Minister Bernier Unveils Red Tape Reduction Recommendations Report

OTTAWA, ONTARIO--(Marketwire - Jan. 18, 2012) - Created through Canada's Economic Action Plan, the Red Tape Reduction Commission, chaired by the Honourable Maxime Bernier, Minister of State for Small Business and Tourism, today released its Recommendations Report at an event attended by the President of the Treasury Board, Minister Tony Clement and the CEO of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, Catherine Swift.

One of the key proposals in the Report is to legislate a "One-for-One Rule." Under the "One-for-One" rule, every time the government adopts a new regulation, it must eliminate an existing one.

"Politicians and bureaucrats have an incentive to constantly adopt more regulation to please this or that interest group, to increase their power and their budgets, declared Minister Bernier. Good intentions are not sufficient. We need to introduce systemic changes so that they are instead motivated to reduce the number of regulations, or at the very least to stop increasing it."

The Commission was set up a year ago to identify irritants to business stemming from federal regulatory requirements and to recommend options to control and reduce the compliance burden on a long-term basis. It was composed of six Members of Parliament and six representatives from the business sector, including Catherine Swift.

After hearing from business people from across the country, it identified 2,300 irritants that have a detrimental effect on growth and innovation and produced 90 specific recommendations to deal with them.

The Report also contains 15 proposals for systemic change, including tying the bonuses of senior public servants to their success in implementing the One-for-One Rule, and giving the Office of the Auditor General the mandate of reviewing and reporting on the government's progress in reducing regulatory administrative burden.

"If we want our economy to grow, we have to free our entrepreneurs," added Minister Bernier. The members of this Commission believe that these short and long-term recommendations, if adopted, would contribute much to the process of controlling federal regulation and its irritants, and make our government a leader in this field."

The Red Tape Reduction Commission's Recommendations Report is available at www.reduceredtape.gc.ca

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This news release is available online at: www.reduceredtape.gc.ca.