Beyond Red Tape: The next step in Canada’s productivity pivot

Today, the Toronto Region Board of Trade’s Business Council of Toronto released Beyond Red Tape: Regulate for Growth, a new report that outlines nine actions to make Canada’s regulatory systems faster, lower cost, and easier to navigate for businesses of all sizes.

The report comes at an important moment.

“Recently, both the federal government and the Province of Ontario have shifted their budget priorities toward catalyzing productivity and long-term growth,” said Giles Gherson, President & CEO of the Toronto Region Board of Trade. “That is incredibly welcome. The next question is whether our rules, approvals and permitting at every level of government can keep up. We need to implement common-sense approaches that encourage investment rather than holding it back.”

Budgets are turning toward growth. Now the rules need to catch up.

At Queen’s Park, Ontario has been moving in a more growth-focused direction for several years, with emphasis on building a more productive economy: transit, roads, energy infrastructure, and industrial investment.

In Ottawa, the latest federal budget marked a clear pivot from recent years. New incentives and tax measures are aimed at attracting more private investment, especially in sectors like advanced manufacturing and clean technology.

Those choices matter. They signal that governments are starting to treat productivity and competitiveness as priorities, not afterthoughts.

But public spending and tax incentives are only half the story. For projects to move from idea to reality, businesses also need effective, efficient, fast moving regulatory systems.

Public investment can open the door. Regulation decides who gets through it.

The new report makes a simple point. We need strong rules to protect health, safety, the environment, and fair markets.

Canada does not have a regulation problem in principle. The problem is how those rules work in practice.

This shows up in very concrete ways:

• Large energy and infrastructure projects that should be approved in a couple of years can take twice as long once all levels of government are involved.
• Housing proposals can spend months or years in municipal planning and permitting queues, even when they align with local and provincial priorities.
• Rideshare, delivery, and micromobility companies often face a patchwork of local rules that change city by city, which slows down the rollout of new services.
• Food manufacturers see identical federal rules interpreted differently in different provinces, which adds cost without adding safety.

The result is a multi-layered, disjointed system that slows good projects instead of helping them move forward.

A CEO-led view from across the economy

Beyond Red Tape is based on consultations with Business Council of Toronto members and sector experts in nine industries, from aerospace to food and beverage. Across these sectors, leaders agree. Businesses need clear, consistent rules supported by timely process.

With nine recommendations to make regulation work better, the report does not simply list problems. It offers nine practical, actionable ideas that federal, provincial, and municipal governments can adopt.

The next step in the productivity journey

Governments budgets are sending a strong signal that productivity and growth are on the agenda. That is an important step.

The next step is to make sure the rules, approvals, and processes further that agenda, rather than hold it back.

A modern rulebook will unlock the private investment Canada needs to deliver on housing, clean energy, infrastructure, and innovation. It’s time to give business confidence that if they choose to invest in Canada, the system will work with them, not against them.

9 Recommendations to strengthen Canada’s regulatory systems

1. Appoint top-level regulatory efficiency officers reporting to the head of each level of government
2. Create a single-window model for compliance to reduce jurisdictional fragmentation and improve user experience
3. Set firm timelines and standards for service delivery
4. Introduce a plain-language requirement for regulatory requirements so they can be easily understood
5. Create public dashboards for tracking service delivery performance
6. Implement a framework to review and retire outdated regulations 
7. Adopt digital tools and train regulators for quicker compliance
8. Make international standards the default for Canadian regulations
9. Establish dedicated Foresight and Regulatory Innovation Units to anticipate emerging trends and modernize regulatory practices

Read the full report