Premier Jason Kenney unveiled on Wednesday plans to reduce bureaucratic red tape for business with Bill 4, the Red Tape Reduction Act.
The act, if passed, would legislate a target to reduce regulatory burden by one third.
Speaking at Nisku’s PCL facility, Kenney boasted his government had had already passed 17 orders in council related to red tape reduction in just 21 days of government.
“In fact, I think Grant has more floor time in the cabinet than any other minister,” Kenney joked of his associate minister of red tape reduction, Grant Hunter.
“I, as premier, have got his back. Grant’s job is to go into every other minister’s office and ensure they are keeping pace with our ambitious targets every quarter, every year, through the four years of this mandate to hit or exceed the one-third target.”
However, there have been concerns that cutting regulations could lead to necessary protections being removed with serious health, environmental or safety impact—especially without definitive parameters for what can be cut.
“There are some general benchmarks to help guide the public service and our private sector partners to determine criteria against which they can operate,” Kenney told media.
“What we’ve done with this legislation is make sure that it’s not prescriptive so that we can take a look at the best practices in other jurisdictions,” he said, adding that he and Hunter had decided it “made more sense to leave some latitude and flexibility.”
The NDP critic told CTV News he would be keeping a close eye on the bill.
“Certainly there's always the opportunity with which to make things more efficient, and we would support that, but not at the expense of putting people at risk in the workplace or maybe creating some problems in terms of the environment,” Chris Nielsen said.
“We have no idea what regulations are in the crosshairs of this government.”
Kenney also said similar, separate acts would be introduced later to reduce red tape for charities and non-profits, and the provincial government.
