Red Tape Reduction Week Starts Tomorrow
Prince George, B.C.- Tomorrow marks the start of Red Tape Reduction week in Canada, and the goods news, says Canadian Federation of Independent Business V.P for BC/Alberta, Richard Truscott, is that efforts are being made to reduce red tape right across the country.“We’ve seen governments wake up to this issue” says Truscott, ” They are looking at things through the eyes of business owners and they realize there’s a problem and that’s good news.”
Truscott says there is no one particular regulation which is causing concern “Focusing on specific irritants is helpful, but even better is making sure there are constraints on regulators for the overall mountain or rules and regulations that are put on the backs of business owners.”
He says one of the ways governments can help is by capping the total number of regulations “Passing what is called the one in, one out rule, so for every new rule or regulation that governments bring in, they have to find something of at least equivalent value to retire so that the number of rules regulations and requirements does not grow over time.”
British Columbia has been praised in the past by the CFIB for reducing red tape, in fact it has been acknowledged as one of the best in Canada. This year is no different, with B.C. Premier Christy Clark and Minister of Small Business Coralee Oakes nominated for the Golden Scissors Award for introducing legislation to an annual Red Tape Reduction Day, dedicated entirely to repealing outdated regulations and provisions. The legislation is the first of its kind in North America. The initiative included adding a suggestion button to the BC government website, and a regular red tape reduction report card so that citizens can the progress being made. In its first year, the government repealed 37 items, resulting in the removal of over 215 red tape headaches.
“BC is by no means perfect on this front” says Truscott “But they have been paying attention for the last decade and it’s starting to pay off. The B.C. Government, to its credit, are real leaders on this front. While the policies aren’t always small business friendly in some other areas, on regulatory reform they certainly have been focused, taking action, and showing real leadership.”
Truscott says rules, regulations and requirements can deter small business from growing ” In fact, according to our survey information, about a quarter of all small business owners say they may not have gone into business if they had known about the burden of regulation and red tape. That really says to me that we’ve got a serious problem and it’s a major issue. If we’ve got business owners out there who are busy filling out forms, ticking boxes and searching web sites for information, that means they are not doing what they should be doing and what they love to do and that is building their business, creating jobs and serving their customers and clients.” He says productivity would improve if owners could get back to the business of running their business.
The CFIB estimates the annual cost of all regulations on businesses in Canada at $37 billion a year.
Comments
This is good news now if they would keep going and do the same thing to all the other garbage they brought in over the years. Fishing rules really need a clean up, as well as everything else that applies to leisure time.
Even the fish aren’t happy?
I have been trying to buy red tape recently and can’t find any. Lots of yellow tape with words on it.
That’s the police tape around your house, you need to duck under and head to City Hall
The ‘reduction’ of Red Tape is akin to the ‘reduction’ of the National Debt by Paul Martin. By shifting it elsewhere. In Red Tape’s case to Regional Districts and Municipalities, which enact rules in unison under the dictates of the Province via their non-elected Administrative Officers. The people that actually run the show at those levels of government, and are paid those six-figure salaries to get the legislation they write signed by the five-figure salaried City Councillors and Regional Board Directors. Red Tape at their level continues to burgeon out of control. No attempt at stopping it whatsoever.
I bet you quite a few of the councillors make 6 figures
Maybe so, Slinky. Not where we are they don’t, not yet, but possibly elsewhere. The Chairman of the Regional Board where we are makes more in that position for attending a few meetings a month than he ever made at his regular full time job as a clerk in a local hardware store.
Many of the councillors are double dipping. When on takes their full time job plus their part time Councillor jobs, plus 4 members of Council get $ from seats they occupy on the Regional District, they have an income in the 6 figures. On top of that, part of the income is not taxable.
Besides, whether it is City Administrators or Provincial Administrators who write the laws, who cares.
What I want to know is how they determine whether red tape is reduced. Do they count the total words? (quantity) The ease of reading and understanding? (quality). The need of the regulation/law? (equity/security)
Who determines? Public opinion poll? Law makers? The courts? (number of appeals)
They say red tape is reduced, but who says so and what proof can they give?
That’s hilarious, “Red Tape Week”. Move that up to a year! What a crock!
With less regulations does that mean less beuracrats?
Not likely, but maybe the expansion in their numbers could be slowed a bit. Maybe.
The restrictions on what you can do on “your” property grow ever more numerous year by year. If you’re not outright forbidden to do many things you used to be able to do without any interference at all, the cost of getting through all the necessary hoops now makes it simply too expensive to do what you wanted to do. I’m talking primarily about a business property here, now, but it applies to residential ones, too.
That might have some justification if the assessed value of your property were adjusted downward to reflect the loss of economic and/or personal freedom you now have to endure. But to add insult to injury the assessed value goes up instead!
So here you have a property on which you’re going to be forced to submit a higher yearly tax on just to say you still own it, but you’re prohibited from doing a lot of things you otherwise might do to get the extra money necessary to pay that increased tax! Is this something that’s just happened by accident? Or is it purposefully designed that way?
No!
More, in order to interpret regulations which have not been written clearly enough. ;-)
That’s where the Loophole Lawyers make their money.
Regulatory measures protect our health, safety and the environment. Corporations and business cannot be trusted to do this for us, as they are focused on making profits, they cannot be trusted to regulate themselves. There are plenty of examples at a Federal and Provincial level that shows us what can happen as a result of deregulation.
Federally, not only did the Harper Conservatives cut $6.7 million from transportation safety oversight, they also deregulated the rail transport industry so much, that is now considered one of the factors behind the Lac-Mégantic train disaster. An October of 2013 report by Bruce Campbell, executive director of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives in Ottawa, titled The Lac-Mégantic Disaster: Where Does the Buck Stop?, charges that government deregulation made the rail industry unsafe.
Provincially, the Mount Polley tailings pond disaster was caused, in part, to a lack of regulatory oversight, via a lack of adequate mine inspections. BC’s Auditor General blasted the Christy Clark government for “’Major Gaps” in BC’s Mining Oversight and recommended the responsibility to regulate industry should be removed from the ministry, this in the Auditor General’s scathing report.
ht tps://thetyee.ca/News/2016/05/04/BC-Mining-Oversight-Major-Gaps/
It’s amazing what you can get for fifty grand a year in BC .
You do know , of course, that Crown agencies like BC Hydro, for instance, aren’t subject to the same regulations that apply to the rest of us?
Case in point, you’re not allowed to run a live power line coming into your property over the roof of a building. But if Hydro decides to change the access route for that power line to a structure on your property, and that means the line will go over the roof of a building, over it goes. They have different grounding rules for night lights they install and rent to you than you’d be subject to if you bought those same lights and had them installed privately. Lots of things like that.
Conspiracy websites must get a workout at daily at your place hey BH?
Lac Megantic was not a failure of regulation, it was a failure of an engineer to set the proper amount of brakes he was required to. No oversight or additional regulation will change that fact. More pipelines may have changed the outcome negating the need for shipping oil by rail.
Mount Polly was an oversight in engineering at the outset.
“Norbert Morgenstern, who headed the panel, said the failure at Mount Polley can be traced to the original design, and government inspections could not have detected the fault.”
Here you go, have fun reading
ht tp://www.wise-uranium.org/mdaf.html
Conspiracy websites like the New York Times? Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives? BC’s Auditor General?
“In January, an expert panel report on the Mount Polley incident concluded that, based on past performance, British Columbia can expect to see two failures of tailings ponds every 10 years – a not-insignificant risk that spurred calls for an overhaul of the province’s REGULATORY regime for the mining industry.”
ht tp://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/bc-mining-development-poses-serious-risk-to-water-sources-report/article24763705/
Hey Christy less than 4 months until the next election, so when will your government overhaul our provincial regulatory regime for the mining industry? *crickets*
People seem to have forgotten that that “red tape” only comes into existence because business cannot be trusted to regulate themselves. Leave regulation to business and the next minute you have Lac Megantics and Westrays.
And the safety record in Communist Chinese coal mines….? And Soviet Russia was such a pristine paradise where no profit hungry, greedy, corporate capitalists despoiled the environment…?
Red Tape comes into existence because some people always want to make a business of minding other people’s business when they’d be way better off minding their own. Which is sorely in need of their attention.
The leadership in Russia and China became the business class, so it still stands that business cannot regulate itself. Simple as that.
Not quite. No one is saying that there should be NO regulation. It is the burgeoning volume of all too often inane regulations that those of us in business object to. In California, which always seems to be a decade or two ahead of us in dreaming up ridiculous laws, the now has to be a fact sheet given out with every purchase of lumber explaining that if you breathe any wood dust cutting that 2×4, or whatever, you might come down with cancer. Is this kind of stuff necessary? After all, there’s warning labels with graphic examples pictured of what might happen to people who smoke cigarettes plastered all over every pack of those stinking things, has it had any effect whatsoever in deterring those who want to smoke? All these inane rules COST. LOTS. And those costs are added on to the prices we have to pay. Already people are short of incomes compared to the prices of goods they need to buy from them. And this kind of stuff just makes that worse.
An 89-year-old woman died on Aug. 25, 2008, the first victim of a listeriosis outbreak that killed 23 people, sickened thousands more and triggered the biggest food recall in Canadian history. A government investigation determined the cause of the outbreak: tainted meat from processing giant Maple Leaf Foods. Yet just 4 short years later the Harper Government slashed the budget for the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA), the federal department responsible for food safety, by $56 million over three years.
Now have socredible proposing Darwin’s Law; “Red Tape comes into existence because some people always want to make a business of minding other people’s business when they’d be way better off minding their own.” SERIOUSLY??? One would think effective government regulations and oversight on what we feed ourselves, and our children, would be a benefit to us, and NOT a burden! May I remind you that every day single day, our very lives depend on effective government regulations and oversight.
What does it take socredible? How many Lac Magantic’s, sawmill explosions, killer foodborne bacterial outbreaks, mining disasters, etc. etc. etc. will it take to convince you, and your ilk, that effective government regulation and oversight of industry and business is not only necessary, it is essential for us and our environment?
@ socredible
People are short of income compared to prices because the business class and their lackeys in government have enacted 30+ years of policy designed to move more of the productive output of people up the ladder in benefit of themselves. The business class think that they can make up any shortfall in domestic consumption ability by having “free trade” agreements enacted that allow them to export the excess product that their own workers cannot afford to other countries, in the hope that those workers will be able to buy the stuff they made.
Of course, that doesn’t really work because the business class in those countries are busy suppressing wages through unemployment and adoption of automation, so they can try to make up shortfalls in their domestic consumption by exporting their excess production to us, in the belief that there are enough people with disposable income to absorb their production.
And while we’re on the subject, one of the greatest examples of ‘red tape’ that could be done away with is that thing every Municipality and Regional District is burdened with known as the “Official Community Plan.” I’ve lost count of the number we’ve had where we are, but I’m absolutely certain not one of them has ever been followed. Yet on our annual property tax bill’s accompanying breakdown sheet of where our tax dollars supposedly go, it’s always one of the larger items. How did we ever manage without such things in the past? People who have been educated, sitting in rooms coloring maps of what should go here, and there, and everywhere. We had one past one I remember where a whole area of the City was zoned for ‘light industrial’. But NOT for any kind of industry that might’ve made sense, rather for “high tech, value added manufacturing”, sans any possible pollution of any sort whatsoever. It sat vacant for a number of years until Wal-Mart thought it would be a nice place to have a new shopping mall. Presto-change-o, what a bit of big money can accomplish. They got their way, and while that in itself might be okay, the assessments on ALL other lands zoned ‘light industrial’ that WERE already being used went UP! And so did their tax bills.
“How did we manage without one?”
We didn’t. Have you looked at the Hart Highway area? That is the kind of ugly wasteland that you get without an OCP. In fact, a lot Prince George looks like a wasteland with light industrial areas planted all over the place without any rhyme or reason, other than land was cheap at the time and an industrial park was the highest profit return on development.
But these things are not set in stone, Hahaha. If you look at downtown Vancouver today there are apartment and office towers all over lands that were once used for heavy and light industry. The whole False Creek area was full of various sawmills and other manufacturing enterprises. Same in most other places. Things change. The best intentions of those who’d plan the Earth oft go far awry.
Those areas in Van only got redeveloped because the BC government was engaging in large scale spectacle in the form of the 86 World Exposition and gong shows like the Winter Olympics.
The Hart Highway was under the jurisdiction of the BC Government Agent, before it came under the Regional District and the Municipality of Prince George, (after amalgamation) so you can blame the ugliness on the BC Government of the day.
Oh so, basically, it was that bastion of business the SoCred party that was responsible for that ugly eyesore of an area. Why am I not surprised.
“Official Community Plan.” I’ve lost count of the number we’ve had where we are, but I’m absolutely certain not one of them has ever been followed.”
Have you known of anyone who has ever followed a business plan for 10 years? Business plans are just that, plans. I am planning to do this.
2 years later someone comes along and asks you why you did not do what you planed with your business.
You tell her that if you had, you would no longer be in business. You tell her things changed and you had to adjust to accommodate the change. You tell her that you could not foresee the change 2 years ago.
On top of that you tell her that you have a new plan, but knowing what you know now, you doubt that the way you run your business in 3 to 5 years will not be the way you think it will go now.
Not only that, but you tell her that you are going to do a simple environmental scan at the end of each year to see how you did and whther there are any improvements you can make.
Planning is human nature. Cavemen who survived did it; Romans did it and modern man does it.
Except socredible. :-)
Red tape Christy has already cut the tape so she could receive an extra 50,000 per year.
There were plenty of rules and regulations in effect during the Maple Leaf listeriosis disaster, and the Lac Megantic disaster.
The problem seems to be that people are not correctly following the rules and regulations, and therefore I fail to see how adding more rules, regulations, or money would solve these problems.
Perhaps what we need is more training, and more responsibility of all employee’s and company officials, including Government.
We had a Federal Government Commission on Red Tape in 2010. Not sure how effective it was, however I’m guessing that it got hung up on red tape.
When double entendre aplys , magic . What a glib statement . What do you suggest ? Inspection of regulation compliance? Review regulation ? Or both ?
Palopu, you hit the nail on the head. We have plenty of regulations in this country. We certiainly don’t need more.
Ataloss, you are once again at a loss.
When our own BC Auditor General blasting the Christy Clark government for “Major Gaps” in BC’s Mining Oversight and recommending the responsibility to “regulate industry” should be removed from the ministry… what does that tell you?
It’s not just mining, the Forest Practices Board has stated; “our Resources are largely unknown and unmanaged”, to me, this is an indicative of a government that refuses to oversee and regulate industry in our province. IMO.
ht tp://tinyurl.com/jclfyyz
I guess I am agreeing with Palopu, we likely have enough regulations the problem is there is no will to use them, or enforce them.
Fine, Being Human, you just go ahead and enforce EVERY regulation that’s already on the books, by the book, and see what happens. See how many businesses are left afterwards. See how many are unemployed. See if when those who are unemployed take up where what Hahaha calls the “business class” that have all walked away from their businesses whether they can make a go of them then ~ obeying each and every regulation. See if when they can’t, and they’re crying for the government to “do something” how many of those regulations can THEN be enforced ‘by the book’. It should be real interesting. I can hardly wait to witness the paradise that’ll then ensue.
@socredible
These constant histrionics and doomsday scenarios of people walking away from their businesses are just tiresome and ridiculous. DEREGULATION has been the order of the day for 30 years and the business lobby is still whining that there are too many regs getting in the way of them making even more on top of their already obscene profits.
The only thing that will make the business lobby happy is when the good old days of the “Satanic Mills” is reinstated in this country.
Spare me the Ayn Rand; Atlas Shrugged, crap socredible, BC’s resources are unknown and unmanaged, BC’s Auditor General recommends the responsibility to “regulate industry” be removed from the ministry!
Responsible government does not let industry and business manage and control our resources to the extent the BC Liberals have, because then this happens:
“The B.C. government has given away so much power to timber companies that district forest managers no longer have the authority to stop suspect harvesting practices in the public good, a Forest Practices Board report reveals.”
ht tp://tinyurl.com/za4jfd8
Too much Red Tape??? That’s the least of our worries, too much power and control to industry and businesses seems to be the real problem here!
@Hahaha,
Business profits, taken as a percentage of a business’s sales, are far more often in decline than rising. This is certainly the case for any of our ‘resource’ and ‘resource manufacturing’ businesses. Large and small alike.
You fall into the trap that most people on the left fall into when you focus on profits as being the great evil that robs workers of their just rewards.
Without profit in its most fundamental sense, material progress would be impossible. Profit is something that exists in nature. Debt, on the other hand, does not. It’s an entirely human construct.
In business, financial debt is amortised from profit. When it can’t be fully amortised, as today it increasing can’t be, (because profits ARE declining, not rising, due to a correctable flaw in the way accounting works in the economy as a whole), financial credit created as debt isn’t created any longer. And that results in a still further decline in profit, and more defaults, and we spiral downward. What you and many like you see as evidence of unchecked corporate greed is far more often a quest simply for corporate survival. Many small businesses don’t make it. Many large ones don’t either.
Being Human, spare ME the Ayn Rand; Atlas Shrugged crap label, please. It is crap, I totally agree. You can pin the ‘libertarian’ moniker on people like Kevin O’Leary. Me, I want something far different. Looney ‘red tape’ as we witness today in ever increasing quantities will have consequences often completely the opposite, and worse by far, than those with the supposed good intentions that call for it can ever imagine.
You don’t know s*** about how railway safety and inspection regulations were gutted for the benefit of CP and CN Rail. They basically rewrote the Railway Safety Act to suit themeselves, all with the blessing of their thrall Transport Canada.
@ socredible
I’m sorry but I do not see the “survivalist” mentality in business that you describe. They are making massive profits and none of them, especially big business, is any danger of going bankrupt. They can pull their scams and cheats to maximize profits and then socialize the losses because they are “too big to fail”.
Small business is more vulnerable to bankruptcy, but that is because many small “businesses” are basically just a one person operation where the person is essentially creating a job for him or herself
I think people are confusing’regulations’ which are necessary with ‘red tape’. which are rules for the sake of rules.
As far as business is concerned any measure taken to control them or that gets in the way of them maximizing profit is red tape.
Have you read the news article RS? How many times does the word “regulations” appear in the article?
You have to forgive the above two Rusty, for they know not what they speak, just loads of psychobabble.
A formal definition: “Red tape is an idiom that refers to excessive REGULATION or rigid conformity to formal rules that is considered redundant or bureaucratic and hinders or prevents action or decision-making. It is usually applied to governments, corporations, and other large organizations.”
There are laws. Regulations are derived from those laws to define the practices required to follow the intent of the law and achieve the results intended by the laws.
The laws, as well as the regulations, are written in a style that is unique. It is a style that lawyers are familiar with but the average small business person has trouble with understanding. From my experience, that is the main hurdle to overcome.
As a result, there have been and continue to be attempts to simplify the language.
At the same time, there have been attempts to reduce the amount of regulations without compromising the intent of the laws involved. Sometimes that has been a mistake, according to some people.
It is a changing field, just like politics … vote left … then vote right … then vote center … oh no … let’s go back to the left … and then to the right ….. one adjustment after the other ….
The other human characteristic …. we typically cannot agree ….
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