red tape ever since, even through changes in government, she said. It received a B+ grade from CFIB this year.

Manitoba took the measurement even further. For example, Manitoba also included repetitions—if the same form had to be filled out twice annually, the province counted it twice.

With its more detailed count—the most detailed in the country—Manitoba found close to a million regulations compared to British Columbia’s 400,000, Ms. Jones said. Where British Columbia had a policy to reduce red tape, Manitoba took it further and made it a legislative requirement.

Within a year, Manitoba went from receiving very low grades on CFIB’s annual red tape report card—Fs and Ds—to receiving an A, Ms. Jones said. This year, CFIB listed it as “NA,” declining to grade it due to the province’s change in government.

Alberta has also been a quickly rising star, and it was one of only two provinces (Nova Scotia was the other) to receive an A grade this year. It received the top score in the country—9.4 out of 10, versus Nova Scotia’s score of 9.

The province’s Red Tape Reduction Minister Dale Nally told The Epoch Times one of his top priorities going forward is reducing the administrative burden for doctors so they can see more patients, as Nova Scotia did. He also plans to set hard deadlines for permit approvals of all sorts.

The timeline will be different for each kind of permit, he said, but in a scenario where an applicant is supposed to receive a response within 90 days—if the applicant doesn’t receive a response by that time, the permit would automatically be approved.

Dale Nally shakes hands with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith after Nally was sworn into cabinet as Minister of Service Alberta and Red Tape Reduction in Edmonton on Oct. 24, 2022. The Canadian Press/Jason Franson

Cutting red tape can save a lot of money, Mr. Nally said, giving the example of a recent move to allow oil wells to be bundled together in reclamation agreements. They were previously bundled together for approvals, but not for reclamation, creating more administrative work to treat them separately. That saved industry over $500 million, he said.

He became minister of red tape reduction in 2022, and the ministry itself was founded in 2019. Alberta has gone from failing grades on CFIB’s red tape report card to an A in that time. Like British Columbia, Alberta set the target of reducing red tape by one third, and Mr. Nally announced on Jan. 29 that the province has succeeded.

He said the minister’s role involves talking to stakeholders and collaborating with other ministries to reduce their red tape.

“We look to create a culture of red tape reduction,” he said.

Regulation is necessary for many reasons, such as to protect the environment, he said. “But it needs to be done with a light touch.”

Ontario and the Eastern Provinces

Ontario also has a ministry of red tape reduction. MPP Sam Oosterhoff, parliamentary assistant to the minister of red tape reduction, told The Epoch Times reducing duplicative processes and streamlining are some of his ministry’s most common tasks.

Ontario businesses used to have to go through multiple ministries for permitting. Now, a one-stop business portal streamlines the process, Mr. Oosterhoff said. He gave examples of several other pieces of red tape the province has recently cut, one affecting truck drivers.

Truckers used to have to take air-brake training every five years to review how air brakes work. It’s not the most impactful training, he said, as drivers don’t repair their own brakes, but they had to take a day off work to attend the trainings in person. Now it can be done online in about 30 minutes.

A file photo of Sam Oosterhoff from Nov. 17, 2016, just before he was elected MPP for Niagara-West Glanbrook, becoming the youngest-ever member of the Ontario legislature at the age of 19. The Canadian Press/Aaron Lynett

A lot of the cuts to red tape can be done within the respective ministries, Mr. Oosterhoff said. But the ones requiring legislative changes are bundled together and presented as a red tape reduction bill each spring.

Ontario received an A- on CFIB’s report card, up from a B+ last year. CFIB said the province’s work to reduce physician administrative burdens earned it bonus points.

Aside from Nova Scotia, the Maritimes scored low, with most getting a C grade; Newfoundland and Labrador received the only F in the country. New Brunswick did get a CFIB shoutout for “most improved jurisdiction,” having boosted its grade from D to C this year. Quebec received a B, with a score of 8 out of 10.

Permit Frustrations

CFIB also released a report this week on the permitting process for renovations. The idea was to look at a snapshot of the kinds of red tape contributing to Canada’s housing shortage.

It looked at the permitting costs and number of documents required for a $20,000 project to convert a powder room into a full bathroom in 12 cities. Vancouver was the worst, with $2,029 in fees and 11 documents.

The report included testimony from a resident of Chilliwack, B.C., who was looking to build a small coach house. Construction hadn’t yet started after three years of jumping “through hoop after hoop,” the resident said.

“They just don’t realize we are in a housing crisis,” the resident said.

Quantifying and reporting on red tape reduction is important, Ms. Jones said, but “the part that we can’t quantify or capture in cost is the frustration.”

“Most people have had the experience of trying to get help from government or filling in some form that’s totally unnecessary,” she said. “And it’s not just the time, it’s also that your blood pressure goes up.”