Ontario regulatory reform improves but much work remains

Kudos for Canada's most populous province: Ontario is making progress on being accountable for the 386,251 regulatory requirements it places on individuals and businesses.

So states new research released by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB). For what it calls "Red Tape Awareness Week", the CFIB issued its annual Red Tape Report Card. The report card evaluates the federal and provincial governments' performance in the following areas: Political leadership and measuring the burden and constraints on regulators.

"For making progress in most of these areas, Ontario deserves a B- for their performance. That's a big improvement over the C- they got in 2011," says Satinder Chera, CFIB's vice-president for Ontario. "You can't tackle a problem unless you know how big it is. Ontario actually published all the regulatory requirements imposed in the province. A lot of governments don't do that in Canada. They're quite shy about doing that because once you put that target out there people will hold you accountable for it."

Governments come and go, but the CFIB wants to ensure accountability is maintained. When it comes to taxes and spending, governments have to produce budgets every year, Chera says, but when it comes to red tape the same level of accountability is lacking.

"Having something legislated that says governments must report on a regular basis how many regulations your government oversees and how you plan on tackling that burden, we think it's critical," he adds. "In the case of Ontario, they made significant improvements not only in constraints on regulators, but they made improvements on political leadership and they published and are measuring what that burden is."

Ontario's B- grade ties the province with the federal government, Quebec and Saskatchewan.

Nationally, B.C. scored the highest on CFIB's list with an A rating followed by Newfoundland & Labrador (B). New Brunswick garnered a C+ grading while Alberta, Nova Scotia and the Yukon scored D. Failing grades (F) go to the Northwest Territories, Prince Edward Island, and Manitoba.

"British Columbia has been measuring and reporting since 2001. It's the first province in the country to ever do that," he continues. "They do have constraints on regulators in that they've committed to no new net growth in regulations through to 2015. Most importantly, in November 2011 B.C. legislated the requirement to provide annual reporting on regulations they oversee."

Chera says the CFIB has long championed regulatory reform and estimates that government red tape costs Ontario businesses an incredible $11 billion each year; costs that are ultimately borne by consumers through higher prices for goods and services.

Though the province is moving in the right direction with its red tape reforms, much work remains.

"The on-going proliferation of regulations from the Ontario Ministry of Labour and the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) isn't helping," Chera says. "What we're saying to the Premier is let's put a focus on Labour and the WSIB in terms of further regulatory reform. Those are two particular entities that are causing businesses a lot of stress."

The CFIB also says Ontario must do the following in 2012 to improve further:

*Build on McGuinty's previous commitment to reduce the regulatory burden on small business by 25 per cent by 2011 and commit to a new target;

*Continue to measure and publicly report on the number of regulatory requirements; and

*Legislate the requirement to publicly report the number of regulations.