News Releases

News Release - Manitoba

September 18, 2018

Manitoba Making Progress in Reducing Red Tape

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Regulatory Requirements Reduced by 2.6 Per Cent Since 2016: Fielding

Manitoba is making progress in modernizing its regulatory system and reducing red tape, Finance Minister Scott Fielding announced today as he released the province’s first regulatory accountability report.

“Improving regulatory accountability and reducing red tape lowers the cost of understanding and complying with regulatory requirements for stakeholders, such as municipalities, not-for-profits and businesses,” said Fielding.  “The work we have been doing is seeing results as we continue to strive toward being the most improved province for regulatory accountability by 2020.”

Changes to reduce red tape and improve regulatory accountability include:

  • reducing the number of reports and the reporting frequency for funded agencies in the Family Violence Prevention Program to quarterly from monthly, resulting in a reduction of 9,292 regulatory requirements while ensuring important information is still being reported;
  • streamlining the program approval process for private vocational institutions which resulted in decreasing processing time to two months from six to 12 months, and a reduction of 199 regulatory requirements;
  • modernizing the emergency medical services protocols and procedures manual resulting in a reduction of 1,755 regulatory requirements while supporting the provision of effective, quality patient care;
  • removing information requirements that were not being used for the Indigenous business registration form, which resulted in reducing the form’s number of pages to two from 10; and
  • reducing the regulatory requirements in the gambling research program by 380 including combining the application process into one application for programs that provide direct support to communities, local charities and non-profit organizations.

In June 2017, Manitoba passed The Regulatory Accountability Act, which created the most comprehensive framework in North America for managing regulatory requirements. The act requires government to keep track of how many regulatory requirements exist and where they are located.
 
Between April 1, 2016, and March 31, 2018, the number of regulatory requirements in Manitoba was reduced by 2.6 per cent; to 924,180 from 948,599.  Manitoba Families and Manitoba Municipal Relations showed the largest decreases with reductions of 15 per cent and 29 per cent, respectively.

Provincial departments and agencies are continuing their efforts to streamline and eliminate redundant and unnecessary regulatory requirements, and make services more accessible, the minister said.

“With the new regulatory accountability legislation and operations in place, we’re expecting even more progress in reducing regulatory requirements and decreasing costs for Manitobans,” said Fielding.

The minister noted that simplifying regulatory requirements and making them easier to understand improves compliance.  Regulatory accountability is enhanced when regulatory requirements meet desired public policy outcomes and the administrative burden is minimized without compromising human health and safety or essential economic, financial, environmental and social objectives.

To view the 2018 Manitoba Regulatory Accountability Report and get more information on red tape reduction in Manitoba, visit www.gov.mb.ca/reduceredtape/index.html.

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