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For 15 years, Red Tape Awareness Week™ has shed light on the confusing rules and regulations, administrative obstacles, excessive paper burden, and poor customer service Canadians face every day from all levels of government. From January 29 – February 2, CFIB will highlight the impact of red tape on both business owners and everyday Canadians through our Golden Scissors and Paper Weight awards, our annual Red Tape Report Card, and other red tape research. Our goal is to raise awareness about the red tape challenges that currently exist with politicians and policy makers to encourage positive changes that will make life simpler for Canadians and create a landscape where small businesses can thrive. 

Red Tape Awareness Week™ 2024 is presented in partnership with Intuit QuickBooks. 

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For 15 years, Red Tape Awareness Week™ has shed light on the confusing rules and regulations, administrative obstacles, excessive paper burden, and poor customer service Canadians face every day from all levels of government. From January 29 – February 2, CFIB will highlight the impact of red tape on both business owners and everyday Canadians through our Golden Scissors and Paper Weight awards, our annual Red Tape Report Card, and other red tape research. Our goal is to raise awareness about the red tape challenges that currently exist with politicians and policy makers to encourage positive changes that will make life simpler for Canadians and create a landscape where small businesses can thrive. 

Do you have a red tape concern that you want government to fix? CFIB has successfully advocated for many Canadian governments to create a reporting mechanism where citizens and business owners can share their #RedTape headaches. 

Take your #RedTape concerns straight to government!

Hear what Canadian leaders have to say about the importance of red tape reduction:

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Webinars

CFIB offers resources and support to help you start and grow your new business in the crucial early stages. Get answers to your COVID-19 questions and find out what relief measures the government has put in place to help your business.

Patients Before Paperwork

Did you know Canadian physicians spend an estimated 18.5 million hours on unnecessary paperwork every year? Reducing that burden by just 10% would free up the equivalent of 5.5 million patient visits.

New report spotlights governments that accepted CFIB’s challenge to reduce red tape in health care.

2024 report now available!

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See the Grades

Each year CFIB grades the provinces and the federal government on their red tape reduction efforts. Check out how each jurisdiction measures up!

2024 Red Tape Report Card now available!

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Flushing out the Nonsense

Canada is facing a housing shortage. Reducing red tape around building is one way to help combat the shortage. In our latest report, CFIB examines permitting costs and requirements for upgrading a powder room to a full bathroom in 12 Canadian municipalities, highlighting best practices and areas for improvement.

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Healthcare Report

Did you know doctors spend an estimated 18.5 million hours on unnecessary paperwork every year? Reducing that burden by just 10% would free up the equivalent of 5.5 million patient visits! Check out our groundbreaking report Patients over Paperwork for more on cutting red tape in the healthcare system.

New report spotlights governments that accepted CFIB’s challenge to reduce red tape in health care.

Coming soon!

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Report Card

The Grades are in! Check out which governments are leaders in cutting red tape and which ones are in detention in our 2023 Red Tape Report Card!

2024 Red Tape Report Card coming soon!

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Healthcare Report

Did you know doctors spend an estimated 18.5 million hours on paperwork every year? Reducing that burden by just 10% would free up the equivalent of 5.5 million patient visits! Check out our groundbreaking report Patients over Paperwork for more on cutting red tape in the healthcare system.

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See the Grades

The Grades are in! Check out which governments are leaders in cutting red tape and which ones are in detention in our 2023 Red Tape Report Card!

Learn More About the #RedTape Award Winners:

CFIB’s prestigious Golden Scissors Award recognizes individuals or teams who have successfully motivated others to take action or produced meaningful, positive results in cutting red tape. Find out who is taking CFIB’s top prize for cutting red tape!

CFIB’s Paper Weight Award (i.e., the award no one wants to win) highlights the most ridiculous examples of red tape from across the country that cause frustration and headache for Canadian citizens and business owners.

Learn More About #RedTape:

The Golden Scissors Award is a prestigious national CFIB award that recognizes individuals or teams who have successfully motivated others to take action or produced meaningful, positive results in cutting red tape. Find out who is taking CFIB’s top prize for cutting red tape!

Remember those lines that stretched city blocks outside of passport offices? 80% of passport applicants experienced frustrations, from multiple trips to Service Canada to taking time off work and delaying travel plans. The government of Canada’s passport mess is this year’s paperweight award winner.

CFIB has been putting your red tape issues in the spotlight and holding governments accountable through the years. From previous Red Tape reports, research and awards, you will see how CFIB has been fighting to combat red tape.

Read Our Latest on #RedTape

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Media Advisory

Streamline Municipalities Permitting Processes

Paperweight Awards

Take Your #RedTape Concerns Straight to Government

#RedTape Report Card Grades - Ontario

#RedTape Report Card Grades - Alberta & Nova Scotia

Patients Before Paperwork

Golden Scissors Awards

Read Our Latest on #RedTape 2023

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Take your #RedTape concerns straight to government

Patients Before Paperwork Healthcare

Paperweight Award

#RedTape Report Card Grades

Golden Scissors Awards

Frequently Asked Questions

1. What is Red Tape Awareness Week?

Red tape reduction is consistently cited as a top three priority for small business owners. Each year, we dedicate one week in January to raise public awareness about how excessive regulations and red tape affect business owners and everyday citizens, and challenge politicians and bureaucrats across the country to take action to remove unnecessary burden. CFIB first launched Red Tape Awareness Week 15 years ago.

This year, Red Tape Awareness Week takes place January 29 - February 2.

2. What is “red tape”?

Red tape refers to government laws, policies and rules that are excessive, duplicative and/or unnecessary, and generate a financial or time cost to comply with.

While government spending and taxes get a lot of scrutiny on a regular basis, regulation is too often an afterthought. Red Tape Awareness Week attempts to rectify that by putting a spotlight on the laws, rules and regulations that govern our everyday lives to ensure they deliver the desired results while minimizing wasted time, money and stress for those that are complying.

Regulatory modernization means staying on top of outdated or redundant rules. Eliminating them where possible and improving them where necessary, as well as ensuring that they are simple to understand and easy to follow.

3. What is this year’s theme?

Red Tape Awareness Week 2024 will focus on making red tape reduction a priority to help mitigate the affordability crisis and the cost of doing business.

4. What does this year’s lineup include?

The 15th annual Red Tape Awareness Week lineup includes a new report on house permitting; the announcement of the Paperweight Award “winner”; the 2024 Red Tape Report Card; an update on the 2023 provincial red tape challenge “Patients before Paperwork”; and the Golden Scissors Award winner announcement.

5. What is the Red Tape Report Card?

The centerpiece of Red Tape Awareness Week is our Red Tape Report Card.

The report card grades the federal and provincial governments in three key categories: regulatory accountability (are governments measuring and tracking their regulations?); regulatory burden (how many regulations are there?); and regulatory leadership (is red tape reduction a clear priority for the government?).

CFIB wants to ensure governments are actively progressing and improving in these categories. In some provinces that means asking governments that do not know how many rules and regulations exist to begin counting them. In provinces that have that covered, it may mean focusing on reducing that number where possible or improving leadership by creating dedicated ministries or offices for red tape reduction. Overall, we are looking to all Canadian governments to reduce the regulatory burden on both small businesses and citizens.

6. How are governments graded?

The 2024 Red Tape Report Card uses an index approach to measure and rank the regulatory performance of Canada’s governments based on three priority areas of regulatory activity (or subindexes), which encompass 12 indicators. These indicators represent either a composite of multiple scores, or a stand-alone value. The methodology for the 2024 Red Tape Report Card will mostly mirror the methodology used in the 2023 version.

For more details on how scores were calculated, refer to the methodology section in appendix A of the report.

7. What is the Golden Scissors Award?

The Golden Scissors Award is a prestigious CFIB award that recognizes individuals or teams who have successfully motivated others to take action or produced meaningful, positive results in cutting red tape.

8. What is the Paperweight Award?

The Paperweight Award is an award no one wants to win. It shines light on some of the worst examples of useless and excessive regulations for business owners across the country.

9. How are winners decided?

For the Paperweight Award, CFIB looks at news stories, member feedback and examples raised by governments and opposition parties as being particularly bad instances of red tape. Internal deliberation determines which example or examples win and are featured as Paperweight Award winners.

The Golden Scissors Award works the same way (though rarely via examples from opposition parties), and CFIB assesses internally which examples had the biggest impact in reducing red tape.

10. Who won the awards last year?

The Government of Canada (Service Canada) took home the Paperweight Award for the unending delays, absurd wait times, and opaque timelines that held up the passport process for hundreds of thousands of Canadians looking to travel over the past year. Read more at cfib.ca/paperweight.

The Government of Northwest Territories received the Golden Scissors Award for making red tape reduction a priority through its Red Tape Reduction Working Group and its online portal for the public to submit their feedback on red tape irritants. Read more at cfib.ca/goldenscissors.

11. Where can I learn more about Red Tape Awareness Week?

Visit cfib.ca/redtape and follow CFIB’s social media channels to stay up to date on our initiatives.

Learn More About #RedTape

Healthcare Report

Check out our groundbreaking report Patients over Paperwork for more on cutting red tape in the healthcare system.

Paperweight Award

Remember those lines that stretched city blocks outside of passport offices? The government of Canada’s passport mess is this year’s paperweight award winner.

Red Tape Report Card Grades

The Grades are in! Check out which governments are leaders in cutting red tape and which ones are in detention in our 2023 Red Tape Report Card!

Golden Scissors Awards News Release

And the winner is….find out who is taking this years Golden Scissors Award, CFIB’s top prize for cutting red tape!