A 2015 law to cut federal red tape achieved little, according to a Treasury Board report. Critics had dismissed the initiative as doomed to failure, Blacklock's Reporter first reported..Parliament eight years ago passed Bill C-21 the Red Tape Reduction Act, which required the introduction of new federal regulations or “administrative burden” be offset by repeal of some other rule under a so-called “one-for-one” standard. Burdens were defined as “anything that is necessary to demonstrate compliance with a regulation, including collection, processing and reporting of information and the completion of forms.”.The Treasury Board in a Report On The Internal Review Of The Red Tape Reduction Act said 248 obsolete regulations were repealed. However most of them, 87%, “were regulations that had no impact on the administrative burden on businesses.”.“There is therefore no direct link between the number of repealed regulations and the control or reduction in administrative burden,” said Internal Review. “Regulators echoed this disconnect.”.Randomly repealing old regulations to meet the quota under the Act “treats regulations the same way no matter how much burden they impose,” said the report. “The requirement doesn’t help achieve the purpose of the Act.”.The report added so many loopholes were written into the Act that some 124 new regulations were imposed that bypassed the one-for-one rule. Red Tape Reduction Regulations allowed exceptions for tax matters, “legal obligations,” “unique or exceptional circumstances” and emergencies..“We see the Act as nothing more than a public relations exercise,” Chris Aylward, national president of the Public Service Alliance of Canada, said in 2015. “Regulators have always had the ability to amend or delete regulations that are no longer in the public interest.”.The Treasury Board in an earlier Access To Information report said red tape was so pervasive even federal employees found it irritating. “Internal red tape is a significant issue for public servants in all departments and in all regions,” said a Final Report By The Blueprint 2020 Internal Red Tape Reduction Team..The report cited several staff complaints, such as an incident where two federal employees were required to get approval of eight supervisors to process a $200 travel expense claim to attend a meeting in Ottawa. Another complained of “filling out a solemn declaration for a $3 bus ticket.”.Final Report said an ordinary contract worth $25,000 or less typically took 15 weeks and 39 separate documents before it was authorized at an average administrative cost of $1,846. “Many of the same steps that apply to multi million-dollar value services are also applied to low dollar value services with the same levels of control in place,” wrote researchers.
