The Government's 20% Paper Burden Reduction Exercise

Minister of States announces 20% Cut in red tape for small business

View the press release.

Because Small Business Drives Canada's Economy

Sometimes, the nicest thing you can do for someone is to take something away – like red tape.

That's exactly what the Government of Canada has done for Canadian business by cutting the paperwork burden by 20%.

Red Tape – The Paperwork Burden

Paperwork is something every business, regardless of size, faces in complying with government requirements, which exist to protect the health and safety of Canadians and ensure a fair marketplace.

Important as they are, many rules and regulations that govern business in Canada come with administrative and information requirements with which the private sector must comply. Business – especially small business – tells us, and we concur, that these requirements simply take up too much time, and that this impacts both profits and productivity.

The Commitment

Recognizing this, the government made the decision in 2007 to do something about paperwork burden – by announcing its intention to reduce it by a full 20%.

Taking Action

The Government of Canada has successfully met its goal. This represents the elimination of almost 80,000 regulatory requirements and information obligations contained in statutes, regulations, policies and forms across the 13 federal regulatory departments and agencies involved. Measures to make even further reductions are being undertaken.

How did We Get There?

Tackling the challenge of reducing thousands of regulatory requirements and information obligations by 20% called for an effective, coordinated plan across the federal government.

Health and Safety First!

First, the government identified requirements that could be eliminated without jeopardizing the health and safety of Canadians.

Next, the necessary changes were made by rethinking, reorganizing, streamlining and, in many cases, eliminating regulations, forms and other requirements that had become redundant or ineffective. These actions included:

• The Canada Revenue Agency lightened the load on small business by reducing the frequency of tax remittance and filing requirements. For example, generally, businesses with taxable supplies not exceeding $1.5 million now may elect to have GST/HST reporting periods that are fiscal years instead of fiscal quarters (the limit was $500,000).
• Working with the Province of Ontario, the Canada Revenue Agency also reduced the burden on business by allowing corporate taxpayers to file harmonized federal and provincial corporate tax returns and to make combined single payments of federal and provincial income taxes.
• The majority of departments and agencies reviewed their forms in order to merge fields and forms where possible, eliminating duplicate or redundant information requirements or even entire forms altogether. Several departments have added tools to their websites to allow businesses to complete their forms electronically, often by pre-populating forms based on previous returns.
• An exclusion threshold is now applied to Statistics Canada's business surveys, ensuring that the smallest businesses in Canada are not contacted by this agency.

Complementary Measures – A Key Component

At the same time, beyond the 20% reduction, the government has introduced creative and effective ongoing measures to simplify and streamline its interactions with business, freeing up businesses to concentrate on their core activities.

Getting Creative – Lots of Examples:

• BizPaL is a one-stop online service that provides entrepreneurs with tailored information and important links to the permits and licences they need to start or grow their businesses. This unique partnership among all levels of government, led by Industry Canada, saves businesses time by providing a single window through which they can directly access information on all their licensing and permit requirements.
• The Canada Border Services Agency, along with its government partners, is pursuing the Single Window Initiative to reduce the amount of regulatory documentation required when importing, exporting and transporting goods.
• Transport Canada is working to harmonize key requirements with those of the United States, thus benefiting industry by avoiding duplication.
• To ease business-government transactions, the Canada Revenue Agency introduced My Business Account (MyBA), offering business owners (including partners, directors and officers) secure, convenient, online access to their accounts.

Looking Ahead

The 20% reduction exercise has changed the way departments and agencies look at the regulatory environment. Business units across government are increasingly looking through a small business lens and coming up with new ideas that will streamline interactions with business and save time and money for everyone. Here are just a few examples:

• Statistics Canada created a Senior Management Committee on Business Response Burden. It is putting a major focus on reducing the paperwork burden to respondents as part of its best practices efforts.
• The Canadian Food Inspection Agency and the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) have created a working group to develop effective and efficient solutions to problems facing Canadian business and improve services to business.
• The Canada Border Services Agency has established a government-business working group, co-chaired by the CFIB. The goal is to help streamline and simplify the Agency's commercial programs and processes for businesses, and allow for current and new initiatives to be considered from a business perspective.
• The Canada Revenue Agency has developed the first benchmark report to measure the small business compliance burden and look forward to measuring future progress as part of an Agency-wide approach to paperwork burden reduction.

Talk, Share – Seek Out New Ideas

As these examples show, the Government of Canada is committed to making it easier to do business by reducing the paperwork burden. Government is balancing the needs of business with the need to ensure a fair marketplace and protect the health and safety of Canadians when developing new regulations or revisiting existing ones.

Looking Ahead

The Government of Canada will continue to work with the private sector and small business organizations to identify regulatory and administrative inefficiencies and cut the red tape faced by the private and not-for-profit sectors.