The CFIB calls government red tape a hidden tax, and they’re challenging federal and provincial governments to do more to lessen the cost of rules and regulations.
It’s all part of their annual Red Tape Week, where they call attention to the good, the bad and the ugly in government policy and methods.
It’s something that Penticton city hall deserves some praise for. Since the core review in 2009, the city has been in an ongoing process of streamlining procedures, especially in the planning department.
In one case, the failed hockey dorm project, the city could be accused of moving too quickly in their haste to put a project on the fast track.
The fallout from that poor decision was considerable, but for the most part, streamlining the approval project has enhanced Penticton’s reputation as a place to do business.
The CFIB wants to see provinces show more red tape cutting behaviour themselves and follow the lead of the federal government and legislate a one-for-one law.
So for every new strand of red tape the government insists on introducing, they must commit themselves to cutting through that same amount of older red tape still in the books, if not more.
Canada was the first country in the world to legislate a one-for-one law when the Red Tape Reduction Act was passed in 2015. Adding a regulation to reduce legislation isn’t a contradictory as it might seem.
It’s a way to ensure that red tape doesn’t grow layer by layer, making it more and more difficult to deal with government bureaucracies.
In turn, that means businesses, especially small businesses, won’t have to spend as much time filling out forms and jumping through hoops — lessening that red tape tax.
