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he lack of running with scissors wide open may be even more dangerous than the alternative for British Columbia (BC), despite what mothers may warn. The gnarled mess of red tape that makes up BC’s regulatory process is seen by many as the reason for the province’s decline as a business location. So to battle the red monster, BC established a new committee in October 2001 called the Red Tape Reduction Task Force. The group recommends priorities for the review and elimination of regulations as the provincial government fulfills its New Era promise to reduce red tape and regulatory burden by one-third within the next three years.
Today, BC very much mirrors most of North America in that the real estate industry, the construction industry and most other industries are begrudgingly required to deal with highly rigorous government regulatory oversight. “They’re constantly telling us, ‘Listen, there is a better way to achieve the objectives we’re trying to achieve with government without having the heavy hand of regulation,’ ” explains Kevin Falcon, chair of the task force and minister of state for deregulation. “Those voices have not traditionally been listened to the way they should be. We’re now ensuring that they have a forum to bring forward their suggestions, and we will act wherever we can.”
Regulatory reform has, in fact, become a huge priority for the province — ranking up there with the sweeping tax reform that occurred last year. An example of the type of reductions the task force hopes to tackle is the regulations pertaining to the attainment of public land. In BC, most public land is owned by the government and is known as Crown land. Approximately 93 percent of BC’s public land is Crown land, and gaining access to that land is currently quite a task. “There’s permitting, policies and regulations you need to deal with in order to access Crown land,” notes Falcon. “We hear enormous — and I think in most cases very fair — criticism that that process is too cumbersome and that it could be accelerated. That is an area in which we are going to move very quickly so that when potential investors come to this province, they will get a very quick response in a climate that encourages investment.”
Private Sector Finds Its Voice
To ensure that the right voices are heard, Falcon made certain that the task force consist of representatives from different aspects of the business community. Business associations like the Business Council of BC, the BC Construction Association and the BC Trucking Association are represented on the task force, as well as private-industry individuals from specific sectors such as forestry. As minister responsible for the red-tape reduction program, Falcon, who formerly worked in the private industry as president of the corporate communications firm Access Group and in the real estate development and insurance industries, mailed letters to more than 100 businesses and business associations asking for their input.
Falcon also put in place a very aggressive timeline for the reduction process. Submissions of recommendations from those 100 surveyed were due to the task force by Nov. 16, 2001. By the end of that month, the task force had reviewed and prioritized the recommendations. Those recommendations considered having the most positive impact on the province’s competitiveness were then forwarded on to the respective ministries of government by Dec. 1.
“I am now spending a lot of time working with the different ministries to ensure that our recommendations are brought forward as part of their regulatory reduction plans,” adds Falcon. “The ministries will be putting into place, in January and early February, their regulatory reduction plans in preparation of our annual budget, which we do on Feb. 19 in this province. So by Feb. 19, all of the ministry budgets will be in place, the regulatory reduction plans will be in place, the information that we brought forward will be part of the regulatory reduction plans, and those changes will start to happen almost immediately [in early 2002].”
