Provincial Red Tape Report Card

Introduction

The Canadian Federation of Independent Business’s (CFIB) 2023 Red Tape Report Card grades three major areas of regulatory performance: regulatory accountability, regulatory burden, and political priority. Within this framework, governments with the highest overall scores are those that have a comprehensive measure of their regulatory burden, maintain some form or regulatory budget, are making efforts to minimize red tape, and which display evidence that red tape reduction and regulatory modernization are a government priority that is championed by the Premier/Prime Minister and cabinet. For details on how scores were calculated, and the changes applied to the methodology since the 2022 edition of the Report Card, refer to the Methodology section in Appendix E.

Grades are highest for the accountability section of the report card. Most provinces now have some form of measurement, reporting, budgeting, and make regulatory documents accessible to the public (in some form), generating several “A” grades where there were none when we first published our report card over a decade ago. This section of the report card represents 40% of the overall grade.

Burden remains a more challenging area of regulatory performance to measure as data related to regulatory burden that can be used to compare jurisdictions is very limited. Overall, grades in the burden section are relatively lower than that of the accountability section, with only one province achieving an “A” grade. The burden section represents 40% of the overall grade.

The political priority section is new to the report card, and only a few jurisdictions achieve an “A” grade, indicating much work remains to be done to show that red tape reduction and regulatory modernization are clear priorities for governments. Political priority represents 20% of the overall grade.